OutCast Build Quality and Setup

Wireless is all the rage these days and more and more companies are throwing their proverbial hat into the ring. Soundcast's OutCast system is an "all in one" solution that seeks to give you unparalleled access to your music with a wireless single speaker system. They aren't promising a complete two channel experience but they are promising a speaker that can travel up to 150' in the home and 350' outside! That's quite some range. On top of that, it interfaces with either your iPod or any other two channel source (or even your computer). Either getting your music anywhere in your house just got easier or you're about to read a very scathing review.

Build Quality

The Soundcast OutCast was well packed in a way that I'm not normally used to. I'm use to things being double boxed and with Styrofoam endcaps. What I am not used to is a Styrofoam cocoon. Contained within were the OutCast All-Weather Speaker, the iCast wireless transmitter, a power cord and a couple of connection cables. Each item had its own cubby hole in the cocoon and was held in place either by friction or tape.

The OutCast looked, at first, like either an air purifier or a Diaper Genie (depending on your frame of reference). To say that I wasn't in love with the aesthetics would be an understatement. The stock photos make it look like a column though it is really a bit thicker at the bottom than the top. I'd suggest that the Soundcast group get that Dyson guy to consult on the next unit - if he can make a sexy vacuum cleaner, he can surely make this thing a bit easier on the eyes. The unit itself isn't terribly heavy though it does get a bit cumbersome after a few minutes lugging it down the street (see below). There is a handle on the top for easy transport. The unit sports a downfiring woofer that faces a convex plate for 360 degree sound dispersion. There are four 3" drivers hidden behind a metal grill pointing in the four cardinal directions. The unit is constructed out of high impact plastic that is a sort of cream color. It feels very solid and sturdy.

The top of the OutCast has controls for any iPod that is connected to the iCast so that you don't have to run back and forth to the iPod to skip songs. There isn't a display on it so you won't be surfing your different folders but you will be able to play, pause, and skip tracks forward and back. There is a power button, volume controls, and a light button. Oh, yeah, lights. There are two blue LED lights that will illuminate and reflect off two sides of the bottom convex plate. On the other two sides there are downfiring slot-style ports. We've been informed that there is a fine mesh grill inside of the unit to keep out debris or animals. According to Soundcast, the OutCast has been tested to IP64 standards which means that it is dust tight and can withstand "water splashing in all directions" whatever that means. The OutCast can't survive a dunking in a pool and probably shouldn't be hosed down if it gets dirty. When the unit is powered on, the top controls illuminate faintly but enough so that it makes it easy to see in a darkened room (or on a deck at night).

Editor's Note on Ported Outdoor Speakers in General
We fail to see how a speaker can truthfully be considered "all-weather" when it sports a ported design. "All-weather" includes sideways rain. Outdoor includes insects, lizards, and rodents. By definition, the driver (at least the cone) needs to be exposed for the port to have any effect. The OutCast sports polypropylene cones with rubber surrounds which should withstand the elements better than some that use paper and foam. But with the amount of humidity and condensation here in Florida, any part exposed to air is going to experience some amount of wetness. Unless all the components within the ported area are protected (unlikely), this would seriously reduce the life of the product. And while having bugs and animals take up residence in your outdoor speaker may not necessarily compromise performance, it is gross and something that we shouldn't be promoting. Since I live in Florida, I need less places for bugs to live in my life, not more.

The iCast has a white semi-circle top, with an iPod dock/charger at the apex, and a gray bottom. The rear of the unit is green with a port for a power cord, a headphone jack, and a three setting channel selection switch. The iCast feels a little light for its size. While its stylized look goes well with iPods, it doesn't exactly match anything else in my system. The OutCast has a power cord port near the base and an Aux In and three setting channel selection switch near the top. All of the inputs and switches on the OutCast have rubber covers to keep them protected from the elements.

