Raidho Acoustics • XT5 Loudspeakers

by Roy Gregory | August 26, 2019

© www.theaudiobeat.com

History is littered with examples of rebels who have grown up to become solid citizens, even pillars of the community. As art imitates reality, so the audio industry reflects wider human endeavors, with one-time revolutionaries tending to either disappear or find a permanent place in the landscape. That evolution is generally public, often a little chaotic and occasionally downright painful.

Few companies have worn their growing pains quite as publicly as Raidho Acoustics, not least because of the founders’ unquestionable talent for self-promotion. Lars Kristiansen (longtime demonstrator for Nordost cables) teamed up with designer Michael Borresen to create an innovative and challenging product line. The rest, as they say, is history.

The pair’s original Eben speakers were definitely different, combining much of the immediacy of horn designs with the bandwidth (if not the low coloration) that comes from boxes. They were blocky in appearance and uneven in performance, but, musically speaking, there was no escaping their appeal. They were clearly doing something right -- something that was escaping an awful lot of other speakers. The Eben series was rapidly superseded by the next-generation Raidho line, with prettier curved cabinets, machined-aluminum baffles, improved detailing and finishing and -- inevitably -- higher prices. The sonic results were more even and better balanced, although some of that sheer immediacy had been lost along the way.

Despite improvements in overall balance, the speakers were still unpredictable performers, capable of spectacular results in one context while disappointing in another. Much of the problem appeared to be with the bass alignment, a proposition supported by the fact that the speakers were often demonstrated as far from boundaries as possible, the bigger the speaker, the less predictable the results. The two-way stand-mount was always the most impressive of the Raidho speakers, although, even here, the emergence of the C1.1 model to replace the original C1.0 divided opinion. I for one found the C1.1 a major step forward, at least in my large listening room, while others with less space found themselves preferring the original version.

The heart of the Raidho speakers was always the drivers, a planar-magnetic tweeter paired with the innovative Ceramix bass-midrange driver whose surround glued straight on to the front of the machined baffle, while the massively vented motor and spider bolted directly to the rear, thus eliminating the conventional basket and seriously shortening the mechanical path from motor to cabinet. The driver used a ceramic diaphragm, but one formed with far deeper ceramic skins than usual around its aluminum core, creating a critically damped sandwich structure that certainly sounded quite different from other ceramic driver designs. The use of an extended array of neodymium magnets to create a long-throw, underhung voice coil delivered the speed of response necessary for the midband to keep pace with the planar tweeter; and if none of these developments was itself groundbreaking, the combination of them all into a single design certainly was. It certainly caught the imagination of both the press and public.

Unfortunately, the design was also not without its problems, which emerged in the field and were perhaps exacerbated by the rather gung-ho marketing approach of the principals. The tweeter proved to be fragile, a situation that wasn’t helped by ambitious claims for power handling, while there was too great an emphasis on generating new, ever more expensive products, rather than servicing and supporting the existing ones. At least that’s my reading of the situation. Whatever the underlying facts, that imbalance between innovation and business acumen was to prove fatal, and despite positive press, the company soon got into financial difficulties, the assets ultimately being acquired by Dantax Radio, a highly successful mainstream manufacturer also based, like Raidho, in Denmark.

In many ways, this is where this Raidho story begins, hence the history lesson so essential to understanding how we got here, how Raidho has fundamentally changed, and how those original diamonds in the rough have developed into today’s much more impressive products. What Dantax bought was an array of different-sized driver designs, with their associated ceramic coating technologies (deep ceramic skins in the X and C series, the stiffer synthetic-diamond skins of the D series), along with a problematic existing product line and a disgruntled distribution and customer base. These were the sort of business problems the company understood only too well, problems that they set about resolving. One problem, however, proved insuperable: the original Raidho team proved reluctant to buckle down to a more corporate, more answerable business model and, ultimately, the parting of the ways was inevitable. Before that happened, Dantax imported additional, traditional loudspeaker engineering expertise to supplement and underpin the innovative thinking and maverick tendencies that had created the original Raidho designs. They instigated a budget line under the Dantax umbrella but based on the Raidho tweeter technology and dynamic-driver thinking (the impressive and impressively cost-effective, carbon-coned Scansonic MB series -- see sidebar) and set about re-engineering the existing C- and D-series designs.

