Rainbow SAX 265.20

A two-way component speaker system with separate tweeter units, midbass drivers and passive crossovers. Complete with a mounting kit to fit the tweeters in more than one application and screws and fixings. The passives have an adjustment that is done by moving the termination of a wire rather than a jumper system and allows for tweeter attenuation at ‘Loud’ or nil for installation of the tweeter off the listening axis. ‘Mid’ for use in the upper doors or on the rear mirror triangle (cheater panel) and ‘soft’ for use dead on-axis in close proximity. The A and B settings are for the adjustment of the crossover point and midbass intensity. ‘A’ is used when the units are close to one another and ‘B’ is used when the speaker components are far apart and makes it ‘more bright and crossover frequency range will be enlarged’ according to the manual. It was left on ‘A’ factory default for this test.
The midbass drivers have pressed steel chassis and the magnets wear rubber armour boots. The set comes with a sticker and fixings but no wire.
– Power Handling 100wRMS
– Sensitivity 90dB 1w/1M
– Own Pink noise test figure 112.8dB (Vol @20 @ trk 9 dB Drag Vol III)
– Passband 50Hz to 21kHz
– Tweeter diameter 36mm
– Tweeter Mounting Depth 14mm
– Midbass Mounting Depth 62mm
– Cone: Aluminium
– Tweeter: Silk dome
– Crossover slope & point: 12dB/Octave @ 4.2kHz
– Chassis: pressed steel with rubber boot to magnet
– Complete with: Tweeter fixing kit, fixings, sticker
Review by Adam Rayner
Rainbow make some of the most mind bendingly costly speakers in the world as well as serving the more normal buyer. These speakers are all about function breeding form rather than setting out to look impressive on their own. The mids have simple pressed steel chassis but I do like the rubber boots they fit to the magnets – a lot of the speakers in this test had the same feature . It helps prevent damage to the Ferrite or marking things if you get attracted to the steelwork!
The passives have adjusters to allow for both relative position of the two drivers to each other as well as the more normal adjustment for the level of the tweeters. Again, a feature of a quality range of speakers with some fabulous things in it is the ability to sell a cheaper speaker that still retains a warm and involving midband that sounds just so posh and ‘hifi’ it makes the whole experience better. Tempered with the tendency to get a tiny bit sibilant around the high zone when driven hard due to the low cost of the set. That said, the lows and mids are rich and powerful and are definitely the best part of this collection of components. Good on detail and staging and imagery, these are good speakers for an audiophile of limited means.
Overall 8.0
Sound Quality 8
Build Quality 7
Power Handling 8
Efficiency 8
Value For Money 9