We decided to pay a bit extra for the cherry finish on all three speakers, so I was interested in seeing how a speaker with a true veneer finish would look next to the rosenut and black laminate finishes on my Paradigms. The first step, though, was getting the boxes home from work and getting past the cardboard packaging to the actual speaker itself. The pair of boxes (one for the BLS's and one for the LCR) arrived in very good condition, and inside the double-layer of cardboard there was a healthy array of heavy foam securing the plastic-wrapped speakers. Small foam blocks filled the spaces between the fronts of the speakers and the upper and lower edges of the metal grilles.

Unpacking the speakers

There's a fair bit to think about when setting up the BLS and LCR speakers. Like any speaker, you have to think about placement and toe-in. Even after that, though, there are more options to consider: boundary compensation, high frequency adjustment, and (for the LCR) center/main configuration. I started out with placement first, except for verifying that the controls were all set to "zero" and the LCR was set to operate as a center. My center goes on top of the TV cabinet, about a foot above the TV, with a small wedge under the back to provide some downward "toe-in." Eventually, the fronts are going to go on stands to bring the tweeters to the optimal height, but initially thet were set up on top of the side equipment cabinets with a very minimal toe-in. It's not ideal, but it's a start – and if they can get the job done up there, the stands that I plan to build later this year (and the test stands I plan to build this month to test the design I have in mind) will only make a good thing that much better.

Binding posts and user controls, Bookshelf (left) and LCR (right)

My goal for the BLS/LCR team was simple: at least match the performance of my trusty Paradigms. If they sounded better, that was great, but the objective was to use a bookshelf speaker setup without sacrificing audio quality. I had thirty days to figure out if the upgrade to smaller, more wife-friendly speakers was an improvement, a lateral move, or a detriment. My first few days, before any calibration was done and while not making any effort to listen critically, gave me a sense that the Outlaw's sound was not only matching the Paradigms but even sounding a touch better.

LCR and right Bookshelf

Later that weekend, I tossed a few other things into the mix, starting with the Blu-ray of Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds at Radio City Music Hall on Saturday afternoon and following up the next day with an assortment of discs. The Sunday assortment included a drum solo by Rush's Neil Peart ("The Rhythm Method" from A Show of Hands), during which I started to notice some subtle details that had never been as clear before – particularly in the faster sections, when individual strikes on the drums or the cymbals became more distinct than I ever remember hearing previously. Likewise, spending a little time with the DVD-Audio release of Toy Matinee (quirky little album from the early 1990's) revealed a great finesse with the details in that album.

All of this listening told me two things: I still wanted to work on some stands to bring the Bookshelves down closer to their optimal positions, and the Outlaw trio was a team that were able to both match my larger Paradigms point-for-point and even do a step better. There were still two things left to contemplate, though: the rear toggle switches, and stands. I came up with a stand design that I thought would be satisfactorily unobtrusive the first weekend that I had the speakers, but it took took another week to gather supplies and a further week or so after that to start building the stands. The toggle switches required a bit less prep work, so I dug into those first. The boundary compensation setting of "-2dB" was my first stop, and it took only a couple sampled songs to get a feeling of closed-in or veiled sound, so I tossed them back to "0dB." Several subsequent tries with the boundary compensation control yielded the same result. This wasn't terribly surprising, as my room layout was a perfect fit for the "0dB" boundary compensation condition described in the Outlaw manuals. The high frequency switch was one that I was more unsure about, so I started with the "+2dB" setting, switching back and forth between that and the "0dB" default setting a couple times. Again, I found myself preferring the default, this time because the "+2dB" setting was a bit too bright for my tastes. Of course, the amount of hardwood, brick, and glass in my room should have made it self-evident that the space was not over-dampened. I'd always felt that our efforts to soften the room had been reasonably effective, but it wasn't until I tried the high frequency setting of "-2dB" that I decided I wasn't entirely correct. The difference between a "0dB" and a "-2dB" setting on the high frequency control was subtle, but I felt comfortable deciding that I preferred "-2dB" after only a short listening session with the "-2dB" setting. In the end, I settled on "0dB" for boundary compensation, "-2dB" for high frequency, and "Ctr" for the LCR center channel. When and if I upgrade my side surrounds, I'll probably run them alone briefly to dial in the boundary compensation and high frequency settings, but I'll probably start with "-2dB" or "-4dB" for the boundary compensation (both are placed in more cramped quarters) and "-2dB" for high frequency.

Almost from the moment I set the Bookshelves up, I wanted to get them onto 30" stands so they were more optimally placed, but I had some concerns about stability (both because of our three-year-old and because of a certain rambunctious one-year-old Maine Coon kitten) and aesthetics (since these speakers were purchased in part to be more spouse-friendly than the old towers). A friend at work has offered to help build some stands out of nice wood, but we're too busy right now to have much time to do that yet. I had an idea for a stand design the first weekend that we had the speakers, and I decided to build a "test" set of stands based on that design as a temporary measure. It would let me evaluate the stability of the design and it would get the speakers on stands sooner. Unfortunately, even those test stands are taking some time to get done, so I don't expect to have them in the den for another week or two. Once the stands are in place and I've had some time with the speakers at their recommended height, I'll update this review with my findings.