The first fruit of those endeavors was the C1.2 (where better to start?), and it proved a remarkable vindication of both the original design and the added value of solid engineering. With greater musical presence, better integration and significantly improved rhythmic expression, the C1.2 was finally the speaker that the C1.0 should always have been, irrespective of the room it found itself in. So much of those benefits revolve around the crossover and bass alignment that it is tempting to suggest that all the Raidho speakers ever needed was a healthy injection of traditional loudspeaker savvy to leaven their cutting-edge attitude.

Which brings us, somewhat belatedly, to the subject of this review, the new XT5, an all-new design that both marks and is marketed as a departure by the company. The XT5 and its more affordable brother, the X5 (which I’ll get to later), are the first products produced entirely by the new design team. They also showcase the company’s latest technology in terms of cone composition, which helps explain how the XT5, the product that finds itself on the top rung of the company’s lowest ladder, also manages to be -- temporarily, at least -- arguably Raidho's best balanced, most musically accomplished and most complete product to date. Perhaps recognizing this slightly uncomfortable reality, Raidho has gone the extra mile when it comes to the finish and presentation of the speaker, and the XT5 looks as different to the rest of the X series and just as impressive as it sounds.

In some respects, the X series is the bastard child in the Raidho range. Its name is a carryover from the original, blocky Eben designs, its rationale from the emergence of the later Raidho series. Designed to bring Raidho technology and performance to a lower price level, it adopted a simplified, boat-backed cabinet and baffle arrangement together with a smaller footprint, while pairing the familiar Raidho planar tweeter with a new, smaller 4” Ceramix sandwich cone driver. The smaller, lighter cone always afforded potential advantages when it came to speed and integration, the tradeoff being the need to generate sufficient scale and weight to be musically convincing. The industry-standard response to this conundrum has always been to simply double up and use more of the small drivers, and when it came time for Raidho’s new design team to flex their creative muscles, that’s exactly what they did.

In designing a new top model for the X series, they took that approach to the logical extreme, employing six of the 4” drivers per cabinet. But there’s a lot more to this speaker than just a bunch of drivers. The drivers themselves (both tweeters and bass/midrange units) might look just like the ones used in earlier X-series speakers, but they have actually been extensively evolved from those original units, with more powerful motors and almost double the power handling. More important still is that "T" in the speaker’s title. It indicates the use of titanium in a new seven-layer sandwich that takes the place of the three-layer aluminum/ceramic sandwich used for the original Ceramix drivers. That cone technology lives on in the revised X-series models, speakers that incorporate all the other driver and cabinet updates listed here, including the improved dynamic response and power handling. But a bit more money gets you the equivalent XT version of each model -- and musically speaking, that’s not a small difference.

The XT cones start life as standard Ceramix parts but then add two additional layers to each side of the existing three-layer cone. In a high-temperature sputter deposition process, a precisely calculated mix of titanium and titanium nitride particles are deposited on each side, before that process is repeated to create the final seven-layer sandwich, a construction that delivers superior self-damping, a lower fundamental resonance and a stiffer overall structure. The goal was to approach the performance of the diamond cones used in the flagship D series at a fraction of the cost. In setting that target, Raidho may not have appreciated just how successfully they were going to be in achieving it. Not only do the XT cones deliver a performance that gets awfully close to the D-series drivers in some respects, and actually better them in others, but they also allow the XT speakers to leapfrog the performance of the existing C series, serving up even more of what made the C1.2 such an impressive performer.

