RSL Outsider II Outdoor Speaker Review

[Juhazi]

Sorry, but nope ; I had it as $200/pair when I entered it into my spreadsheet before the review.
To be fair, while it says per pair in fine print, the title doesn't make it clear.

Pair pricing is a bit strange because this speaker is in category of" Individual Speakrs". It could be a mistake on the website, but for the in-wall speaker it says "each" and the indoor two-way is 125$ obviously per piece but, it is not said clearly.

RSL is a small company and sells only online.

https://rslspeakers.com/product-category/individual-components/
https://rslspeakers.com/faqs/

 

[amirm]

I think combined with your excellent measurements, @MZKM is already doing a brilliant job of that

That's not the question I asked. You said that Sean knew how to distill the spins into a number even if he didn't use the formula from his research. I challenged you to compute such a number. Simple answer is that you can't.

For a company designing a speaker targeting a preference curve, they don't need a single number descriptor. If there is a peak at 5 kHz in on-axis, they know this needs to be brought down. A single number for the entire performance of the speaker does them no good. Ditto for directivity errors and such. Last thing you want as a designer is to be given a number that is a complex sum of multiple values.

Imagine if Z = X + Y. If I gave you Z as 5, what would X and Y be? They could be many combinations, right? Best to be told the X and Y than the Z.

Indeed one of the issues with the formula is that it doesn't encompass what is goodness in a speaker fully. For visual analysis of spins, we want flat on axis and similar off-axis. We don't want the amount of bass to cover deficiencies in either one of these but unfortunately the score does exactly that. Nor is there a complete conversion of flat on-axis and smooth off-axis is what is literally used in the formula. Yet these characteristics sums the opinion and research from Dr. Toole and crew.

In other words, the playing with the formula to fit preference scores, generated some oddities. Those oddities have not been investigated and fully identified independently. Using above analogy, would extra bass compensate for dip in 700 to 2 kHz? Which is more important if you had to pick one.

Mind you, we are lucky that the score does exist. It provides directionality of performance. It is a bit like a compass. It more or less points north but it is not GPS telling you everything you need to know about your route. Or with supreme precision.

Learn to use it as a rough figure to be verified using other means to be on point, or have some errors in it. This is what I do with my listening tests. None of you are in a position to do better since you don't have these speakers in hand to test the correctness of the number.

So don't be dismissive. It is work and frankly pain in the neck to set up each speaker for listening tests and writing up the observations. Don't add to that by complaining in thread after thread without bringing in an ounce of new information we/I don't already know.

 

[amirm]

As it stands we can only find out "about what makes things sound good to" Amir and not very accurately because he's only giving speakers a quick listen in less than optimal conditions.

Optimal conditions? What are optimal conditions for every speaker? Is your speaker setup optimally and you can prove that with controlled listening tests versus any other?

And why do you think something that sounds good to me should not be of any value if the research indicates most of us have similar preferences?

Or are you doubting everything that the research tells us here?

 

[Thomas Savage]

Optimal conditions? What are optimal conditions for every speaker? Is your speaker setup optimally and you can prove that with controlled listening tests versus any other?

And why do you think something that sounds good to me should not be of any value if the research indicates most of us have similar preferences?

Or are you doubting everything that the research tells us here?

The ignore button can be your friend ha ha

 

[RayDunzl]

Some discussion occurred earlier concerning using a speaker outdoors vs indoors and fewer reflections and perhaps longer distances and treble boost.

Here's a calculator for those who can actually hear those pesky high frequencies;

http://www.sengpielaudio.com/calculator-air.htm

 

[amirm]

The ignore button can be your friend ha ha

I don't think ignore feature works for admins. But the thought is appreciated....

 

[tuga]

Optimal conditions? What are optimal conditions for every speaker? Is your speaker setup optimally and you can prove that with controlled listening tests versus any other?

And why do you think something that sounds good to me should not be of any value if the research indicates most of us have similar preferences?

Or are you doubting everything that the research tells us here?

Not everything.
But I find research on preference useless for anyone but a manufacturer. Preference is not indicative of accuracy or fidelity, it is merely a matter of taste; and we all have our own. Some people like wide dispersion, others prefer narrow dispersion, some people enjoy a more reflective room, others a deader-sounding space, some want a bit more bass, some like honrs, open-baffle, electrostatic, omni, etc.