Setup

The setup of the OutCast and iCast is fairly simple. First, you need to install the battery into the OutCast which is by far the hardest part of this setup. The battery compartment is very tight and you'll need to finagle it a bit to make it fit. This is, of course, by design. If the battery fit too loosely, it would vibrate during heavy bass passages. The OutCast takes a few hours to completely charge (you know it is done when the red light goes out) and uses a NiMH type battery so that charging memory isn't an issue. The manual states that it will play for up to 10 hours on a charge which I found to be true. I left it playing all day and found that it died out well over 12 hours later. The volume was low most of the time but you are pretty much guaranteed that it will keep the background music going until all but the most hardcore of your guests leave. Once you plug in the iCast, you'll notice two lights on the top. One indicates power and the other denotes a wireless connection has been established to the OutCast. On the OutCast, there is a light for a wireless connection that glows green when searching and blue when it is connected. From the time of powering up both units, it usually took less than three seconds for a stable wireless connection to be reached.

The iCast and OutCast utilize the 2.4 GHz frequency for wireless connection. This is the same frequency used by your cordless phone (probably) and the same one that will experience interference from things like microwaves and wireless routers. The iCast and OutCast get around this by utilizing Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum (FHSS) technology which is also used by the Bluetooth. This basically splits up the signal into many different channels using a pseudorandom sequence. This not only reduces (or eliminates) the effects of non-distance based interference but also allows more than one iCast/OutCast solution to be used in close proximity.

Which brings me back to the three position channel switches on both the iCast and OutCast. Basically, if you want to have two OutCast systems operating independently of each other, you can set them to different channels and each will only receive what the assigned iCast is sending. Needless to say, you can have more than one OutCast tuning in the same iCast signal. What you can't do, however, is assign left and right channels to specific OutCasts. Each OutCast receives a combined signal for the right and left channels.

The 2.4 GHz transmission is supposed to be impervious to interference from devices like microwaves while also not interfering with your 802.11b/g wireless networks. I found that the former was true though the later was more in dispute. I often take the path of least resistance when I am doing reviews. It speeds up the review process and lowers my stress levels. I don't own an iPod so I was looking for another device to connect to the iCast. Luckily, the headphone jack switches to an input jack when there is no iPod present. You can either connect this directly to a device (like a computer or MP3 player) via 3.5 mm jack (to the headphone or audio output) or to the right and left analogue outputs of any device (like DVD/CD player) through a RCA to 3.5 mm cable (both types of cables are supplied). The easiest analogue outputs I had available where on the back of the recently reviewed Squeezebox Duet. The Duet uses an 802.11g network to pull content from either the Internet or a networked computer. Basically, I was streaming content to the Duet receiver, shooting it over to the iCast via a cable, and then wirelessly to the OutCast speaker.

The problem I ran into was that the iCast seemed to interfere with the Duet's receiver reception and would block it if the two were too close. I had a similar problem with the Soundolier duo wireless speakers but to a greater extent. With the iCast I only had to move the unit a couple of feet away from the Duet receiver in order to eliminate the interference. With the Soundolier, the transmitter would cause reception problems at a much further distance. All and all, as long as you keep the iCast at least a few feet away from any 802.11b/g receivers/transmitters, you should be OK. If you are going to use the OutCast/iCast combo to stream directly from your iPod, this shouldn't be a problem as you can hook it up anywhere with a power outlet.

The last thing I needed to check out was the distance that the OutCast could be from the iCast. The manual states that in home you should be able to travel 150 feet without audio dropouts and outdoors (both units) it could range over 350 feet. I didn't take the iCast outside as (again) I didn't have an easy source to take outside with me. At the same time, I'm tempted to think that the 350+ feet estimate is based on no line of sight obstructions, which, in my wooded neighborhood, just simply isn't possible. Instead, I placed the iCast in my Home Theater near a window and took the speaker outside. I must have looked quite the sight with the OutCast over my shoulder playing select songs from the Pixies Doolittle album walking down the street. I found that the more line-of-sight I had with that window, the further I could go. Even with many intervening walls, trees, and fences I could make it one or two houses down (each lot around here is about 150' wide) with a good line of site netting me around 3 (close to that 350' mark). It seems like those distance claims are just about right on. On my property, I was able to move about freely without any audio dropouts. And in the end, that's all that really mattered.