Hard. Harder. Hardest. As one observes Raidho under Dantax then the Børresen offshoot, one can't fail to see shared enthusiasm for cutting-edge vapor deposits on driver cones. With the lab of the Aalborg university's Tribology Center nearby, both firms enjoy access to the necessary equipment and personnel. One un-wholly grail of speaker drivers is the conflicting requirement of low mass, stiffness and self damping. Paper pulp remains popular because it's quite stiff, well damped and its cones can be fabricated with variable thickness even struts à la Eton Orchestra range. Metallic equivalents may be lighter and stiffer but they all oscillate eventually—their so-called breakup mode—to fall short on self damping. Enter constrained-layer damping which bonds dissimilar materials together. We might see a very light air-filled foam core surfaced in ultra-thin metal or carbon skins. Key is the specific material combo. When joined, divergent behaviors should accentuate their positives (hakuna matata!) and mitigate the negatives. For example, Monitor Audio's new Platinum G3 models adopt ceramic-coated aluminium/magnesium diaphragms with a Nomex honeycomb core and twin layers of unidirectional then 90° turned carbon fiber. Magico coat their best beryllium tweeter with diamond. Børresen's M1 cone gets an aramid core with spread-tow carbon skins then a titanium coating with layers of zirconium, tungsten and finally aluminum chrome nitride.
Raidho's X1t mid/woofer and the planar film with etched voice coil as shown at Munich 2022 by sales manager Morten Kim Nielsen.
As we learnt on the previous page, Raidho's dynamic TD driver is a similar amalgam of multi-layered materials. They were selected to make its surface maximally hard, bake in damping, remain as light as feasible and push the first breakup mode far beyond the bandwidth across which the driver is used. Stiff is good, brittle isn't and shallower filter slopes place fewer parts in the signal path. In Raidho's world of applied surface sciences, the combination of aluminum, aluminum oxide, tantalum and diamond is their current apex predator for precision, speed and impact. After all, having a 6-inch 'woofer' play bass applies more stress to its shuddering surface than it does to the dual 15-inchers of our cardioid subwoofer. Harder wins to resist surface deformation under big excursions when bass gets loud. Hiring a university lab to use its ultra-tech machinery for days on end just to shine up extremist drive units for exclusive loudspeakers… well, that comes at an obvious cost. That's particularly so for Denmark as one of Europe's most expensive countries to live in. To get synthetic diamond not just on a tweeter but far larger mid/woofer thus adds copiously to the sticker.
Our mission today simply requires us to be made of sterner stuff than wince 'n' whine. Instead we'll wine 'n' dine Oscar style and take a walk on the Wilde side.
What's good for the goose is good for the gander. Easy does it. If you sweat the design of drivers with minimal energy absorption in the first place—a barely-there quasi ribbon with mega magnets, a mid/woofer that keeps up being monstrously hung magnetically as well—why bolt them to a high-mass stand which stores energy quite effectively?
At least that's a question Raidho ask to prefer deliberately low-mass stands. Rather than hold on and absorb, they're believed to let go; and quickly. We've seen the same theme reappear at Børresen and even Swiss brands Boenicke and sound|kaos practice it to the consternation of high-mass believers. I've read more than one comment which poked fun or fired heavy derision at their skinny perches.
When bigger and heavier is no longer best, it's their kind which beckon. And when you're done with monkey coffins and pseudo refrigerators in the living room, an attractive monitor of top pedigree begins to wink at you. Seductively. But will you dare wink back?
As the breeder lady said to him when we picked up our then reluctant Bengal kitty at 10 weeks old, "you must be brave. Be brave and go with these good people." Chai Baba allowed himself to be picked up. Judging by the amount of daily purrs, he's never regretted it since. Meow!
[At left an example of a hardwired Raidho crossover board with German Mundorf parts.]
A technical Raidho meow is using the metallic speaker baffles to directly attach their driver surrounds to. It bins the usual rim/baffle interface with its extra bolts and gasket seals. No stone unturned comes to mind. If drivers are what drives loudspeakers, then Raidho appear to have the necessary drive to design proper ones for the racetrack. By now we're crystal. Unlike Accuton's 90mm diamond driver, Raidho only apply a final molecular layer atop other metals and ceramic which act as the main cone or substrate. Were it otherwise, the TD1.2's price would be a lot higher still.
Well-vented low-reflection TD 6" mid/woofer, motor struts bolting directly to aluminium baffle.
