Sonus Faber Aida and Raidho C4.1

Steve Williams said:

There are many Raidho owners in the Philippines. Hopefully Jerry will chime in. I did confirm with Jerry that there were (are) issues with the tweeter

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What are the tweeter issues ?

as best I know there were a lot of tweeter failures

Cincy2 said:

I'm one of those Audioshark speaker swappers. I owned a pair of Raidho D3's for several months. I sold them because I could never get the room right. Raidho uses speaker ports on the rear of the enclosure. For a smallish room like mine, this can create all kinds of room interactions that degrade the perceived sound. I could never smooth out the bass resonances regardless of what I tried: granite bases, power conditioning, tube traps everywhere. I made a move to Magico products which have sealed enclosures and the problems went away. This is not an indictment of the Raidho speaker family. Just a notice that room interactions will require significant effort to neutralize. The speakers have incredible build quality and they are supported as well as any in the industry by the Raidho team.

Cincy

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+1

I owned the Raidho D-3 V2 for over a year. While I did not have the problems with boomy mid-bass that some experienced (due my use of Soulution 520/501 and Kimber Select cables), their overall presentation was too colored for my taste and I eventually grew tired of it. The mid-bass (60-80 Hz) and treble are boosted due to the use of psychoacoustics. I eventually decided to go for more neutral speakers in the Vandersteen 7 MkII and I'm really enjoying them.

Best,
Ken

Can D2 and D3 manage 100+ dB SPL?

Wilhelm Kabus said:

Can D2 and D3 manage 100+ dB SPL?

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Highly unlikely. People reported bass drivers bottoming out issues at much lower levels.

microstrip said:

The E-Trap concept is interesting - as far as I can see it generates an out-of-phase signal to cancel some excess of bass. However it looks complicated - what is the real advantage of sampling the output with a microphone versus using the signal from the speaker or preamplifier to generate the correction signal?

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From the manufacturer of the E-Trap:

"The E-trap does not generate anything. It uses the energy already present in a resonant room mode and feeds it back on its self in real time to damp the mode. This damping reduces both the magnitude of the mode and the persistence in time, also called ringing. This is true damping as compared to equalizing. Equalization in the signal path of the sound system can have a detrimental effect on the source. Equalization of a sound system has no effect on the acoustics of a room. The E-trap is used in rooms without sound systems. It is not equalization. It is an acoustical devise, not part of a sound system, and there for it does not effect the music source.

The best way to think about how an E-trap works is to understand a Helmholtz resonator with mass-spring-dashpot. Because it is powered it has the added advantage of being small and able to do the work of a very large passive absorber. Because it is electronic it is easy to tune and re-tune with a knob and it can be evaluated with a simple on/off switch. "

For more details see... http://bagend.com/products/series/active-bass-trap/

Elberoth said:

What are the tweeter issues ?

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Too bright. Painfully so with bright recordings. But I did some minor surgery and placed a 3.9ohm resistor in series with the tweeter. Problem cured, at least for my taste. With the tweeter attenuated, it's a truly great tweeter that makes the raidho' one of the best sound staging box speaker. The bass bump I can live with, but with material with lots of punchy bass, woofers can be bottomed out. Midrange, while not as full bodied as the Aida, is very expressive and since there is a slight dip in the upper mids, it never gets "shouty". It's a tailored sound, so what the heck, with such terrible resale value, I just went ahead and tailored the highs to suit my taste.

Steve Williams said:

as best I know there were a lot of tweeter failures

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My Raidho tweeter would drop out intermittently. No output at all for a couple of seconds. Factory sent out a replacement in its baffle which was easy to fit.

I have the stand mount C1.1. I love mine and they replaced a speaker twice their price. Great fun to listen too. And I have had Sonus Faber in the past. My vote is on Raidho which I think prefer SS to valves from my tests.

I have owned the Aidas for almost two years and for the first time in my life there is no itch. They sound beautiful with Constellation Audio electronics. Simply the best speaker I have owned. If I got rid of them I would have no idea what to replace them with. Yes they need a decent amount of power.