Almost every subwoofer on the market today is a boring,
bulky black box, designed with hardly a thought about how the thing’s going to look
in a living room. With its new Habitat1 subwoofer, REL joins the small group of
manufacturers who’ve put serious thought into making their subwoofers blend in
with room décor.
The slim Habitat1 can sit flat on the floor, snug up against
a wall, or even mount directly onto a wall. Wall-mounted, it stands out just
7.13 inches, so it looks more like an air conditioner than a subwoofer. And by
that I mean one of those slim, stylish air conditioners the Europeans and
Japanese use to cool a room, not one of the monsters we Americans use.
Habitat1 white - flat
on the floor
How do they do
it?
Instead of using a single large driver, the Habitat1 uses
two slim, 6.5-inch drivers, both of which fire forward and hide behind a fabric
grille. A rear-firing, 10-inch passive radiator reinforces the low bass; the
wall mounts leave 1.5 inches of space for the radiator to breathe. A 150-watt
RMS Class D internal amplifier drives the dual woofers.
Befitting an on-wall design, the Habitat1 has wireless
capability built in and comes with a small wireless transmitter that connects
to your system. The sub itself has a full set of inputs, so you can use a wired
connection if you choose.
Habitat1 lifestyle
loft - no data compression and has low latency
REL says the Longbow wireless technology used in the
Habitat1 uses no data compression and has low latency, which means it doesn’t
appreciably delay the bass relative to the mids and
treble. (I was able to measure this, as we’ll discuss below.)
How do they wire
it?
Longtime audiophiles are probably aware that REL offers a
hookup scheme different from any other subwoofer manufacturer. The sub and the
wireless transmitter each have three inputs. Two are common: an RCA line-level
input intended to accept full-range signals from a preamp’s line output and
another RCA input intended for the .1/LFE channel of a home theater system.
The third is a high-level (i.e., speaker cable) input in the
form of a Neutrik speakON
connector, a type commonly used for P.A. speakers. REL provides an adapter with
a speakON plug on one end and bare wires on the
other; these connect to your amplifier’s outputs. The manual insists on the use
of this connection. Thus, instead of filtering the bass out of the main
left/right speakers as the crossovers built into audio/video receivers and
surround processors do, the REL scheme lets the main speakers run full range.
You adjust the subwoofer’s crossover point so the sub starts to come in right at
the point where the main speakers’ bass response starts to diminish.
Subwoofers for
Home Audiophiles
Why do it this way? The idea is that you’re not adulterating
the sound of your main speakers by running them through a subwoofer crossover.
However, a normal subwoofer setup, with the receiver or processor filtering the
bass out of the main speakers, has advantages, too. Freed from having to
reproduce deep bass, your main speakers will play much louder with lower
distortion. There’s also little or no adjustment required, outside of setting
the subwoofer level with the receiver or processor’s test tones and maybe
selecting a crossover point.
