What are they like to use?
Fitting
The SRL2, not surprisingly, was fairly straightforward to fit — everything slotted into pre-prepared locations. The 20S Evo was trickier – you have to mount the clamp and run the wires out of the way.
Putting the GT-AIR II on with the SRL2 fitted, it was impossible to notice the speakers. However, the speakers on the 20S Evo had hard-plastic supports round the wire entry and would not sit flush in the Shoei RYD'S cut-outs and needed spacing up, which meant they interfered with the ear-lobes.
Operation
The 20S Evo has a dial for volume which you push for music on and off or intercom call; push and turn to change tracks and a button on the back for taking calls or activating voice dial. With thicker gloves on, it’s actually quite tricky to work out what control you’re about to push. The SRL2 uses three buttons; + and – either side of a raised central button. Control is actually a bit easier than the 20S Evo, once you remember what combination does what. The buttons are easy to use, even with thick gloves on.
Sound quality
The sound quality on the 20S is very good; volume is plentiful and the quality of music coming through is perfectly acceptable. Call quality is absolutely fine at both ends, with little in the way of external noise being picked up. The sound quality on the SRL2, particularly with music, is excellent — clear mids and highs and punchy bass. However, the volume was nowhere near high enough. There is a ‘boost’ setting within the app that increases the maximum but quality suffers. Call quality is OK inside the helmet but not as clear as the 20S Evo at the other end — there’s break-up and external noise coming through.
Intercom operation
We paired the 20S Evo and the SRL2 together to test compatibility and quality of the intercom function and gradually increased the distance between the two units. Apparently it is possible to connect both to non-sena units but we couldn’t get that to work. Usable distance between the two is determined by the shortest range of the two (1.2 miles on the SRL2) and in clear line of sight, we had crystal-clear speech over a direct distance of 0.55km at which point, the signal began to break up. A single button push started conversation and another ended it, with either unit instigating or ending the conversation.