Of course, there’s far more to the performance of a speaker than just the cone material it employs, no matter how exotic that might be, and much of the XT5’s success rests on the attention to detail that has been lavished on the enclosure and crossover. The XT5 cabinet is tall, incredibly slim and so deep that it’s almost aerofoil in section. Its crisp edges, high aspect ratio and subtle curvature make for a visually striking appearance that’s further underlined by the dramatic beauty of the wood-veneer finish. Heavily braced internally, the cabinet is ported by a pair of carefully flared twin-slot ports in the rear spine. The segmented aluminum baffle affords the drivers a mechanically stable, non-resonant launching pad, while the sheer depth and taper of the cabinet help alleviate back pressure as well as bleed-through of the rear wave.

Broad extension plates extend what would otherwise be an unfeasibly narrow footprint, and these sport adjustable feet with locking top caps. Of the captive ball-bearing type, these are a vast improvement on the clunky and wholly inadequate solution supplied as an extra-cost upgrade on the D and C series; however, they could still be better. Longer threads alone would allow significantly more adjustment of rake angle and attitude, a critical factor in maximizing the performance of any speaker with this tall and narrow a radiating area. I believe that the footer supplied with both the more expensive Raidho speakers and the company’s rack is currently being redesigned and that this will be an extra-cost option on the X and XT family too -- a step that I suspect will be as worthwhile as it is welcome. One other minor complaint was the absence of binding posts on the review model, the speaker only accepting 4mm banana plugs, another throwback to earlier times that is due to change.

Raidho speakers have always been pretty, and the XT5 could just be the prettiest yet. With such an attractive and beautifully finished baffle, there’s never been a cosmetic requirement for grilles, and the latest models follow that lead. But where the XT5 does step out, setting a completely new standard for the brand, irrespective of price, is in terms of finish -- or to be more precise, wood-veneer finish. The speakers are available as standard built in a piano-black cabinet, but owners can opt for the strikingly beautiful but costly alternative of birdseye maple burl, a rare wood veneer more often found gracing the cabins of super yachts than on the cabinets of loudspeakers. Recent advances in cutter technology have rendered these rare veneers almost affordable and very nearly practical, but, even so, their inclusion on the XT5 is a powerful statement of the seriousness with which the company is taking what represents something of a landmark product in its developmental history.

Which is another way of saying that the XT5 represents a step change in the performance, technology and attitude of Raidho -- and the company’s owners wanted to recognize that fact. It draws an unmistakable line under the previous products and points firmly to the future. With any speaker that looks this strikingly elegant, there can be some suspicion that it’s aiming to get by on its looks, the impressive show making up for any lack of go. I take an alternative view. For me, any product that makes this strong an aesthetic statement had better be in a position to back it up when it comes to performance. Walk into a room that’s occupied by a pair of XT5s and you will notice them -- so they’d better be able to deliver. Clearly, Raidho is confident that they do deliver, and that confidence is well placed.

To suggest that this is Raidho’s most accomplished design to date might be seen as quite a stretch, given its comparatively modest price tag -- at least when compared to the D5.1 model at over $200,000 per pair. Yet I’d stand by that statement -- at least until the TD4.8 launched in Munich comes on line, another emphatic indication of the new engineering broom sweeping the corridors at Raidho. What sets the XT5 apart from the company’s previous designs? Balance and communication. Previous Raidho speakers -- especially the floorstanders and even more so the large floorstanders -- have tended to appeal to listeners who value clarity and dynamic response over bandwidth. The reason is simple: shortcomings in the bass alignment meant that in order to get a decent sense of integration it was necessary to curtail or minimize the bass output, positioning the speakers in free space and going for midbass speed and impact over low-frequency extension. The specifics may vary, but the general observation stands. The C1.2 was the first Raidho that really started to deliver conventional low-frequency extension, bass weight that needed (and benefited from) balancing against the room nodes and boundaries. In other words, the C1.2 was the first Raidho with what might be considered conventional low-frequency voicing and integration. The XT5 takes that lead and runs with it, delivering bass that is both articulate and surprisingly deep given the modest internal volume of the cabinet. But best of all, it delivers low frequencies that you don’t notice -- at least not in and of themselves. Instead they are a seamlessly natural extension of the midband clarity, focus and dynamic discrimination that have always been Raidho hallmarks.

