Mapman,
The Clearwave was actually designed around the Accuton drivers. NOT the RAAL. The Accutons were chosen for the open effortless midrange, speed, detail, bass slam and control. Find me a better driver than the Accutons for midrange presence. Better yet, do a search of all the speakers employing the Accutons for bass/mids and check their price.....usually in the $20k range.
The reviewer hounded on the RAAL, but maybe because he simply likes it. Who really knows? Reality is the Clearwave was designed around the dual Accutons and was originally designed and built with a silk dome tweeter. The Clearwave was not built around the RAAL, or even the tweeter for that matter. Quite the opposite. Read the review again, it was clearly the reviewer's take on his love for the RAAL, not reality of the design. Despite this, the RAAL really is that good and does warrant highlight. Just don't let it overshadow the rest of the speaker which was designed as a no-holds barred attack at state of the art.
The internals, cabinet and everything else in the speaker are anything but inexpensive. In fact I think you would find most of the internals reserved for speakers with a price tag far north of $10k or even $15k. At $7200 this speaker is not inexpensive, but not outrageous either.
I don't want to get into an uncomfortable debate, just sharing my knowledge of this fantastic speaker and I wanted to correct your assumptions.
The Clearwave was actually designed around the Accuton drivers. NOT the RAAL. The Accutons were chosen for the open effortless midrange, speed, detail, bass slam and control. Find me a better driver than the Accutons for midrange presence. Better yet, do a search of all the speakers employing the Accutons for bass/mids and check their price.....usually in the $20k range.
The reviewer hounded on the RAAL, but maybe because he simply likes it. Who really knows? Reality is the Clearwave was designed around the dual Accutons and was originally designed and built with a silk dome tweeter. The Clearwave was not built around the RAAL, or even the tweeter for that matter. Quite the opposite. Read the review again, it was clearly the reviewer's take on his love for the RAAL, not reality of the design. Despite this, the RAAL really is that good and does warrant highlight. Just don't let it overshadow the rest of the speaker which was designed as a no-holds barred attack at state of the art.
The internals, cabinet and everything else in the speaker are anything but inexpensive. In fact I think you would find most of the internals reserved for speakers with a price tag far north of $10k or even $15k. At $7200 this speaker is not inexpensive, but not outrageous either.
I don't want to get into an uncomfortable debate, just sharing my knowledge of this fantastic speaker and I wanted to correct your assumptions.