The BIG Raidho Room | AXPONA 2019

It was the big secret of AXPONA 2019. Usually, it was whispered. The BIG RAIDHO ROOM. You have to see it. Go! Go now!

And so I went. And went. And went. And did not find it.

In fact, I thought it was a joke. I became convinced that the “BIG RAIDHO ROOM” was not a thing. That I was being had.

On the last day of the show, I found it. In the afternoon. At the end of the show. It wasn’t until I actually saw Michael and Benno of Dantax (Raidho, Scansonic, GamuT) duck into the room that I clued in. Yeah, I’m dumb. Turns out that the “BIG RAIDHO ROOM” was that huge “building” in the middle of the convention floor area that I had been wandering around. An acoustically-damped demo room. A temporary room, right in the middle of all the booths and whatnot. Sheesh.

The room was pretty nifty. Damped-as-all-hell, the experience inside was almost like wearing headphones, but the “big Raidho’s” on display were the little TD1.2 loudspeakers, here dressed up in Lambo orange. With stands, the TD1.2 are almost $27k/pair, and they represent the pinnacle of thought, design, and production currently available from Raidho (in their most compact form factor).

The story here is pretty much all-over-the-speaker, but the cones are worth a first (and second) glance:

New 5-layer tantalum/diamond-cone with an increased level of inner damping in combination with our new, proprietary edge-wound titanium voice-coil with a drastically improved magnetic field and increased power handling. Combined with the unique driver-design, this is the strongest underhung motor-design on the market (1.1 Tesla/Patent Pending).

While we’re at it, here’s the skinny on the new tweeter:

we have also redesigned our famous TD quasi-ribbon tweeter, utilizing a more powerful magnet system and optimized the acoustic shape of the rear chamber, resulting in a much higher resolution and a distortion level that has been reduced with 35 dB from the previous already extremely low level.

And lastly, how they come together:

The crossover has been completely redesigned with maximum focus on correct phase- response at all frequencies, while maintaining the optimal impulse-response. The new driver-design and the optimized crossover also leaves room for smaller amplifiers since the sensitivity is heavily improved. The TD1.2 is now an easy load for most amplifiers.

Also in the room were some Gamut Reference cabling:

• GamuT Reference speaker cables, 3m.: $5800
• GamuT Reference interconnects, 1m: $2990
• GamuT Reference power cables, 2m: 4290

Some big tubes from Jadis

• Jadis NEC 845 push pull 40 watts tube power amp: $29990
• Jadis JPS2 preamp with outboard power supplying: $15,500

Vinyl duties were handled by a combo of Jadis, Pear Audio and Ortofon:

• Pear Audio Blue – Kid Thomas/Cornet 2 turntable/tone arm: $7,995 Pear Audio BLue external (optional) Power supply: $1995
• Ortofon Cadenza Black cartridge: $2700
• Jadis JPS3 MM/MC phono amp with outboard power supply: $14,990

The Artesania Exoteric rack was $7,900 as configured.

Dire Straits, “Water of Love” flowed into “Miss You” from the Stones. What I liked about the room was the incredible sense of focus. Yes, the room was over-damped, so the sound was not up to their normal level of “live”. But with that full-toe setup, what was there was the sense of depth and flow — this gear mated well, and bass-punch from these “little” speakers was absurd for at least three levels of absurd. Rich, layered, and extended is how I like my demos, and the “BIG RAIDHO ROOM” had all that and more.

All in all, not what I expected. Raidho, with tubes, fronted by vinyl? Bring it on! I’m going to keep my eye out for this gear in other setups — what I heard turned my head ’round. It’s worth the look.