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HT Observations From the Field
Reaction to this affordable, yet upmarket and attractive design has been incredibly positive and HT, after just one full year of the entire line shipping, has this range beginning to nip at the heels of our own best sellers. And they are selling all over the world—meaning it’s not simply in one or two specialty markets. HT simply connects for most people. And review response to this range has been unanimously praise worthy with 5 star reviews beginning to pop up in markets around the globe.
Not So Obvious
So crucial to REL and how we go about the job; we don’t simply deliver on the obvious. On a recent tour of stores in one of our Western states here in the U.S., store personnel were challenged to experience their favorite big, bombastic special effects scene. They chose an iconic scene from the Tom Cruise movie Oblivion where he is fast-rappelling up a stainless steel cable attached to a high speed winch when the cable snaps, landing heavily on the stone floor below with a massive impact that overloads most affordable subs.
Our HT/1205 and only one competitor were able to handle this scene with the necessary impact and deep, echoing bass the director intended. The audience of sales associates was duly impressed by both. Having already watched this scene and more importantly, the dialogue-heavy scenes that followed, I paused and asked if they had watched the entire movie. Few had, most admitting that they simply select this scene over and over to demonstrate subwoofers; fair enough, they’re professional salespeople with only a certain amount of time to accomplish their tasks before another client needs their attention.
So I played them the ensuing scene, several times switching back and forth between ours and the other sub. The look of wonder at how very different, how much richer and more spatially engaging the REL was began to play across the crowd. How dialogue was rich and natural-sounding on the REL and the tiniest Foley-effects off screen combined to create, to “sell” in Hollywood parlance, the scene that the hero was trapped in a vast, dark space with aliens closing in on him from multiple angles. The tension and nervousness necessary to invoke the sense of relief when moments later the hero isn’t killed is palpable with REL, absent with the other. In other words, the REL delivered the emotion of the scene.
Whereas the other sub supplied none of those qualities. Instead, it made a loud, deep, echoing thump during the big action scene and left the audience nowhere in the minutes that followed. One opined that the competitor’s unit “made it sound like a computer was generating the speech”, so thin, hard and unsupported was the dialogue. Skin deep performance in our book.
When you think about watching a two-hour movie, it is critically important to us that a subwoofer, a REL, delivers the other 1:48 minutes of the movie not given over to the big effects in the movie. That it engages you emotionally, allows you to lean in. If only to be blown away by the spectacular effect the director is almost sure to follow it up with.