This is a review and detailed measurements of the RSL Outsider II outdoor speaker. It is on kind loan from a member who intends to use it as Dolby Atmos speaker (due to ready inclusion of bracket and mounting screws). The Outsider II costs US $200 a pair from the company direct.
Seems like every outdoor speaker manufacturer uses the same plastic mold for these speakers:
The outsider II though feels quite light although no worse than any budget outdoor speaker. The back panel is as expected:
Measurements that you are about to see were performed using the Klippel Near-field Scanner (NFS). This is a robotic measurement system that analyzes the speaker all around and is able (using advanced mathematics and dual scan) to subtract room reflections (so where I measure it doesn't matter). It also measures the speaker at close distance ("near-field") which sharply reduces the impact of room noise. Both of these factors enable testing in ordinary rooms yet results that can be more accurate than an anechoic chamber. In a nutshell, the measurements show the actual sound coming out of the speaker independent of the room.
I used 800+ measurement points which resulted in error rate of slightly above 1% in upper treble frequencies.
Temperature was 68 degrees. Measurement location is at sea level so you compute the pressure.
Measurements are compliant with latest speaker research into what can predict the speaker preference and is standardized in CEA/CTA-2034 ANSI specifications. Likewise listening tests are performed per research that shows mono listening is much more revealing of differences between speakers than stereo or multichannel.
The tweeter on this speaker is offset to the right. I tried to find it but had no luck even when using a flashlight. So I used a reference point that is in the middle of the speaker and to the right of the logo.
Spinorama Audio Measurements
Acoustic measurements can be grouped in a way that can be perceptually analyzed to determine how good a speaker is and how it can be used in a room. This so called spinorama shows us just about everything we need to know about the speaker with respect to tonality and some flaws:
There is good news and bad news. Good news is that frequency response on axis is pretty flat in the all important region between 200 and 3 kHz. Bad news is that there is significant peaking in high frequencies and directivity (how the waveform beam of the woofer and tweeter match) is poor in the crossover region.
Early window reflections are a bit better and naturally apply if you use the speaker indoor in stereo setup:
Using the same assumptions, this is our predicted response:
I had little idea how to draw that trend line. Either way, there is too much high frequency energy.
Here is the near-field measurements of the tweeter and woofer:
The tweeter peaking is not very visible. This could be due to offset measurement of that driver at less than half inch distance from it.
Impedance dips to 5 ohm which is better than 4 ohm or lower we typically see:
Distortion is fairly high:
Interesting sudden peaking above 7 kHz. Seems like the tweeter is getting unhappy there.
As noted, directivity is not very good:
Speaker Subjective Listening Tests
I went into the listening tests thinking this would be a bad sounding speaker given the peaking in highs, high distortion and directivity error. Such was not the case. Yes, on a lot of content it did sound bright but linearity of the response elsewhere allowed it to have good tonality. Certainly my "hifi tracks" sounded hifi.
I decided to cure the brightness with a quick EQ but it was not fully successful:
My Roon DSP doesn't have an easy to use target curve module so I had to do with that shelving filter.
I put in my usual dip for the room mode. This was a mix blessing as you do want some room enforcement here. Overall, I liked that it didn't sound too tubby at the cost of some bass.
I also put in a high pass filter and that really reduced distortion resulting in more open sound. Bass loss was minimal.
Once there, speaker response was very good as was power handling. It was hard to make the unit fall apart even at very elevated levels. Surprising to be sure as that held even without my EQ.
Conclusions
Objectively and superficially, it would be easy to dismiss this speaker as not being good. But subjectively and especially with EQ, the Outsider II sounds very good and can be put in use in home hifi use in addition to its outdoor applications.
As such, I am going to put the RSL Outsider II on my recommended list.
------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Sometimes it pays to overdue something. Such is the case with tomatoes in our climate. Despite the battering of rain as of late and much colder climate, we still had enough of these pear and plumb tomatoes to fill a nice box:
Had the golden pear tomatoes with tuna salad for lunch and boy where they sweet and tasty!
Beside these, we harvest another 50 to 60 pounds of melons, peppers, zucchini, eggplant, etc. It is getting close to the end of the season so we are pulling what all we can and have room for.
Back to misery around the house, the plumbers showed up to put in a new pipe in the septic tank to make it easier to unclog next time. What was supposed to be a 1 hour job or less, wound up being 3 hours. The experienced plumber sent junior down who could not pull out the pipe, only to discover 2 hours later that there were two extra bolts holding the flange. Thankfully I had negotiated a fixed $900 price. Not so thankfully, they discover that the pipe leading to the tank is lower than the inlet so stuff accumulates in there causing a clog. Now I have to have my helper come to dig a trench and for these guys to come back and run a new 6 foot pipe for hundreds of dollars more!
