Free Shipping on US orders above $49
Award Winner 2025 – hi-fi+ Magazine
Highly Recommended Award - avsforums.com
Audiophile Gear of the Year Award - futureaudiophile.com
"Highly Recommended" - TONEaudio
Special Performer Award - pursuitperfectsystem.com
Best Subwoofer 2025, Man Cave Essentials – askmen.com
A Potent Symphony of Design, Power, and Grace
The REL Classic 99 is a potent symphony of design, power, and grace. Building on the foundation laid by Classic 98, this model amplifies every attribute.
It offers more power, deeper bass, and a design that captures both the eye and the ear. With 450 watts driving a robust 12" paper-on-paper driver, Classic 99 not only plays louder and reaches deeper, but also adds layers of subtle textural enhancements that continuously impress.
Award-Winning Performance
The Classic 99 scored a Highly Recommended Award from avsforums.com. According to reviewer Martin Dew, "If you need to keep your budget below £2,000, the REL Classic 99 represents a worthy choice. It’s a subwoofer designed to entice music and movie lovers in equal measure."
"Nor is it shy of delivering thunderous bass when it needs to. The 99 harbours a cosy, almost congenial approach, to subwoofer sonics; both the sound and look are laced with an analogue warmth, retro charm and innate musicality."
It also won the award for Best Subwoofer 2025, Man Cave Essentials, at askmen.com. "REL Acoustic’s Classic 99 subwoofer is a jaw-droppingly gorgeous piece of hardware that will class up just about any man cave. With its gorgeous walnut veneer, it’s easy to mistake it for some kind of heirloom side-table — until you hear what comes out of its 450-watt amp."
"Giving More Insights and Presence"
The Classic 99 was honored as a hi-fi+ Award Winner 2025 in the Subwoofer category.
According to the magazine, "[Reviewer] Chris Franklin was impressed. 'From the first few notes of every track I played, the inclusion of the subwoofer brought a noticeable improvement,' he claimed, adding that, 'piano was more real, with more space around it, and voices were cleaner and more emotive.'"
"Of course, bass was improved, with Chris noting that, 'the bass line when it kicked in was not only deeper, but tighter and easier to follow.' But more importantly, 'it will also improve the sound as a whole, giving more insights and presence to tracks you thought you knew well.'"
"Punchy, Linear, Extended Sound"
"The Classic 98 takes the punchy, linear, extended, and tuneful sound that REL is famous for, but tunes the vibe more to that of a vintage, or perhaps even (dare we say it) classic British sound," reports TONEaudio, which also handed this REL a Highly Recommended Award.
"Tracks that don’t have as much low frequency information impress just as much as the ones that do. That’s the magic of the REL Classic 99. Perfect for those of you who love the Classic 98 but feel you needed significantly more due to either using larger speakers or having a bigger room than the 98 could handle. The Classic 99 reminds me a lot of the old Stentor II of the late 90’s, though that old heavyweight weighed in at around 100 pounds and cost $6,000 back then. Highly Recommended."
Nothing Says Lifestyle Like Mid-Century Modern RELs
Classic 99 extends REL's Classic Line to loftier heights. Richer, bolder, and more powerful? Certainly. Yet 99 is also capable of far greater nuance, air, and resolution than its lesser brethren.
For those of us with more capable systems and larger rooms, Classic 99 delivers advances on every front, while still maintaining the same easy-going, room-filling nature all Classic offerings possess. The high-grade genuine dark walnut veneer complements a variety of decors. Classic 99 delivers this in a simple, comforting form of Mid-Century Modern design.
This is the perfect sub if you welcomed the original, yet were waiting for the next chapter to be written. Put on a record, pour a favorite drink, sink into your favorite chair, and relax into the music or movie of your choice.
