Teasing difference by contrast. On top-end radiance and incisiveness, Mundorf's pleated tweeter in the Acelec outshone Raidho's planar. In a direct A/B that sounded just a tad overcast. Had it been a fully turned-on true ribbon like a Raal, that aspect should have unfurled more. On its peculiar widebanderish forward projection especially with vocals, the SuperMon Mini's aluminium-alloy 4-incher from Mark Audio held the ace card. On color saturation and upper-bass crack, that went to the radially slashed cellulose ScanSpeak of the Acelec in its thick full-metal cab. The Dutch played it most dynamic and materialized. The Korean projected the most. The Dane was—the spec brigade cringes—the most beautiful. To point at what made it so, I'll toss words like supple, elastic, effortless, easeful, suave and sweet into the blender. Served with Bing cherry. Cheers. To make the woke brigade cringe, let's call it feminine not masculine. While nothing prevented it from doing angular edgy jagged music and very well, thank you, the elegant slightly rosy touch remained. It was decidedly not silvery, platinum or worse, gray-ish like the actual membranes.

Whatever freelancer had overseen/heard the X1t's final voicing knew exactly how to bend ingredients apparently tweaked for precision, speed and cutting power to his/her will and implement a course correction. I call it that out of presumptiveness. The AGD speakers I heard went the other way. They likely continued where Michael Børresen's Raidho tenure left off. It's immaterial of course, academic at best. Only intimate observers of both brands across their full timelines would know. What matters is stressing this to correctly steer expectations. Viva la difference. If it makes sense to you, the X1t's quickness struck me more as my dad's burgundy Miata than an ex-girlfriend's fiberglass-body Corvette in fire-engine red. For a family man, one went fast enough with zero flash. The other went real fast but wasn't as comfy. It also proved high maintenance and the bright sun of L.A. faded its color. Perhaps think of the X1t as a sporty cabriolet for real-world roads, not a high-strung affair for wannabe speedsters on the pristine race track? How did it compare to the sound|kaos 4-driver 3-way monitor that usually holds court in our downstairs?

With its horizontally opposed 5¼" force-cancelling carbon woofers, the Swiss was meatier and cracked harder in the upper bass. Below the big Ripol sub equalized all differences. Above the cellulose AlNiCo mid in its bronze basket did chunkier tone for more materialized colors. The Raidho was far from pale on that score, just a bit more vegan than meaty. sound|kaos run their mid as a widebander so into the lower treble. Their ribbon thus acts more super tweeter; a bit like Zu's. Then the Swiss fires at the ceiling as a 360° reflector. That played its bandwidth less direct than the frontal Raidho tweeter which won the battle of the airs. Compared to my Raal ribbon headphones alas—proximity matters!—all of my speaker tweeters come in a far second. First of those seconds is the Dutchie's AMT on dynamics and brilliance.

In terms of apparent projection power which differs from a subjective 'over there' stage perspective, the sound|kaos leaned more forward than the relaxed set-back Raidho. Though the Dane was relatively tiny just like my residents, it decidedly wasn't tinny. Given how for its small cubic volume and driver common wisdom predicts a lightweight tipped-up tonal balance, the design team in Pandrup clearly counter-steered such tendencies. You might protest that my sub addition renders all such comments null and void. I assure you that such differences telegraph regardless if admittedly less than otherwise. On that score, the Korean MonAcoustic is unlistenable without a sub unless placed within 20cm of a front wall to trigger necessary boundary gain in the mid bass. The Acelec just crosses the 40Hz divide, the sound|kaos does about 35Hz. For all realistic expectations, those two are complete solo. The Raidho isn't; or very borderline at best. For upscale stereo 2.1 fans, that's precisely its appeal. Built-in limitation honestly publicized means that we don't buy more bandwidth than we need. We just want to reach the 80Hz transition from upper bass to mid bass to focus our expense on two premium drivers above it. Hello X1t.