EX DEMO! Raidho XT-5 Titanium Maple Burl Pair

Introducing the Raidho XT-5

The Danes are famous adventurers, building remarkable wooden ships and sailing them faster and further than anyone else, crossing the widest seas, reaching new lands, extending our horizons. More recently we have become renowned as World-leaders in loudspeaker design, developing new technologies, creating musical masterpieces and recreating musical masterworks. At Raidho we like to think that the new X5 series is quintessentially Danish, combining our present with our past – but also our future. When we describe the Raidho XT-5 as our flagship design, for us it’s about more than just the price. The XT-5 stands tall and proud – like a mast against the sky. Its lines are long and sleek – like the hull of the fastest ships. But above all else, its performance breaks new ground – allowing the music to transport the listener further than ever before.

Designed with a single goal – to deliver not just performance, but THE performance – the XT-5 speakers pair the legendary Raidho Ribbon Tweeter with no fewer than six of our latest (and significantly more powerful) Ceramix drive units, creating speaker systems capable of extraordinary resolution, bandwidth, headroom and power handling. From the subtlest nuance or tiniest vibration to the loudest orchestral crescendo or rock climax, nothing escapes or challenges the Raidho XT-5s. Instead, these flagship speakers allow the music to challenge the listener. The result is a breath-taking musical experience: the presence and immediacy of great recordings; the excitement and power of the live event; the raw emotion of the greatest players and singers. We can sum it up in a single phrase – as each new listener settles down and embarks on the voyage of discovery that is the Raidho X-5 or XT-5, we simply say, “Enjoy the ride”. After all – it’s a Danish tradition!

At a glance

• Flagship speakers featuring technology developed for Raidho's D-Series speakers
• Capable of extraordinary resolution, bandwidth, headroom and power handling
• Incredibly robust Titanium/Ceramic drivers handle incredible levels of continuous, clean power
• Legendary Raidho sealed ribbon tweeter leaves absolutely no fingerprint on the speaker system
• From world-renowned Danish loudspeaker designer, Raidho Acoustics
• Beautiful Birdseye maple burl finish
• Handmade in Denmark

Making The Best Better – Titanium Drivers

At the heart of all Raidho speakers lie their proprietary driver designs, the brilliant simplicity of the ribbon tweeter, the astonishing dynamic capabilities of the Ceramix units. The XT-5 speakers use the latest developments of both, but the bass and mid drivers offer a steep improvement in performance over previous versions. Featuring new Titanium/Ceramic drivers, a huge developmental effort has been expended on maximising both the power and power handling of their motors. The result is unprecedented dynamic capabilities from a dynamic driver, coupled to incredibly robust construction that will handle incredible levels of continuous, clean power. Originally deployed in the X5, Raidho's latest Ceramix drivers offer remarkable – and remarkably affordable – musical performance.

But we wanted to take things further. As impressive as the capabilities of our deep ceramic cone technology are, experience with the CVD process that we used to create our incredible (and incredibly costly) Diamond drivers means that we know what’s possible. The goal became to approach or even match the performance of the D-Series drivers – at a far more affordable price: the result is our new Titanium/Ceramic sandwich membrane. We started by taking our existing three-layer aluminium/ceramic sandwich and on each side depositing two layers of a carefully calculated combination of Titanium and Titanium Nitride particles, using a high-temperature sputter process, to create a composite, seven-layer membrane. The twin titanium coatings act as incredibly dense constraining layers that further increase the stiffness of the diaphragm while reducing internal resonance and overall Q. These incredibly sophisticated new cones grace the XT-5, a speaker that’s even better than the outstanding X-5. In terms of price and performance, engineering and execution, it’s the most complete speaker we have ever made.

Form and Function – Musical Majesty and a Majestic Finish

The stunning musical performance of the Raidho XT-5 deserves an equally striking appearance, a finish that builds on its sleek lines, elegant proportions and commanding visual presence. Maple veneers are hard and closely grained, their sonic properties well-known and widely exploited. The beautiful Birdseye figuring occurs in less than 1% of the Sugar Maple Population, its patterning and character as distinctive to each individual tree as fingerprints to each person. Even rarer still is the conjunction of Birdseye and Burl, the tree’s natural response to injury, a hardened callus that surrounds and isolates the intrusion, like a pearl growing around a grain of sand. Add the disruptive effects of both Birdseye and Burl to the natural qualities of Maple and you introduce diverse, random elements to the grain structure, spots and whorls that are at once uniquely beautiful and uniquely challenging to work with. Birdseye Maple Burl is amongst the rarest and most beautiful veneers. It has also always been the exclusive preserve of only the most skilled craftsmen.

It has taken the latest diamond and tungsten carbide, segmented spiral cutting heads and most sophisticated, high-speed CNC technology to make Birdseye Maple Burl an available – if expensive – veneer, usually confined to the luxury interiors of private jets and super-cars. But at Raidho we believe that the ground-breaking musical performance of the X5 Series deserves the best and most beautiful finishes possible, that its lines and heritage demand the finest and rarest of woods to grace its cabinet. So, as well as classic piano black, the X5 Series will be available in an optional Birdseye Maple Burl finish. Take one look at the stunning contrast of sharp lines and soaring surfaces with the organic intricacies of the natural wood finish and we are sure that you will agree, this really is beauty beyond price – but at a price that is surprisingly affordable.

