Review: McIntosh RS200 Wireless Loudspeaker System

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The RS200 is McIntosh’s next-generation home audio wireless speaker. It delivers room-filling sound for the modern streaming lifestyle, packing virtually everything you need to enjoy music streamed from handheld devices, digital libraries online or on a local computer, or even legacy audio sources. It even connects to your TV.

With 650 total watts of power getting pumped into 8 drivers (two 4x6” woofers, four 2” midrange speakers, and two ¾” tweeters), you get authentic sound from a single-point solution. Plus, the available subwoofer output and 3 position EQ switch offer even more versatility in setup.

McIntosh RS200 Wireless Loudspeaker System

McIntosh RS200 Wireless Loudspeaker System

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Video Transcript

"Hi, everyone. It's Adam with World Wide Stereo. Today, I want to showcase a wireless loudspeaker system from McIntosh, the RS200. ♪ [music] ♪So this is the McIntosh RS200. It is a wireless loudspeaker system.

Built on board with this, you're going to get 650 watts of total power. You get a left speaker and a right speaker here, each with two midrange drivers and a tweeter. And you have two four-by-six long-throw woofers. This thing really has got some bass going on. Some of the wireless streaming things that are built on to this thing, first and foremost, you have Apple AirPlay 2. You have all the latest versions of Bluetooth supporting up aptX.

Also DTS Play-Fi, and it's DLNA certified for music sharing with a computer. So not only can you stream music to this guy, but also, on the back of it, you have a slew of inputs, one of which is an HDMI connection to connect to your TV. You can add a subwoofer to this and also another pair of McIntosh RS100 speakers if you want to put them in the back of the room and do a wireless surround sound system.

So on the front of the unit, as I mentioned, you have your two speakers, and on each side, again, you're going to have the two midrange drivers and the tweeter. You'll have the same on the other side. And these are the same drivers you'll find in all the McIntosh speakers. Next to the speakers, you'll have your first control knob here which allows you to switch between all of your inputs of either streaming something from the network or accessing some of the connections on the back, which I'll go over later.

You also can press and hold this button, and by turning it, you can turn down the brightness of the machine. The other knob over here, you're going to get volume control, and that's your master on-off button as well. Neat stuff on the top actually, you'll have some presets, 1, 2, 3, and 4. And by using the DTS Play-Fi app, you could set preset 1 as a Pandora station, preset 2 as a Spotify channel, anything you want on the top here that's inside the DTS Play-Fi app for quick, easy access.

You don't always have to grab the app on the phone and open it up to make this thing work. You can just press one of the buttons on the top. The unit will come with its own remote control. And you have volume control, you can access your presets on here as well, and then you have input selection, a night mode, which will actually calm the lights down here with a press of that button. So you have a lip-sync control here.

If you connect this thing to your TV with HDMI, sometimes, the mouth moving on the screen sometimes doesn't match up with the audio that you're hearing. So they have built in an adjustment for that right here. And if you're playing music files, you have your standard navigation controls of play and pause, track forward, trackback. So if I look in at the back, let's take a look at the input section. Starting from the left, you see all your inputs you have available to you.

Some of the common ones there, obviously, you have an optical input. Now, you have a USB input on this thing if you wanted to connect to a computer and do some hi-res audio streaming from a computer or a laptop. You can connect it right there. Of course, again, you have the optical input, which is great for a lot of different kinds of sources, and a standard auxiliary analog headphone jack style input there.

You'll notice, you have an EQ switch, okay. They give you three options, freestanding, wall, or table. And that's going to be whenever you set it up. If you set it up sitting on a table, like I have here, you're going to want to put it on table. If you put it upwards on a table but also close to the wall, you want to set it for that. And freestanding, if there's really no obstructions around, you would set it to freestanding.

And that's going to change the EQ of the system. Ultimately, it's your choice, but you'll at least be in the right ballpark, I think, if you utilize the switches. So that's a nice feature for this machine. I want to talk about the HDMI input on this thing. So it has an HDMI input and it uses ARC. ARC stands for audio return channel. With a compatible TV with the same technology of ARC, you can send the audio from your TV down to this machine, and the coolest part is that your remote control for that TV or your cable box or satellite dish remote control, whatever you're using, will control the volume of this with literally no programming.

You don't have to do anything. You just plug in the HDMI cable, turn on those HDMI settings of control, and away you go. Next to it, you'll see that CEC defeat. CEC, consumer electronics control. That's the technology I'm talking about. You can turn it on or off based on your needs. If you don't want that feature, simply turn it off.

On the bottom, you have a Wi-Fi reset. In case you move it from home to home and you need to reset the Wi-Fi information that's built into this thing, you can do that right there. And you also have a subwoofer output. I mentioned earlier, if you wanted to add wireless rears to this machine for a full surround sound system, you do that within the DTS Play-Fi app.

By setting up those RS100 speakers, standalone speakers, you'll then have the option to pair that with this machine and have a wireless surround sound system. So I've been listening to this unit for a while, and I got to say, I can find a lot of applications that I could use this. I can see myself using this in a bedroom, or maybe in a living room as part of background music for, you know, that living room space when you're entertaining.

You can use it as a really nice little wireless surround sound system and partner it with a TV. The control is easy, and the app control with the DTS Play-Fi app is great. You can pair it with other DTS Play-Fi products for wireless music around the house. Really thought this product through, this thing is great. This is the McIntosh RS200. Please don't forget to look at all of our other McIntosh videos that we have. Currently, this item is only available to be viewed online.

If you'd like to purchase it, you need to come into either our Montgomeryville or Ardmore, Pennsylvania showrooms. We are an authorized dealer for everything McIntosh that we sell. If you have any questions, you can leave them in the comments section below, or please call us or email us at any time. Please subscribe to our YouTube channel and follow us on all of our social media channels. This is Adam with World Wide Stereo, reminding you to listen to music every day. So long."

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