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“Huge!”, “ Truly 3-D!”, “Wraparound Sound!”

HT-Air MKII Wraps Your Theatre Around You

Those are all words that real REL customers have used to describe what the rear-channel REL in a home theatre does for them. And, because of the performance breakthroughs that our MKII lineup of the high output HT line delivers, that performance is available at a remarkably affordable price-to-performance ratio. It works with Classic 98’s too.

Here’s a quick review of why you would even need a rear channel sub. In theater, the front Left and Right main channels, much like in a high-end 2-channel system are responsible for setting the stage, so to speak, for what happens on screen. Contextual scale. The center channel, originally intended to improve dialogue intelligibility and fill in the tracking of sounds traveling across the screen, has evolved into a workhorse that produces some 70% of what happens in the front of the theatre (hence the need for a center channel sub to keep up with all the action). And the rears – subwoofer especially—are responsible for the scope and scale of the wrap-around 3-D involvement great theatre can produce. Much of the bigness is lost if the rear channels can’t reproduce at full range (read deep bass), therefore a good-sized sub(s) is needed.

But, what happens when getting a cable pulled to that rear channel REL isn’t easy? Like when your home is built directly on a solid concrete foundation (slab)? Or if there isn’t enough room to pull a wire through your crawlspace? Or, there’s a sliding glass door across the rear of the room? Tripping over a cable is neither fun nor safe.

The answer is simple enough, pick up a wireless HT-Air MKII from your local REL dealer. It’s a no-brainer, easy-to-use 5.8 gig wireless that uses the same high-performance super-fast core wireless chip as we use in our big state-of-the-art Airship II, minus all the fancy go faster stuff of the big one. Using the little HT-Air MKII one can send 1 channel of .1 OR a channel of LFE AND 1 channel of another channel, say your right surround channel, simultaneously.

You may say “but most of the wireless stuff sounds awful (which may be true) and is difficult to get working.” By which we presume you mean just getting them to work can involve using a laptop, then downloading all the updates needed to bring those devices up-to-date, followed by the inevitable pairing headaches. Let me assure you NONE of that is needed when it comes to HT-Air MKII. Since our first wireless released twelve years ago, we have ensured that all the engineering results in units that take less than 30 seconds. This is from the time they are unpackaged and the requisite audio cables are plugged in, to having sound running seamlessly and effortlessly to your rear subwoofer. Pop pairing buttons on the rear panel of each of the two cool-looking deep black cubes and watch the white LED go from blinking state to solid in the time it takes for you to pop the second button. That’s it. The hardest thing you’ll need to do is read which one is the Send unit and which is Receive (plugs into the REL).

HT-Air MKII’s allow for easy installation of rear channel subwoofers. Our pairing is well thought out, and easy to use. And, HT-Air MKII comes from a company that has become the acknowledged leader in wireless subwoofer technology. It makes a perfect add-on for someone who already owns a T/x or HT subwoofer and opens up all sorts of possibilities.


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December 7, 2023 - Posted in: System Thinking