Rainbow Sound Line SL 165 NG Two-way Coaxial Loudspeakers

Two-way coaxial loudspeaker with simple 6dB per Octave crossover and thermal protection device, both components of which are not visible on the exterior of the speaker. The Silk dome tweeter reaches up to 25kHz and measures 30mm despite being described in the brochure as being a 25mm design. The chassis is cast Aluminium and has some shiny cut surfaces and a fine grey speckle finish. The woofer has a Butyl rubber top roll surround and the magnet wears a neat rubbery boot and a shiny decal on its rear to cover the tweeter wire running up through the centre of the pole-mount for the tweeter.
– Power Handling 80w RMS, 150w peak
– Impedance 4 Ohms
– Sensitivity 90dB 1w/1M
– Passband 50Hz to 25kHz
– Tweeter diameter 30mm (measured with vernier callipers despite errors on Rainbow catalogue!)
– Crossover slope 6dB with PTC thermal tweeter protection
– Screw type terminals
– Mounting Depth 62mm
– Cone: Coated Natural Fibre
– Tweeter: Silk dome in 20 degree sloped 360 degree swivel mount
– Chassis: Cast Aluminium with grey crackle finish and cut faces
– Complete with: eight screws and eight panel screwclips and window sticker
– Rubber boot on magnet
– Grilles are metal mesh and plastic ring type
Review by Adam Rayner
These are classy items and look and sound delicious. They don’t have any of the brash ‘in your face’ delivery of the much cheaper JBLs recently tested and oddly they don’t have quite the scale of the JBL’s bass either as the Rainbow’s cones are simply a bit smaller, not having the Harman Infinity/JBL Plus One technology. But what they do is very special.
They can track a far higher level of sound quality and detail and if given sparse and spacious material, like the vocals and wound-string guitars of Adele, they are deep into the HiFi zone.
Although my first reaction with Frankie Goes to Hollywood was one of ‘less able with the meaty presentation’, it was soon clear that these are about clarity and fidelity and are doing bloody well for their foray into posh and costly materials.
For one, they have that solid cast chassis and although it can be argued about and I am sure I would fail miserably at telling ‘blind’, since there are so very many different factors involved in the sound quality issue, I feel this helps the solidity and accuracy of the bass transients. The tweeter’s spec is a serious one and although not a top end job, it is where a good chunk of the money has gone. This creates that intimacy and accuracy that has you seeing the look on Adele’s face and hear when she breathes in and opens that lovely mouth, errrrm. That is you are more likely to get an emotional link to the music for purity reasons rather than Peds out of Frankie bellowing ‘HOO HAH!- HOOHAH!’
They are let down looks-wise by the grilles which are just a plain stealthy pressed piece of metal mesh with a tiny badge and a frame. I felt these may have looked cooler with a grille echoing the design work done for the tweeter’s protective bars but they would cost more then and some people may not take them seriously. A goodly few of these will be getting installed professionally or by sound off types, with custom built grilles in high quality installations.
They do get a bit congested under heavy drive and pressure and I feel will benefit from judicious use of a crossover to keep the deeper bass from these and use a nice Rainbow subwoofer to go with them. As satellites and sensible volume HiFi speakers, they are tremendous but I wouldn’t buy them if you like it really loud and beaty.
Also, despite the cute and small window sticker being provided, put it in a window of your own indoor space, not in your car’s windows as it can only identify a car with likely good kit to steal!
I was impressed to the point where I was sure I was able to tell that the limiting factor in my rig is the ruddy speaker cables. The Amp is a Genesis Stereo 100 at £380 and the Pioneer DEH-P88RSII is the same price on the streets and I have heard what they can do, so it was a quick call mid-review to Chord cables!
But in the meanwhile, a very sexy set of speakers and ones that can be used in entry level SQ sound offs I reckon. They will help get your system in the lower ‘price’ brackets but deliver an awful lot of sound quality for it.
Sound Quality 9.0
Build Quality 9.0
Power Handling 8.0
Efficiency 7.0
Value For Money 8.0
Overall rating 8.2