The X5 Series – Not Just Technology or Design Philosophy, More A Musical Way Of Life

What makes the XT-5 our new flagship speaker? It’s not the most expensive speaker range we make – but it is the pinnacle of our current thinking. New materials, new technologies, our latest engineering and most luxurious finishes – the Raidho XT-5 boasts them all. At this point, we could talk about the resulting increase in resolution and micro-dynamic definition, the deeper and more natural bass response, or the drop in system noise floor. But instead, we’d prefer you to listen. We’d like you to hear the dramatic increase in clarity and musical impact. We’d love you to experience the emphatic dynamics and natural, expressive range. But most of all we want to take you on a new musical adventure: to rediscover old favourites, familiar tracks but to hear them – really hear them – for the first time: to marvel at new music and new artists, new opportunities and new discoveries: to fall in love again, with your system and with listening, with your music, your past and your future.

Raidho Acoustics

Evolutionary, Revolutionary and Unique. Raidho Acoustics develops and manufactures loudspeakers for people who appreciate both phenomenal audio and stylish aesthetics. Those who think sound should be remarkable, want their listening experience to be out of the ordinary and expect great looking equipment with an exceptional design and visual expression.

Raidho Acoustics have become world-renowned as leaders in loudspeaker design, developing new technologies, creating musical masterpieces and recreating musical masterworks. If you're not yet convinced, the following technologies and development philosophies, all present in the XT-5, should give you some indication of why.

Raidho Ribbon Tweeter

The legendary Raidho Ribbon tweeter is a unique sealed ribbon tweeter. The tweeter employs an array of neodymium magnets to create an extremely powerful force field where an ultra-thin membrane is suspended. The membrane weighs less than 0.02g. Due to the extremely low mass, the tweeter stores no energy and has no resonances. The performance of this unique tweeter system is extraordinary and leaves absolutely no fingerprint on the speaker system.

Titanium/Ceramix Drivers

Raidho Acoustics has set a path to develop the ultimate driver for loudspeakers. Looking at the driver market today, one can see that not much has changed over the last decade. To Raidho there was little doubt that the ridged piston cone approach was the only path to take in order to make the best possible Raidho dynamic Driver.

Raidho Open Plan Motor Architecture

Building a driver fast enough to blend seamlessly with the Raidho ribbon tweeter demands more than a light, stiff, low-colouration cone. That cone needs to have a powerful, responsive motor driving it. One look at the segmented motor structure of a Raidho drive unit makes it obvious just what a radical departure from convention it represents. Difficult and demanding to build, the use of a spaced, radial array of magnets, surrounding the open voice coil offers significant performance advantages. It allows us to employ spaced pairs of small but extremely strong neodymium magnets, creating an underhung, push-pull motor system with many times the power that can be produced with large, annular parts. But the open structure also improves venting and cooling of the motor assembly, reducing dynamic compression and back pressure, making for a more responsive, faster driver and one that can handle sustained musical peaks. So, when the musical signal says jump, a Raidho driver doesn’t just ask how high, it asks for how long, too. The result is unprecedented dynamic tracking, preserving the smallest musical nuances and widest orchestral climaxes, delivering recorded music with levels of intimacy and dynamic contrast that you’ll only previously have heard live.

Raidho Clamped Cabinet Construction

We use the term ‘loudspeaker system’ for a reason. The best drivers in the world are only as good as the cabinet they’re built into. At Raidho we go to extraordinary lengths to ensure that our enclosures contribute as little as possible to proceedings. The drive units are built directly onto the rear of the carefully profiled, machined aluminium baffles, eliminating the mechanical discontinuities introduced by a conventional driver basket at this critical junction. The braced, thin-wall enclosures are formed with curved walls to maximise stiffness and minimize stored energy. They are then securely clamped between the baffle and the substantial spine element, creating a constrained structure, constructed from differential materials to maximise damping, without using high-mass or absorbent materials that store energy and rob the system of life and resolution. By efficiently converting spurious energy to heat, the clamped cabinet minimizes intermodulation distortion and maximizes system clarity and articulation, goals that are reinforced by building the capacitors and inductors used in our crossovers in-house, with special emphasis on their mechanical stability. At Raidho, we go to great lengths to build cabinets and crossovers that you won’t hear, so that crystal clear music is what you will hear.

Handmade Speakers

“Good sound does not just blow in from nowhere. Reproducing good sound calls for expertise and hard work.”

At Raidho we say we have a special knack – so we do not let just anybody assemble a Raidho loudspeaker. What would be the point of innovative developers creating outstanding units, and skilled carpenters building beautiful cabinets in the best materials if the elements are not assembled with due respect for the ultimate product that a Raidho loudspeaker really is?

By checking and checking again, we make sure that we live up to our own ambitious goals for the products we want to supply to a quality-conscious and discerning audience.

All the components in a Raidho loudspeaker are designed, manufactured and assembled by Raidho Acoustics themselves. In the design process, they seek to create something unique, and the reward is a very special harmony in the interplay between the design of the cabinet and the design of the sound.