Vivaldi In Venice [Chasing The Dragon VALCD008] captures a live performance of music by Vivaldi and his contemporaries by Interpreti Veneziani. The small-group arrangement (just seven musicians) makes for wonderfully uncluttered sound that lets you hear not just the contribution of each instrument but the ability of the system, and in particular the speakers, to separate them in terms of space, location and tonality. In particular, the Vivaldi Cello Concerto in A major, RV419 gives you the opportunity to appreciate not just the separation of the cello and bass but also their relative positions in the acoustic. The XT5 was absolutely unequivocal in defining the different weight and texture of the two instruments, the gruff rumble of the bowed bass, the brighter, more evocative strains of the cello, but also in capturing the crucial musical relationship between them, especially the doubled passages that punctuated and closed the first movement and the pizzicato notes and quicksilver phrases that characterized the third, offset and underpinned by the simple repeated rise and fall of the bass motif. It’s all about texture and timing, attack and decay, and few speakers of this size can match the vibrant, lively portrayal of the XT5s. Of course, the leading-edge definition and ensemble precision are Raidho hallmarks, but here the secure bottom end offers a stability and substance that bring a definite quality to the playing of the entire band, and a presence and harmonic body to the instruments that reinforces the rhythmic exuberance in the performance. It also separates the instruments in terms of height, the angled, seated cello noticeably lower in the acoustic space than the upright bass, a shift in the position of the soloist between the first and second movements equally obvious, the raised lid of the harpsichord just as apparent. Finally, surprisingly for such a slim cabinet, the speaker offered more than a hint of the carpeted stage below the band, while I could also hear the staging itself fill out the lowest notes of the bass, resulting in a sense of greater weight and power than the instrument can generate on its own.

The poise and precision at low frequencies also helped keep the other end of the spectrum exactly where it should be, all tied in with seamless midband continuity. There’s an easy pattern and sense of order to the music, whether it’s the “colored girls” advancing from deep within the soundstage (on "Walk On The Wild Side") or the intricate percussion embellishments on Joe Jackson's Night and Day [Intervention Records IR003]. Move on to larger pieces in the orchestral repertoire and the XT5 is confident and comfortable in a way that no previous Raidho has been. Playing dense, demanding and dramatic works like the Sibelius Violin Concerto (Lisa Batiashvili, Daniel Barenboim and the Staatskapelle Berlin [Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft 02894796038]), the Raidhos delivered impressive scale, swell, power and orchestral texture combined with an articulate immediacy to the solo instrument or interjections. The speakers captured the bleak, almost elemental chill of the orchestral landscape, the ephemeral, otherworldly quality that so distinguishes Batiashvili’s interpretation. This isn’t a case of a cool-sounding speaker suiting an arctic vista. Instead, it reflects just how accurately the XT5s captured the craggy, exposed aspect of the music, while their pace, jump factor and impact, easy projection of scale and weight helped push Barenboim’s slightly tepid tempos, to bring the necessary drama and contrast to the performance. The added sense of momentum transformed the overall effect, and musically the results were spectacular, bringing the Sibelius performance far closer in quality to the stellar Tchaikovsky with which it’s paired.

