Loudspeakers

Déjà vu, all over again? Very recently we were playing 'spot the difference' with the Scansonic MB5 B floorstanders [HFN Jun '20], a superficially lookalike but substantially revised version of the old MB5 and one of the latest from Dantax Radio's growing GamuT/Raidho/Scansonic family. This month the focus is back on Raidho itself, with the arrival of a new version of the D2.1 speaker [HFN May '18] where, as with the M5/M5 B, there's quite a bit of visual similarity between old and new.

The TD2.2 we have here, selling for £38,000 a pair depending on finish, is the smallest of four floorstanding designs in Raidho's TD (Tantalum Diamond) range. Standard finishes are piano black or walnut burl veneer, but emphasising the craftsman-built ethos of the range, you can also have 'any colour to order'. Below this sits the £20,000 TD1.2 standmount, while the lineup stretches out through the £56,500 TD3.2 and £85,000 TD3.8, before peaking with the TD4.2 at £102,000, standing an imposing 1.55m tall.

Choices, Choices...
As you step up through the range, the size increases and so does the driver complement: the TD2.2 is the first to use separate midbass and bass drivers, and by the time you get to the top of the line, you're treated to four bass units and two midrange, straddling the ribbon tweeter that's a constant in so many of the Dantax brand's designs.

The kind of personalisation list you might expect on an upscale car is offered on the speakers. For example, the TD2.2 can be ordered with black aluminium trim fins on the rear for €600, with matching screws for a further €180; replace the standard aluminium feet with 'diamond' ones for a cool €5000 or so, and if you want a custom paint finish, that will set you back a further €4500. Go crazy on the options list, and you could easily be looking at a near-£50,000 pair of speakers.

Oh, and if your head is spinning with all those numbers, it's perhaps worth noting that the TD2.2 is only a fiver more than the model it replaces, despite the arrival of all-new drivers.

Ah yes, the drivers: the D-Series was already using Raidho's 'Diamond' technology, in which around 1.5 carat of industrial diamond material is applied to each alloy/ceramic driver cone to increase stiffness. As Raidho put it when launching the D-Series, 'Applying the diamond structures has moved the membrane resonance frequency up where we cannot measure. Does it matter? Oh yes, it does! Is it costly? Don't ask…'

Tantalising Metal
For these latest TD models, while the base alloy cone material is retained, the ceramic and diamond laminate is supplemented with a layer of tantalum, a rare, dense and inert metal. This new addition to what is now a five-layer composite provides a better matrix onto which the diamond layer is deposited, the company claiming this delivers 'high internal damping and excellent acoustical properties'.

The use of tantalum may allow the cone to accept more diamond, but the process for making the drivers, in-house of course, is sufficiently demanding that you're unlikely to see it trickling down to its Scansonic models any time soon. And yes, it does account for at least some of the cost of the speakers – we're a long way from off-the-shelf drivers here.

Two 6.5in/165mm drivers are used in the TD2.2's 2.5-way design, both handling the bass and the other midrange above 400Hz before crossing over to the familiar corporate quasi-ribbon tweeter at 2.4kHz. The midbass and bass drivers are mounted into hefty aluminium modular baffle sections for reinforcement and also ease of replacement. Naturally, there's a deal of Raidho technology in the basket, suspension and motor system, including titanium voice coils and underhung high-power (1.1 tesla) magnets.