The one aspect of the Quads performance I felt could be improved on was the bass response as it lacked depth and slam in the bottom octaves.

At the time there were many passive subwoofer kits around, one of the many problems with these kits were that there was no way of matching the levels between the subwoofer and the main left/right speakers. Also the crossover point was invariably fixed between 100 and 250Hz, which degraded the systems overall imaging. Consequently the hi-fi press slated subwoofers as a bad idea.

Then I read a review of a new kind of subwoofer, one which addressed and overcame the problems of passive subwoofers. It was the called the Stygian, and had been designed here in Britain by Richard Lord of REL Acoustics. The Stygian was different in the respect that it had an on-board 100W amplifier so it wouldn't present a load to the main amplifier and both the level and frequency cutoff were variable, enabling the subwoofers response to be matched seamlessly with the main speakers.

I was very interested by this and decided to make further enquires after reading reviews in November 1991's High Fidelity and June 1992's Hi-Fi World (Note: these reviews are very long!). At the time there was little in the way of a network of dealers, so being able to audition the subwoofer was impractical. Although all hi-fi magazines strongly advise against purchasing equipment based solely on reviews, I had precious little choice and decided to commit myself to buying one purely on faith. I can tell you now that I was not disappointed!

My first impression of the Stygian was that it was built like a battleship and almost weighed as much! The cabinet was solid and any hollow sounds when tapped were absent.

Setting up the subwoofer was mostly trial and error for a number of reasons. Firstly finding CD's with such low bass output was difficult and secondly, finding the correct settings of volume and crossover took considerable time, even when following the instructions supplied. I discovered from another Stygian owner, that it was very sensitive and it was very easy to end up with bass that was overpowering, the trick was to set the volume knob to approximately one eigth above the minimum level and set the crossover to 43Hz (the lower limit of the Quad's range) which is the first step above the minimum crossover frequency.

After making some slight adjustments I was rewarded with deep tuneful bass which seamlessly reinforced the bass from the Quads. I can honestly say that the Stygian was one of the best purchases I have ever made and, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend them to anyone.