Is this a case of horses for courses, the one recording that really benefits from this speaker’s particular characteristics? There’s no denying that music and mechanics are a match made in heaven, but more than that, it serves as an example of the expressive strengths and weaknesses that the XT5s bring to proceedings. Play the Tchaikovsky and the Raidhos make more of the explosive drama and the soloist’s poise and perfect control of pace than they do of the overall romantic sweep of the piece, but it’s no less arresting or impressive for that. In fact, it underlines one of the more interesting aspects of the XT5’s character: its concentration on the more muscular aspects of the music, the positioning and attack of individual notes, their arrangements into lines and phrases, the structure of the piece overall. It is also reflected in the way that individual instruments present and are separated more by nature and texture than tonality. There’s a diminution of the rounder, woodier tones, a loss of the richer harmonics that flesh out the orchestration, in favor of the attack, energy and vigor that go into the playing. I wouldn’t describe this speaker as lean -- more ripped. No cabinet this slim is going to plumb the deepest bass depths, but the key to the XT5's convincing performance is the speed and substance of the low frequencies it has, and just how seamlessly they connect with the rest of the range, creating a single, coherent and musically purposeful whole.

You might think that all this muscularity and projection are perfect partners for tube electronics, but beware diluting the speaker’s strengths without really ameliorating its weaknesses. Just adding warmth will simply clog up the clarity and dissipate the sense of purpose that make this such a compelling, persuasive and downright entertaining speaker. I got great results from a pair of über-pricey Engström 300B monoblocks, but then they’re all about clarity and articulation, anyway. Moving down in price, the usually reliable Icon Audio Stereo 60 integrated simply didn’t deliver, the speaker revealing too many of the amp’s shortcomings for comfort.

Instead, I achieved by far the most cost-effective results using the Mark Levinson No.585 and the CH Precision I1 integrated amps, both muscular solid-state units. The warmth, weight and ready power of the Levinson was an excellent match, but the added transparency, resolution, speed and agility of the CH Precision were startlingly successful, the pairing with the Raidhos making for a neat, compact, versatile and incredibly capable system. Whether tracing Batiashvili’s sure-footed travels along the long lines of the Sibelius, or the edgy guitar of Robert Smith, the I1/XT5 rig was a model of poise, clarity and purpose. In fact, it was an air-guitarist's dream. From the tumbling avalanche of power chords and sheets of slash guitar that underpin "Push" from The Cure’s underappreciated masterwork The Head On The Door [Fiction/Polydor 984 001-6] to the sculpted twang of the guitar notes, stark against the desolate backdrop of the Paris, Texas soundtrack [Warner Bros. 7599-25270-2], from the straight-ahead power chords and angst-ridden rock posturing of "Fill Station" to the pitch- and pace-perfect bass guitar melody of the haunting "Wanted A Girl" (Stewboss, their debut album on their own label), there was a solid presence, shape and attack to the guitar work that just begged playing along -- even if you wouldn’t know a Fender Strat from a fender bender.

But perhaps the ultimate expression of the Raidhos’ ability to make sense of the most eclectic material was the psychedelic country of Jim White’s No Such Place [Luaka Bop VVR 1027482]. You've got to love an album that features tracks like " Handcuffed To a Fence In Mississippi," "10 Miles To Go On A Nine Mile Road" and "God Was Drunk When He Made Me." There’s no escaping the artist’s attitude, but there’s no escaping his artistry too, with its strange mix of insistent rhythms, mesmerizing soundscapes and addictive ear worms underpinning a worldview that combines a bizarre, almost nihilistic optimism with strangely compelling narratives. Through it all the Raidhos stood tall, sorting out the nuanced layers and often stark melodies, the meandering vocals and multiple overdubs with an unflustered confidence that let me unravel and enjoy this music, whilst also appreciating the care and attention to detail that have gone into its creation. From rock anthems to the densest rap, Rachmaninoff or Respighi to Rhoda Dakar and The Special AKA, this speaker will play the lot without fear or favor. If the price you pay for this all-embracing musical fluency and lucid clarity is a degree of subtle harmonic stripping and narrowing of the available color palette, that upside is not to be underestimated.

