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EQUIPMENT REVIEW - Raidho C 1.1 Mini-Monitor
For instance, the magnetic motor of the ultrarigid
ceramic/aluminum composite mid/bass
driver that Borresen designs and manufactures
isn’t located horizontally at the back of the
cone (as it is in virtually every other dynamic
driver I’ve seen); instead, two rows of very
strong neodymium magnets, in a push-pull
configuration, are arrayed around the magnetic
gap vertically. Why did Borresen make this
change Because when a large magnet with a
flat faceplate is situated directly behind a driver
it acts a bit like an acoustic mirror, reflecting the
signal generated by the rearward movement of
the membrane (remember dynamic drivers pull
as well as push) back into and through the cone.
Borresen’s ingenious, patented vertical magnetic
system (called the Raidho Ceramix Magnet)
eliminates this source of resonant energy,
reducing the distortion and compression that
come with conventionally situated magnets and
increasing resolution and dynamic range.
Now, I can already hear some of you saying, “So
what So the thing is a mechanical and analytical
marvel” Well, yeah it is. But (and contrary to certain
other Raidho C Series reviews I’ve read, in which you
have to seriously wonder what small havoc room
and electronics may have been playing with overall
tonal balance) the C 1.1 is, like the Constellation
Performance Series electronics driving them, that
rarest of ava, a speaker that is not only standardsettingly
finely detailed but also so transparent to
sources that, given a beautiful recording, it sounds
ravishingly dense in tone color. Indeed, the “.1”
version of the speaker was, according to Borresen,
designed not only to lower resonance and increase
resolution but to fill out tone color (particularly in the
midbass and lower midrange)—and so it does. (For
more on the differences between the C1 and C 1.1,
see the sidebar “A Chat with Michael Borresen.”)
If you want to get an idea of how gorgeous and,
yes, “realistic” this thing is capable of sounding
just listen to a great solo violin recording (such
as Charles Wuorinen’s The Long and the Short
on Mainstream, which is astonishing via the C
1.1) or a great piano recording (such as Vilnius
Noir on NoBusiness, reviewed in this issue)
or a great orchestral recording (such as the
Janácek Sinfonietta on Denon) or a great folk
recording (such as Joan Baez In Concert, Part 2
on Vanguard) or a great pop recording such as
“Lover, Lover, Lover” from Songs From The Road
(on Columbia, if you can believe it!), and feast on
the breathtaking beauty and naturalness of string,
wind, brass, percussion, and vocal timbre and
texture. Given the right source, the C 1.1 doesn’t
just sound lovely; it sounds exceedingly lovely.
So what are the “kickers,” to quote one of my
so-called fans Well, the C 1.1 is a two-way—a
great two-way—but still a two-way. While it has
remarkable bass for a speaker its tiny size (with
useable response into the upper thirties and
more-or-less flat response into the upper 40s), it,
like the Magico Q1, simply won’t move the kind of
air that a bigger speaker with a separate woofer
moves. Oh, the C 1.1 will shake walls on big drum
strikes, such as those on Clearaudio’s Percussion
Record, but it won’t growl on Tina’s Fender
ostinato at the start of “Take Me To The River”
with the power that the Magico Q5 does. Don’t get
me wrong: As two-ways go, this tiny number has
exemplary bass, with exceptional articulation of
detail. It just doesn’t have all the power and punch
in the bottom octaves of a big multiway or planar.
Second, there is the tweeter. Borresen uses
what Maggie calls a “quasi-ribbon” (built, as is
everything save for the cabinet, by Raidho inhouse)
for the upper mids and treble, coupled
to that extraordinary ceramic aluminum/metallic
aluminum mid/bass driver I just talked about, all
in an elegant ported enclosure. The C 1.1 tweeter
may be the finest I’ve heard, and its implementation
here is sensational. Where you would expect a
marked seam in the crossover region between
planar tweet and cone mid/bass there is none.
Zero. (As a point of comparison, the Raidho tweet
never stands out the way the beryllium tweet of the
Q5 or the Maggie ribbon can on-axis.) This said,
there is something subtly different—perhaps it is
a question of dispersion patterns, perhaps it is a
very, very low-level material coloration—about the
sound of the C 1.1’s two drivers. It’s as if they have
very slightly different textures, as if one were silk
and the other gabardine or one were color-slide
film and the other very fine grain color-negative
film. I don’t want to make a big deal about this
because these slight textural differences are way
too subtle to amount to a discontinuity (anymore
than the slight textural differences between a
ring-radiator and a carbon-fiber-sandwich cone
amount to a discontinuity). As noted, they certainly
don’t seem to affect the lifelike reproduction of
the color or intensity of notes, the retrieval of fine
detail, or imaging or staging.
Third, there is the question of dynamics. In
my moderately-sized room, the C 1.1 seems
to lack little on large-scale swings (save in the
low bass)—and is a paradigm on small-scale
dynamics. But bigger speakers with more
drivers will undoubtedly give you more low-end
extension, more clout, more “floor.”
Fourth, there is the matter of image size and
height. Like the Magico Q1, the Raidho C 1.1 is
not a miniaturizing speaker, probably because
(like the Q1) it is perched relatively high on its
dedicated stand, is well-aligned in phase and
time thanks to the thick, angled, aluminum drivermounting
plates on the front of its heavily braced
MDF enclosure, and has its port located at the
top back of its cabinet, mitigating floor-bounce
and the reduction in bass-range clarity and image
height that floor-bounce often entails. Still and
all, while instruments are not greatly reduced in
height they do tend to start imaging a little closer
to the floor with the C 1.1 than they do with larger
planar and dynamic speakers. Also, the C 1.1s
(like the Audio Physic Avanteras) prefer to be a
little more widely separated to achieve the roomfilling
soundstaging they are capable of.
I started off by saying that greater “realism” in
hi-fi is a matter of more and less. The Raidho C
1.1 gives you both—more detail and less electromechanical
noise—to a truly astounding degree,
and without any bleaching of tone color. The result,
on select great recordings, such as the Bozay and
the Wuorinen I’ve mentioned, is a “realism” that
not only raises goosebumps but that can actually
extend beyond the momentary to an entire cut.
Trust me: I have heard few (actually, no) other
speakers in my home reproduce a violin like the
one in the unbelievably well-recorded Wuorinen
piece with such unstinting, uninterrupted realism
as this Raidho.
If you’re looking for a highest-fidelity two-way
in a stylish package for a small-to-moderate
room, I can’t recommend the Raidho C 1.1 highly
enough. This is an honest-to-goodness great
loudspeaker. (BTW, the $18k price includes the
purpose-built and very handsome stands.)
57 Guide to High-Performance Loudspeakers www.theabsolutesound.com
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