"Classic Looks and Sound"
"Classic looks and sound combined with some modern touches make for a formidable subwoofer. The dark walnut cabinet is reminiscent of the speaker cabinets of my youth, but the performance is vastly improved from that era of subwoofers. REL does a masterful job blending modern technology and performance with classic aesthetics and audio cues," notes Brian Kahn, futureaudiophile.com, December 18, 2024, which honored the Classic 99 with an Audiophile Gear of the Year Award.
"Adding the REL Classic 99 to my system was purely positive in every way, and I highly recommend auditioning one if your music system could use a bit more oomph on the bottom end."
Designed for Superiority
Classic 99 features solid cabinet walls as thick as 1.25", clad in rich, warm walnut veneer, hand fitted with care. The simplest of natural aluminum badges and softly radiused feet milled from solid billet, blacked out to allow it to seemingly float, ensuring that nothing, not even a grille disturbs the vibe.
As with all RELs, the styling conveys far more than simple comfort. The down-firing 12" driver, while unseen, will surely be felt. Continuing to the rear panel, the period-correct detailing extends to the amplifier panel, where all controls are finished in lovely white gold. Everything has the heft of quality switch gear. Even the click made by the phase switch is near perfection. Quality abounds everywhere.
Driven to be Louder - and Quieter
The Classic 99 boasts a bespoke 12" long stroke driver that uses lightweight, stiff, hot-pressed paper to form the main body of the cone. Laid atop that is a stiff center cap made of hand-thrown paper to randomize the fibers, ensuring that the driver has excellent self-damping. This is one of REL's secrets. Understanding that it is the quietness, that attention to bring the driver to complete silence, that produces the most startling dynamics.
While the Classic 99 will play shatteringly loud, it's from the very black background that the loudest dynamics emerge to produce the sense of shock sought by great composers and directors.
More than Ample Amplification
In order to generate deeper bass and significantly higher output, REL turned to a tried-and-true Class D amplifier already used in thousands of previous REL units.
This 450-watt amplifier is fed by an all analog PerfectFilter™ front end that extends useful output well into the low 20 Hz range – superb for a design of this size and price. It produces a sound that's both rich and richly detailed. Classic 99 borrows the best from current technology to deliver a sound slightly warmer and more like what we all imagine vintage sound to be, with superior reliability and performance than was ever available back in the day.
Classic RELs: What's The Difference?
While they look similar, the newer Classic 99 is some 50 percent larger by volume than the Classic 98, delivering 450 watts of power (versus 300 watts for the 98) into a 12″ driver (10″ for the 98). Those are significant upgrades in the basic specs of the Classic 99.
Wireless Options
The future meets the past gloriously in REL's wireless offerings. For the ultimate, select the Airship II (optional, sold separately), which encourages the use of REL's High-Level Connection PLUS .1/LFE should your listening tastes run toward movies. This is REL's ultimate wireless design at 5.8 GHz and uses discrete components in the front end to transform your system's sound flawlessly into totally uncompressed wireless capable of eliminating the sprawl of cables across your living space.
On a tighter budget? Choose the HT-Air MKII Wireless (optional, sold separately). REL uses the exact same 5.8 gig master chip into an affordable system that allows for Low Level or .1/LFE to deliver across the same 35' with the same bulletproof signal delivery.
"For Real World Living Rooms"
"The Classic 99 can give you very high quality bass with a healthy dose of smooth, warming, pleasing bass characteristics, too – a little bit of coloration maybe, just a touch but that is okay," observes Terry Ellis, pursuitperfectsystem.com, December 2024, which gave the Classic 99 a Special Performer Award. "For real world living rooms, listening rooms, normal sized homes the Classic 99 or two would be a very fine addition to your system."
"This is the second member of the REL Classic Series, a product line that deliberately plays with a particular vintage touch," notes Michael Holzinger, sempre-audio.at , June 7, 2025. "Like the already available REL Classic 98, the new REL Classic 99 presents a so-called mid-century modern design, offering a warm sound character, but above all, guaranteeing a nuanced, powerful performance with state-of-the-art technology. In the case of the new REL Classic 99, it offers more of everything than its little brother [Classic 98]".