While the Raidhos’ incisive clarity, dynamic range and microdynamic, textural resolution are most obvious when it comes to denser mixes and complex music -- it’s an absolute star when it comes to unearthing energy and excitement in modern, heavily compressed tracks -- don’t go getting the idea that this is a speaker that only wants to play big and loud. That immediacy and presence also pay dividends on smaller, more intimate acoustic recordings, that can have an almost reach-out-and-touch quality when the XT5s are really singing. Play "Suzanne" from Leonard Cohen’s Songs From The Road live album [Music On Vinyl MOVLP193] and that’s exactly what you get, all the gravelly texture of Cohen’s familiar voice simply adding to the sparse beauty of the melody and lyric. There’s an almost ghostly presence to the performance, enhanced by the rapt silence of the audience, the subtle backing and the spacious acoustic. Let the needle run and "The Partisan" combines that heartfelt vocal with the deft acoustic work of Javier Mas to stunning effect. As each track unfurls, you wonder if it can get any better than this -- one of those happy accidents where performance and recording, source and system, meet in perfect harmony. The presence of the Lyra Titan i in that equation is worth noting, its contribution no accident. Just as the CH Precision I1’s clarity and transparency find a sympathetic resonance in the performance of the speaker, so too does the Lyra cartridge's dynamic discrimination and low-level resolution. It’s another case of playing to the speakers’ strengths rather than trying to mask their weaknesses. Choose a warm, rounded cartridge and the XT5s will have no compunction in telling you that that’s exactly what you’ve done. Feed them with a signal that’s intricate, intimate and immediate and they tell you that too, thriving on the experience that’s captured and the directness of the musical connection that results.

Likewise, they have no compunction when it comes to highlighting the qualitative and presentational differences between the various source options. As impressive as they are on CD replay, the added flesh-and-blood palpability that comes from good vinyl is meat and drink to the XT5. Lenny might be a particularly happy match, but there are plenty of performances on analog that are just lining up to take his place, from the breathy punch and intensity of Cannonball Adderley to the poised delicacy of Julian Bream. RCA’s live recording Julian Bream In Concert [RCA SB-6646], a British pressing replayed with the appropriate Decca EQ courtesy of the I1, is full of presence and atmosphere, from Bream’s humorous interludes to the laughter and applause of the appreciative audience. Lute might not have quite the same kinetic appeal as rock guitar, but the precision and rigor of Bream’s phrasing, the range of colors he conjures from his instrument, have their own fascinating beauty. The wistful, almost plaintive melody of "Tarlton’s Resurrection" is particularly beautiful, the XT5s’ ability to conjure the acoustic space, reaching out to include the listener particularly effective.

This directness of communication, built on its ability to unravel the overlapping elements in the recording, is the XT5’s special strength. It’s a strength that needs to be nurtured and encouraged if you are going to get the considerable best from this speaker. Choose your ancillaries to extend and exploit that ability and you’ll be rewarded with performance as dramatic and engaging as it is impressive. The more time I’ve spent with the XT5 the more convincing it’s become; the better I’ve understood its dietary requirements, the more convinced I’ve become that it marks a step change in the performance, balance and overall musical integrity of Raidho speakers. The XT5 isn’t cheap -- although it is both beautiful to look at and musically accomplished. As impressive as it is as both a new product and a new leaf, I can’t help salivating over the implications it has for the company’s more ambitious products. With the prototype TD4.8 already giving more than a hint of what's to come, displaying (a lot) more than just a shapely ankle in Munich, it would be a great shame if the XT5 become forgotten in the rush toward, and excitement surrounding, those more exotic models.

This is a superbly balanced and mightily enjoyable performer in its own right. Some will inevitably see it as just a steppingstone to greater things, but those who treat it with the respect it deserves will discover a remarkably entertaining, communicative and intelligently voiced musical component, capable of extracting the musical kernel from even the densest mix, the potential lynchpin for an elegant modern, compact, high-performance and highly entertaining audio system. If ever a speaker had va-va-voom, this is it.

Prices: $41,000 per pair in piano-black finish, $47,300 per pair in birdseye maple burl finish.
Warranty: Five years parts and labor.

Raidho Acoustics
c/o Dantax Radio A/S
Bransagervej 15
9490 Pandrup, Denmark
+45 98 24 76 77
www.raidho.dk