Tempting to do the work myself but who wants to deal with all that dirty sewage? I am hoping you all donate the money so I can focus on doing reviews using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
Seems like every outdoor speaker manufacturer uses the same plastic mold for these speakers:
The outsider II though feels quite light although no worse than any budget outdoor speaker. The back panel is as expected:
Measurements that you are about to see were performed using the Klippel Near-field Scanner (NFS). This is a robotic measurement system that analyzes the speaker all around and is able (using advanced mathematics and dual scan) to subtract room reflections (so where I measure it doesn't matter). It also measures the speaker at close distance ("near-field") which sharply reduces the impact of room noise. Both of these factors enable testing in ordinary rooms yet results that can be more accurate than an anechoic chamber. In a nutshell, the measurements show the actual sound coming out of the speaker independent of the room.
I used 800+ measurement points which resulted in error rate of slightly above 1% in upper treble frequencies.
Temperature was 68 degrees. Measurement location is at sea level so you compute the pressure.
Measurements are compliant with latest speaker research into what can predict the speaker preference and is standardized in CEA/CTA-2034 ANSI specifications. Likewise listening tests are performed per research that shows mono listening is much more revealing of differences between speakers than stereo or multichannel.
The tweeter on this speaker is offset to the right. I tried to find it but had no luck even when using a flashlight. So I used a reference point that is in the middle of the speaker and to the right of the logo.
Spinorama Audio Measurements
Acoustic measurements can be grouped in a way that can be perceptually analyzed to determine how good a speaker is and how it can be used in a room. This so called spinorama shows us just about everything we need to know about the speaker with respect to tonality and some flaws:
There is good news and bad news. Good news is that frequency response on axis is pretty flat in the all important region between 200 and 3 kHz. Bad news is that there is significant peaking in high frequencies and directivity (how the waveform beam of the woofer and tweeter match) is poor in the crossover region.
Early window reflections are a bit better and naturally apply if you use the speaker indoor in stereo setup:
Using the same assumptions, this is our predicted response:
I had little idea how to draw that trend line. Either way, there is too much high frequency energy.
Here is the near-field measurements of the tweeter and woofer:
The tweeter peaking is not very visible. This could be due to offset measurement of that driver at less than half inch distance from it.
Impedance dips to 5 ohm which is better than 4 ohm or lower we typically see:
Distortion is fairly high:
Interesting sudden peaking above 7 kHz. Seems like the tweeter is getting unhappy there.
As noted, directivity is not very good:
Speaker Subjective Listening Tests
I went into the listening tests thinking this would be a bad sounding speaker given the peaking in highs, high distortion and directivity error. Such was not the case. Yes, on a lot of content it did sound bright but linearity of the response elsewhere allowed it to have good tonality. Certainly my "hifi tracks" sounded hifi.
I decided to cure the brightness with a quick EQ but it was not fully successful:
My Roon DSP doesn't have an easy to use target curve module so I had to do with that shelving filter.
I put in my usual dip for the room mode. This was a mix blessing as you do want some room enforcement here. Overall, I liked that it didn't sound too tubby at the cost of some bass.
I also put in a high pass filter and that really reduced distortion resulting in more open sound. Bass loss was minimal.
Once there, speaker response was very good as was power handling. It was hard to make the unit fall apart even at very elevated levels. Surprising to be sure as that held even without my EQ.
Conclusions
Objectively and superficially, it would be easy to dismiss this speaker as not being good. But subjectively and especially with EQ, the Outsider II sounds very good and can be put in use in home hifi use in addition to its outdoor applications.
As such, I am going to put the RSL Outsider II on my recommended list.
------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Sometimes it pays to overdue something. Such is the case with tomatoes in our climate. Despite the battering of rain as of late and much colder climate, we still had enough of these pear and plumb tomatoes to fill a nice box:
Had the golden pear tomatoes with tuna salad for lunch and boy where they sweet and tasty!
Beside these, we harvest another 50 to 60 pounds of melons, peppers, zucchini, eggplant, etc. It is getting close to the end of the season so we are pulling what all we can and have room for.
Back to misery around the house, the plumbers showed up to put in a new pipe in the septic tank to make it easier to unclog next time. What was supposed to be a 1 hour job or less, wound up being 3 hours. The experienced plumber sent junior down who could not pull out the pipe, only to discover 2 hours later that there were two extra bolts holding the flange. Thankfully I had negotiated a fixed $900 price. Not so thankfully, they discover that the pipe leading to the tank is lower than the inlet so stuff accumulates in there causing a clog. Now I have to have my helper come to dig a trench and for these guys to come back and run a new 6 foot pipe for hundreds of dollars more!
Tempting to do the work myself but who wants to deal with all that dirty sewage? I am hoping you all donate the money so I can focus on doing reviews using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
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