The high-level input isn’t just for stereo—REL recommends
using it for home theater, too, in conjunction with the .1/LFE input. You set
your front left and right speakers to Large in your receiver or surround
processor’s menu, so the Habitat1 gets the full-range left/right signal plus
the LFE signal. The sub includes two input level knobs, one that controls the
high-level and full-range RCA input and one that controls the .1/LFE input.
This arrangement lets you separately tailor the bass level for stereo and for
surround sound. For many, this will be a useful feature; lots of home theater
fans I know like to set the bass level about +3 decibels higher for movie
soundtracks. Some receivers and processors, though, offer ways of presetting
different bass levels for stereo and multichannel sound, without subjecting
your front left and right speakers to potentially damaging deep bass.
Habitat1 white top
dials
Setup
Because the coolest thing about the Habitat1 is that it can
be wall-mounted, I went ahead and wall-mounted it. I worried this might be a
nightmare, but it was more like a wonderful dream where I’m reunited with every
dog I’ve ever owned then presented with a big bowl of frozen yogurt. You do have
to locate a couple of wall studs that can support the sub’s 50 pounds, but once
that’s done, REL’s included template makes it easy to position the
extruded-aluminum brackets. Rubber gaskets are provided to prevent rattling.
Once the brackets were in place, the sub snapped right on. The whole process
took about 15 minutes.
Subwoofer REL
habitat1 emisor sin cables
Your placement options are a bit limited by wall-mounting,
because things like AC outlets and heating/air conditioning vents can get in
the way. Fortunately for me, I was able to wall-mount the Habitat1 right in my
subwoofer sweet spot, the place in my room where a single sub sounds best from
my listening chair. The only difference was that the bottom of the sub sat 17
inches above the floor. (Of course, even when wall-mounted, the REL is no
different than any other sub in its sensitivity to room boundaries and
position, so the usual rules about finding the right spot still apply.)
Now I had to mate the sub with the wireless transmitter.
Except I didn’t have to. All I did was flip on the power, and the Habitat1
figured out this part on its own. I disconnected the power for the sub and
transmitter several times during this review, but they always reconnected with
no help from me.
The Habitat1’s dual 6.5-inch woofers can’t do much to
augment the bass response of a medium to large tower speaker, yet the
high-level connection precludes the use of small speakers that can’t handle
bass. So I started by using a pair of Hsu Research HB-1 Mk2 minispeakers with
the Habitat1 in a stereo setup, using the REL’s high-level input. The HB-1’s
not a full-range speaker, but I knew it could handle deep bass content at
modest levels without blowing up.
Subwoofer REL
speaker
For my home theater listening, I used three Sunfire CRM-2
mini-speakers for the front channels and two CRM-BIPs for the surrounds. The
Sunfires, like almost all mini-speakers, are not designed to reproduce
full-range signals. Feed them deep bass at high levels, and they will distort,
or worse. Thus, I disconnected the high-level input and fed the subwoofer
output of my Outlaw 975 surround processor to the .1/LFE input on the
Habitat1’s wireless transmitter.
