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Your summer barbecue tunes don’t need to be relegated to an old boombox. The OutCast is a portable, weather-resistant outdoor stereo speaker system for wirelessly streaming your iPod (or any other source) music outside where the party is.
Before I started using the OutCast, most of my backyard music came from a small weather-resistant Tivoli radio. That’s fine as far as small radios go, but it’s hardly satisfying for entertaining a crowd of backyard hot dog eaters, and it’s not the best for settling down in the evening to listen to some mellow summer jazz (when all the radio stations are playing The Boss).
The OutCast is a two-part system. The first part is the iCast, an iPod dock that transmits the audio signal via 2.4 GHz wireless spectrum up to 350 feet outdoors (or 150 feet indoors/through walls) to a receiver. The iCast also has 35mm input or headphone jack that can be used to connect an additional source with the supplied adaptor cable. The second part of the system is the Outcast itself, a 100 watt integrated speaker/amplifier and 2.4GHz receiver with four 3-inch mid-range drivers and one 8-inch subwoofer driver. The lower driver is positioned over a cone to help radiate the sound in 360 degrees.
What makes the outcast especially cool is that it’s rugged and weather-resistant for outdoor use plus it’s got a built-in rechargeable battery so you’re not restricted to sticking it someplace where there’s and AC outlet (which also means that if you accidentally knock it in the pool you won’t kill all the swimmers).
Using the Outcast doesn’t require any serious set up or wireless pairing (which you find with Bluetooth speakers). After installing the battery pack all you need to do is plug your iPod into the iCast and turn on the Outcast. The music will start immediately. If you find any interference on the signal (which I didn’t) you have the option to change wireless channels, just make sure the channel selected on the iCast (1,2 or 3) matches that on the Outcast. Volume gets controlled at the Outcast end, not on the iPod itself, which is good because you won’t want to keep running into the house to adjust the volume. On the unit you can move backward and forward among tracks, but you can’t do any more iPod navigation than that. To find switch albums for instance you need to go back to the iPod itself.
So how does the outcast compare to the boombox method of outdoor music? While the Outcast may look a little like a trash can, it certainly doesn’t sound like one. I found it got loud enough to carry throughout an average-sized yard, and sound quite good as well. There’s a surprising amount of detail and bass for outside speakers. As expected, detail drops off as you step away from it because there are no walls to contain the sound, but for most backyards, the sound range will be just find. I placed it on my deck and listened from a bench about 20 feet away and found the details deminished, but not terribly so, and still loud enough. If you’re got a very large area to fill you can add a second OutCast without an additional transmitter. I was happily piping The Girl from Iponema to the speaker until a neighbor poked over the fence and asked me to turn it down.
I especially liked the fact that the SoundCast includes a rechargeable battery, so If I wanted to move it closer to my bench, I didn’t have pull out an extension cord. Having the iPod safely indoors near my audio system while listening to it outside is also nice, because when a rain shower came by, I knew the iPod was safe. The OutCast, being weather-proof, also didn’t suffer from the brief violent downpour.
If you’re comparing this to a portable radio or most other iPod speakers, $699 seems extreme. But considering all the OutCast’s features and the fact that it can be part of a whole house (when combined with indoor SpeakerCast or AudioCast modules) and out-of-house audio system, the price seems a lot more reasonable.
SoundCast OutCast System
$699
www.soundcastsystems.com
What do you think about this system? Talk about it in the E-Gear forums.
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