 

[Chromatischism]

Some discussion occurred earlier concerning using a speaker outdoors vs indoors and fewer reflections and perhaps longer distances and treble boost.

Here's a calculator for those who can actually hear those pesky high frequencies;

http://www.sengpielaudio.com/calculator-air.htm

Interesting. So we lose 2-3 dB of 10 kHz at 50 feet according to the variables I plugged in. I thought there would be some attenuation and that was a factor in the speaker design, but I wasn't sure how much.

 

[MediumRare]

Not at all. What he is saying and follows on to say right after that is that measurements like Spinorama tell them how the speaker should be designed: flat on-axis and directivity that is similar to on-axis. There is no mention remotely of computing a single number and that tells them if they have done the job or not.

Even if he meant that, the very fact that listening tests are then performed means they don't put their trust in the number. But that they expect unknowns that are discovered in listening tests. A number of times I have talked to Harman folks where they have told me a speaker is taking longer to release because they are fine tuning it post listening tests.

Harman has released countless spinorama for their speakers. If they have the score, why do you think they have never, ever released that number for any of their current speakers?

Really, my information on what I stated comes directly from Sean himself. Please don't try to counter it by reading between the lines in a youtube video for heaven's sake. What you wish to be true, isn't. I would love for this number to be real and end of story as to be done with these endless arguments. But when the facts are not behind me, I can't do it. Neither should you.

What are the chances that you (with the support of this community, perhaps) can make an advance on the quality of a more predictive number/appropriate numbers?

 

[richard12511]

What are the chances that you (with the support of this community, perhaps) can make an advance on the quality of a more predictive number/appropriate numbers?

I would think those chances would be very low, unless we also start blind testing these speakers after they're measured.

 

[Chromatischism]

GTG in WA?

 

[BYRTT]

Interesting that the farfield tweeter response does not match the nearfield tweeter response >3kHz.

Notice that in the farfield the spl at 3kHz is about 85dB and at 13kHz about 94dB.

While the nearfield shows about 105dB and 107dB, respectively.

Could be im wrong but isn't it common knowledge that nearfield works to bench precise the low end slope but cant see the baffle step loss and diffraction so nearfield needs spliced a farfield upperpart and maybe some synthetic added baffle step loss, try open up your version of VituixCAD/Tools/Auxiliary/Near field to get estimated calculations for HF reach using nearfield trick, below tell up to max 4380Hz for tweeter and max 913Hz for a 120mm woofer piston and the suggested max distances to micophone is very low numbers, so imagine one shall read Amir's nearfild with facts in mind that high end of curves is not precise and baffle step loss plus diffraction should be extracted in mind .

 

[hardisj]

Could be im wrong but isn't it common knowledge that nearfield works to bench precise the low end slope but cant see the baffle step loss and diffraction so nearfield needs spliced a farfield upperpart and maybe some synthetic added baffle step loss, try open up your version of VituixCAD/Tools/Auxiliary/Near field to get estimated calculations for HF reach using nearfield trick, below tell up to max 4380Hz for tweeter and max 913Hz for a 120mm woofer piston and the suggested max distances to micophone is very low numbers, so imagine one shall read Amir's nearfild with facts in mind that high end of curves is not precise and baffle step loss plus diffraction should be extracted in mind .

View attachment 87824

When measuring raw speaker drivers there is certainly an upper and lower limit. The lower limit is always dictated by the room. The upper limit is dictated by the radiating area.

However, if you look back at many of mine and Amir's past measurements you'll see the NF response closely mimics the FF response of the tweeter. The difference might be 2-3dB. In the case of this speaker, though, that is not at all the case; the difference from 3k - 13kHz is 9dB in the farfield while the NF difference is only 2dB.

 

[Chromatischism]

I listened to this speaker today and it is indeed bright out of the box.

I told Audyssey XT32 to do a full-range correction in order to roll off the tweeter similar to Amir with High Frequency Roll Off 2 and it brought it back in line. Combined with Dynamic EQ the bass was lifted and flattened and it's a much better speaker now. This one benefits greatly from EQ.