Has anyone heard the TAD Evo One and the Raidho TD floorstanders? How do they compare?

I haven’t heard the TAD Evolution One enough to understand its performance (only once at a show years back and wasn’t familiar with the electronics).

Raidho is lovely, one of my favorite speaker brands, up there with Borresen and Vivid Audio. Raidho is a very soulful speaker with innovative engineering and design that allows them to play with incredible clarity and deliver a huge sound for their footprint. They are very revealing, but also very refined. You can hear the effortless detail, but the top end is much smoother, softer than many other speaker brands. Some people absolutely love this, and others don’t. Bass and midrange are amongst the best in the combination of small driver size (speed) mated with innovative cabinet design and crossovers that minimize distortion. The result is complete openness and transparency, all with a slight sense of euphonic soulfulness.

In comparison, I’ve found Borresen Acoustics speakers to be more revealing and resolute, less euphonic and more true to the source. If you didn’t know, Michael Borresen was the long-time chief designer of Raidho prior to starting his own company and speaker line, which explains the design similarities in the two. While Borresen speakers like to have plenty of room behind them (3-4ft minimum), Benno Meldgaard of GamuT took over Borresen’s spot and reworked the Raidho cabinets to work well with slightly less room. 

One thing to note about Raidho and Borresen is that they require a good amount of current to perform their best. They are not the easiest speakers to control and will reveal the shortcomings of any electronics. They tend to be 4-6 Ohm nominal but I’d bet they dip below 2 or 3 Ohm in the bass to lower midrange, and perhaps again in the mid-to-upper treble. With amplifiers that don’t drive them well, I notice a loss of control at the frequency extremes, resulting in a softness/blurring in impact while the midrange continues to sound glorious. With the right amplification, these speakers excel with any type of music regardless of complexity or simplicity and can truly deliver the “you are there” effect.

These speakers play utterly huge. Even the smaller floorstanders (Raidho TD 2.2, Borresen 02) can fill medium to large sized rooms without subwoofers. Disregard their low frequency spec - with room gain and proper charging, they go low and the midrange and treble can keep up as well. My room is 19x23ft with an opening to another room to the side in the back half of the room. The ceiling is slanted up to 18ft. The Borresen 02 fills this space with zero problems, again no subs needed. It might even benefit from having slightly more space. The larger Raidho focus more on giving you a dedicated midrange, more bass for larger space, etc.

If buying Raidho, I would caution you to not opt for their older models (C and D lines) as their tweeters were known to fry if you want to hear music at stadium concert levels. Their XT and TD series tweeters have been made more sensitive, with lower noise levels, all while being more robust. Borresen Acoustics speakers have accomplished the same.

In full disclosure have personally owned two sets of Borresen speakers and have heard different Raidho dozens of times. I am a Hifi dealer but do not deal for either brand. 

Thanks for the very thorough account of the Danish speakers, Bliss.  Your posts are always informative and positive.  You're an asset to Audigon.  

Yes very nice @blisshifi !  Since I am sure you know my two sets of speakers, can you elaborate on how comparably sized Borenson and Raidho speakers compare and contrast?  I have YG Hailey 2's, which I am guessing you will say are even more accurate and resolving, and also my pair of venerable Salon 2's which may be more similar?  Thanks!

@fastfreight Honestly, I don’t have a ton of experience with either of your speakers. I know of them and may have heard them at shows or dealers over the years, but I haven’t had them in my room with electronics that I’m familiar with.

I do have a lot of respect for YG. As a Vivid Audio dealer, my distributor is Dick Diamond at GTT Audio, who was previously head of sales and marketing for YG. I’ve heard YG in their (either GTT’s or YG’s) rooms at shows over the years and have always been impressed, though they never captivated me as best of show. The Revels I’ve heard at dealers, but not with the best equipment. In most cases, based on what I’ve heard, I’d likely choose Borresen or Raidho over either. There’s something about the openness and how the music just soars with Borresen (annd mostly with Raidho ans well) over many others that I find myself gravitating to. If it’s not accurate, perhaps I prefer to find myself simply more emotionally involved with them. With Borresen specifically, I have heard few speakers that can parallel their ability to portray holographic at the soundstage size that they do. It doesn’t mean that they are better than YG or Revel - I may just not have heard those speakers performing at their best or with electronics that I was familiar with.

Borresen is trying to make a "statement " with their new X-3 floorstander @ 11K per pair. When other companies are giving you a wooden box at that price, the X-3's are a work of art....Musically and visually. Tremendous value.

Any T.A.D. speaker I have heard I have enjoyed, like Joseph Audio, Sonus, etc.

Years ago I dialed in a pair of used D2's into my 21' wide x 17' deep by 8'-12' l-r, side sloped ceiling, room (with two large openings side and rear). They are not concert machines but the will go down near flat to 31Hz and with power and speed.

These are my last speakers (I truly think). They creamed my Dynaudio Sapphires and I'd been pleased. I do use a DSPeaker Anti-mode unit to tame the room a bit and the Raidho bass blump I and others notice. A flat frequency response from those speakers makes recorded music sound stunning at any level (up to so high).

The Borreson's I've heard were fabulous but I might actually prefer Michael's D-series. I don't play concerts at home (thanks for the tweeter tip, blisshifi!) and the little woofers give in first if I get too excited (although I am less sure of that as I have changed amps to an Odyssey Kismet-amazingly audible positive changes including deeper stronger bass).

These two are my favorite brands. TAD sounds more 3d spacious with thickness while Raidho is more natural like with its ribbon twitter. 

Thanks everyone for your opinions.

I would really like to hear a real Tad. I had Pioneer (Tad light) S1eX and they didn’t do it for me at all with multiple amplification. Really tried to like them cause they were beautiful and built like a brick sh..house. But alas….. not for me.