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Without realizing at what SPL we were listening, we had been pushing the 90dB mark due to the Galaxy's ability of enveloping us in the music with the greatest of ease. Here the setting of the foam deflectors proved critical. Contrary to Alaksandar's suggestion of reshaping the dispersion pattern towards a stronger spherical shape, we much preferred the sound when the foam blocks sat at the top and bottom extremes of the tweeter. In this configuration the soundstage was taller and the illusion of a high and wide concert venue very very real. No doubt this special baffle’s shape and texture contribute to the ribbon's dispersion to perhaps reset more common positioning for the foam deflectors.

With a ribbon tweeter like the Raal 140-15D, a speaker can hardly go wrong above 2400Hz. However there’s a lot of musical information below that frequency and here the trick becomes to integrate that signal flawlessly with the super-fast upper three octaves. This reflects back on the choice of matching driver, enclosure shape and structure and the make-or-break-it brain of the speaker that is the crossover.

Playing modern pop music is very undemanding. It's playing small and large orchestral works which puts any system to the true test. The BBC recording of Borodin’s Polovtsian Dances performed by the Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Chorus or the Pentatone recordings of Bram Beekman playing a variety of German organ works on the large 1782 De Rijckere organ are just two examples which flawlessly passed this test whilst provided plenty of musical pleasure. Down to the lowest reach of the 16’ organ pipes the Galaxy Ultimate tracked the input signal without audible deviation. On the other end of the spectrum the Raal never showed any harshness while the mid/woofer's activities of the ceramic Accuton down to 80Hz connected the two extremes beautifully together.


Further listening had the Trafomatic Kaivalya EL84-based monos replace the Ncores. With just a fraction of the Ncores' power, the only difference was the need to up the output of the XXHighEnd software a notch or two to let the tubes work their miracle. These are valve amplifiers which lack any tubby tube-iness of colorations or softening. Even with their theoretically handicapped 25wpc the Galaxy Ultimate could be driven hard. Be it Mercan Dede, Hadouk Trio or certain Buddha Bar remixes with ample sub bass, we encountered no problems. The main difference to the D-class Ncores was transient speed. Here Ncore remains lord and master.


Another streaming option on hand is embedded in the Devialet D-Premier via input from iTunes over Devialet AIR software running on a Mac. With its all-in-one concept the D-Premier is one solitary smart device which visually matched beautiful with the shiny finish of the Galaxy Ultimate. Sonically too this was a great match and the D-Premier showed that its hybrid class A/D concept delivers the speed and power necessary to create an involving musical experience. Things got better still when we added our second D-Premier and slaved it to the first. Now each speaker had its own dedicated supply of up to 500 watts (version 5.7 of the D-Premier software). This setup rivaled the XXHighEnd/Phasure/Ncore system a great deal but in the end we had to admit superiority for the Dutch trio especially where high-power female flamenco vocals and full-throttle brasses were concerned. Just like highly sensitive hornspeakers, the Raal ribbon tweeter is merciless in its honesty. Even the tiniest flaw hiding somewhere up the chain is revealed. Another potential spoiler besides incendiary flamenco voices was flamenco fire-cracker foot work called zapateado.


To give old-fashioned CD playing a spin, we included our PS Audio PWT transport and matching PWD DAC to the mix. Though this DAC has a form of volume control, it operates in the digital domain to chop off bits which degrades the signal. Whenever steep attenuation is needed, the sound gets too brittle and tinny. To overcome this a preamplifier is mandatory. At the time of the review we had use of a Trafomatic Reference One or our integrated Audio Note Meishu running Western Electric 300B tubes.