X2.6

This review first appeared in March 2025 on fairaudio.de. By request of the manufacturer and permission of the author, it is hereby syndicated from the German original to reach a broader English audience. Ed.

Reviewer: Ralph Werner
Analogue sources: SME Model 15 & 309, Denon DL-103R, Dynavector DV-20X2H, Transrotor Figaro, Shelter 201, Flux-Hifi needle cleaner, VPI HW/16.5 record cleaner
Digital sources: Rockna Wavelightm Antipodes K22 G4, Pink Faun LAN isolator
Preamplifier: Electrocompaniet EC 4.8MkII, Pass XP-12, BMC Audio MCCI Signature ULN phono
Power amplifiers: Electrocompaniet AW 800M, Pass Labs X250.8
Speakers: Acapella BassoNobile MkII
Cables: Dyrholm Audio Phoenix, fis Audio Studioline, Boaacoustic Blueberry Signal, Vovox, Audioquest Cinnamon and Vodka 48, Boaacoustic Silver Digital Xeno USB, fis Audio Magic LAN, Wireworld Series 7 Starlight Gold coax, fis Audio Blackmagic and Studioline
Rack: Creaktiv Trend 3 on bFly Audio b.DISC spike mounts, Stack Audio Auva EQ isolators
Accessories: Audes ST-3000 Power Conditioner (isolation transformer)
Listening room: 40m² with 2.45m ceiling
Review component retail: €21'000/pr in high-gloss black or white, add €2'000 for Walnut veneer

Little big speaker. "Do good then talk about it" is a well-known PR motto. But sometimes talking is silver, touching gold. Standard MO of any Raidho demonstration at trade fairs is handing a raw driver to the audience. That is accompanied by respectful head nods as the item gets knowingly passed around. Not only are these things astonishingly heavy, it's crystal that they didn't fall off a turnip truck at a mail-order DIY parts supply. Our Danes are proud to not only develop their own drivers but manually fabricate them in-house. So the mantra "one man, one speaker" applies not just to final assembly. The chassis too are manufactured in the small town of Pandrup in northern Jutland. This is by no means common practice for loudspeaker manufacture and certainly not for smaller representatives of the trade where Raidho employ a team of ~25. Since this doesn't occur in the Far East but far north in a country with enviable social standards and high quality of life, it's obvious that Raidho speakers must remain quite exclusive. The entry into their world is the compact X1T at €5'800/pr. The current top X model of today demands €21'000 and variants beyond white and black add €2'000. But all this is chicken feed compared to the TD range which kicks off in this region then peaks at the oxygen-starved altitude of €235K, a good 10 x more than today's attraction.

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After unpacking, it quickly becomes clear that the X2.6 focuses on quality over quantity. It weighs 30kg, stands 106cm tall and typical for Raidho, is quite narrow at 26cm and of average depth at 41cm. So we deal with a normal to compact floorstander. Most examples in this price range are likely larger. There's nothing wrong with that. Not everyone can or wants to stare at large speakers yet still not compromise on sound quality. A few things stand out about Raidho's housing, first off the shape made from 21mm MDF panels. It tapers towards the back which looks very stylish and adds stiffness. Then each driver has its own baffle since these transducers mount direct to solid aluminium plates which then bond to the MDF front. Further down outriggers catch the eye with a clever solution. The X2.6 shuns spikes in favour of roller-ball decouplers which just for being easily adjusted from the top had my immediate blessing. Around the just 3.5cm narrow spine sits a somewhat unusual bass-reflex slot subdivided into eight cells to maximize airflow. But Raidho also include cute little foam bungs for each tight channel to help regulate in-room bass. More on that anon. Last but not least, simple single-wire speaker terminals gripped my Dyrholm bananas like a lockjaw. However, spade disciples might want a bit more clearance and slightly larger contact patches.

The X2.6 is a 2½-way design, the 2nd-order Linkwitz-Riley filter a 3'500Hz affair separating tweeter and upper mid/woofer. The identical lower dynamic unit enters at 140Hz for mere woofer duty. Raidho's sales & marketing manager Morten Nielsen points us at high-quality Mundorf parts soldered point to point with Nordost as is the internal hookup wiring. Not a bad choice. The basis of the trademark Raidho sound is of course the proprietary driver tech and the first thing to mention is the magnetostatic tweeter whose zig-zag voice-coil traces on the 11µm just 20mg foil require no ribbon-style impedance-matching transformer. As Nielsen explains, this membrane's moving mass is about 50 x lighter than a standard dome tweeter for superior resolution and almost no distortion. Resonance issues aka breakup modes only begin at 82kHz so octaves beyond the audible bandwidth. Routinely designers working with planar drivers encounter integration problems because, put bluntly, their blazing impulse response can have conventional mid/woofers seem to lag for a mismatched ensemble performance. To counter this, Raidho exploit ultra-strong neodymium motors, aerodynamically shaped cones and baskets and titanium voice-coil formers. For today's X-range 6½" driver, the membrane is aluminium coated with aluminium-oxide aka ceramic skins on either side. This too upshifts the first breakup mode to 12'500Hz well beyond the 3.5kHz filter transition. Given compact dimensions and high price, my first suspicion was that the X2.6 is an audiophile speaker for not very large  rooms. My follow-on suspicion was that it might sound a bit thin in my 40m² which acoustically sounds more like 80. Well… what you see is not what you get here. I don't know how it managed but "thin" was the last thing to mind after the first few bars. Piano, drums, double basses, the Raidho put it all in the room with so much substance as to mock its slim appearance. In fact the bass was a bit too much of a good thing for me. But that was with all reflex channels open. Remember? There are eight per speaker and each can be sealed with a foam plug. If you seal all, bass output drops by 6dB we're told so closing four attenuates by 3 decibels or half. Such flexibility invites investigation so my first hour with the X2.6 did just that.

As mentioned, for me fully open meant a bit too much bass whilst fully sealed did too little. I ended up with three plugs per speaker which created my most harmonious overall tonal balance and that of the bass itself. Your results will predictably differ, hence having this tuning provision is a great asset. It reminded me a little of the €13'800/pr Klangheim Gloria which instead of pluggable ports uses passive radiators with user-fittable weights to manipulate their resonant frequency. Bottom line, this still compact Raidho can play larger rooms if in doubt while the Klangheim offers a little more grip and contour. Both speakers serve the bass rather semi-sec but the Raidho gets a little softer at the bottom. It's actually amazing that with these dimensions it goes so deep in the first place. Of course bass textures interlink with quantity. The more plugs I stuffed into the X2.6, the drier and not just leaner the bass became. Interim conclusion: the Raidho X2.6 is a slim compact floorstander for normal to large rooms. With closed ports it can certainly be used in rooms under 20m² but why buy bass first only to significantly cut it down later? There I'd rather go for one of the smaller X models.