Indoor/Outdoor wireless speakers with an old school look is the best way to describe the Grace Schooners wireless speakers. These speakers are designed with a classic look but don’t let the nostalgic design fool you, there is a lot of modern technology at play in the Schooners. Each speaker contains a 4 inch main speaker along with a 1 1/2 inch tweeter producing 7 1/2 watts of output. These components are all housed inside a weatherproof, splash-resistant container that meets International Weather Proofing Standards (Level IPX3). You can power the speakers using the included power cord or 8 C-cell batteries in each speaker. Typically you can expect around seven hours of usage on a fresh set of batteries. The battery compartment is on the back of the speaker which you may want to consider if you decide to wall mount your Schooners. The look of the speakers is clean, with a white casing and a silver grill on the front. A convenient volume control, bass-boost button, auto-tune button, and power switch are located on each speaker.
The sound is transmitted to the speakers using 900 MHZ wireless technology and you can get a maximum of 150 feet away from the transmitter with each speaker. There are three channels to select from within the 900 MHZ frequency and you can experiment with each channel using the switch on the back of the transmitter if you are experiencing any interference when listening. You connect your audio device to the back of the transmitter using either the 3.5mm audio in jack or via the RCA cable connection. You have a lot of flexibility in how you set up the transmitter because it can be powered by plugging it into a wall outlet or by using 4 AA batteries as well. Since it can be battery powered you can actually just set your MP3 player directly on the transmitter and have a cable-free wireless audio setup in your house. You can add up to a total of ten Schooners to one transmitter (they are generally sold in pairs) so there will be no limit to where you can have your music inside and outside your house. The transmitter is also compatible with the Grace Aqua Sounder wireless speaker so you can actually have a speaker in the pool or hot tub along with your other ideal speaker locations.
The Grace Schooners also come with a remote control that allows you to turn the speakers off, initiate an auto-tune, activate the bass boost, and of course adjust the volume. The only deficiency with the remote is that it won’t power the speakers back on once they have turned off. This comes into play in particular if the auto off feature has activated. After four minutes of no audio the transmitter will go into a “standby” mode and the LED will turn to green. The speakers connected to the transmitter will also go into standby at this point. After five minutes of standby the speaker will shut off and you will have to go to it in order to power it back up. The speaker will reactivate however if sound returns while it is still in standby.
You’ll be able to set the wireless speaker system up quickly by connecting your audio device to the transmitter. When the transmitter detects an audio signal it will illuminate a blue LED and then you can hit the auto tune button on the speaker to make sure it connects to the transmitter. That is really all it takes to get things up and running with the Grace Schooners.