Added 11/20/2009: Earlier this fall, Outlaw announced a new addition to their speaker line: the Surround Loudspeaker, or SL. Shortly after the announcement, I ordered a pair for my side surrounds to replace some Axiom M3ti's. The M3ti's were installed after we moved in January 2004 due to space restrictions that prevented me from using my Paradigm Studio ADP's. The M3ti's did a fair job, but they were never the equal of the other speakers in the system. They also were not dipole surrounds. I'd been contemplating some BLS's as replacements, but the SL's provided me with a better alternative.

Right Surround

My SL's are mounted in the only available locations on my side walls. They are not exactly optimal positions, but with the wall brackets I had from the M3's they have a reasonable chance of doing the job. They are smaller than the M3's in depth and height, although the sloped sides result in a wider face. The metal grilles give them what I consider to be a more handsome appearance, as well, and the aluminum top and bottom plates are a really nice aesthetic touch that I hadn't expected. I've had them installed for several weeks now, but our busy schedules had limited opportunities to really crank the system up and listen loud. Without that true test, my initial feelings were very positive, though. The surrounds seemed more natural and integrated when watching 5.1 sources, which is likely a combination of the dipole design (mine are set for "diffuse" operation rather than "direct") and the performance of the speakers themselves.

Left Surround

Then last week I had some work done on my right hip. The three large screws that were installed in May 2008 came out, and some other work was done to the head of my femur in hopes of slowing or halting the signs of necrosis likely caused by my fall last year. I was left to sit at home for a few days, and on Monday (the first day that I really had the place to myself) I queued up two Blu-rays to give the system a good workout: Transformers 2 and The Dark Knight. I had my BDP-83 set to bitstream over HDMI (a setting that fluctuates from time to time and is actually set to LPCM more often than not), and my Onkyo 885 defaulted to straight decoding of the lossless 5.1 tracks from both discs. I decided not to overlay Pro Logic IIx (which is my usual choice) in order to evaluate just the 5.1 performance without any additional contribution from the Studio ADP back surrounds.

My original expectations for the first Transformers movie were very, very low, and I rented it from Netflix simply out of curiosity. As such, I really was pleasantly surprised to get a somewhat silly, slightly over-long, generally fun summer action movie. That wasn't enough to cause me to actually try to see the sequel in theaters, though, so this was my first viewing of Transformers 2. The soundtrack was as lively and theater-testing as one would expect, and several times I found myself noticing that the surround effects were more open and non-localized (for lack of a better term) with the SL's. Never did I find myself thinking, "there is the speaker" and being able to pinpoint either of the surrounds. They did the job of creating an enveloping mix admirably. In that regard, they were a definite upgrade. The Dark Knight (the only movie of 2008 that I actually succeeded in seeing in theaters while encumbered by my broken hip) just reinforced that assessment. They did a great job handling the back of the room. The inactive rear surrounds really weren't missed.

On Tuesday, I lost almost half of the day to a conference call for work, but I was still at home. That gave me a chance to try out the new Up Blu-ray. This allowed me to get some idea of the effectiveness of the SL's at blending with the Outlaw speakers that provide the front trio (BLS fronts and LCR in the center). Little things like the knocks on Carl's front door were stretched into the right surround, and they were so well voiced that twice I wondered why someone was knocking on my deck door.

With the arrival of the SL's, I finally have side surrounds that are the equal of the other speakers in the room. At some point, I will replace my Paradigm ADP's with a second pair of SL's that I will most likely operate in "direct" mode as rear surrounds.

I initially was reluctant to upgrade my front speakers, as the Paradigm Studios are still very good speakers. Eventually, I decided to give the Outlaw speakers a try, see how they compared to my familiar old Paradigms. There was some uncertainty involved in this process, as the Paradigms were both good speakers and much larger speakers (particular the Studio 60 towers). Happily, it took very little time to convince me that my reluctance was unfounded. The Bookshelves and their LCR sibling have been a rousing success for both me and my wife. I am contemplating the idea of looking into a set of black B-stock Bookshelves for side surround duty, as a replacement for my Axiom M3ti's, but at this point it is mostly a matter of collecting the funds and waiting on B-stock availability (feel bad about the very idea of drillig holes in A-stock to mount them in my side surround positions). Hopefully before 2008 comes to an end, I'll have switched to a pair of Outlaw Bookshelves for my side surrounds.

Even without delving into the world of ultra-high dollar speakers, there are a lot of good speakers available today. I dare say there are more than a few really great speakers, for that matter, and we could devote a whole paragraph just to naming some of the well-regarded companies that have been building high quality speakers for years and even decades. More recently, the internet direct business model has been well suited to the speaker and subwoofer business, perhaps even moreso than to the electronics business. Outlaw is a bit unusual in this regard, as they started out with internet-direct electronics (still a somewhat rare approach) before eventually adding subwoofers and only recently trying their hand at speakers. At $1,000/pair ($1,100 in the cherry finish) for the Bookshelves and $650 each ($700 in the cherry) for the LCR, Outlaw's speakers are competing in a market that includes no shortage of great offerings, so trying to carve out a presence there is no modest undertaking. It may come as no surprise, then, that in spite of their relatively small size these Outlaws are no modest speakers, either. With a construction and appearance that satisfies the spouse and the sound quality that I demanded, I expect these to remain in the system for many years to come.