Ribbon midrange pros and cons

If you want the best ribbons, Selah Audio. :)


I've interacted with the designer at Raal, absolutely brilliant guy.

My experience is just, even top notch ribbons have their own sound. If they are what you like, buy them! :)


Best,
E

RAAL ribbons are great and the 70-20 can be crossed over as low as 1800hz in a 2-way. However, compared to a dome with good excursion they lack some dynamic punch in lower mids, so generally they are better off in a 3-way because of this.

I like listened to speakers such as the Martin Logan Motion 60 towers and the Dali towers and I thought ribbon tweeters sounded bright but too bright.  A friend warned me about ear fatigue and I am glad I listened to him.  This said, I wonder what speakers sounds best priced between $6,000 and $9,000.?

None of you have heard of the long-discontinued Apogee full range ribbon loudspeakers?! Three way, all three drivers (bass, midrange, tweeter) being true, pure ribbons. They remain the all-time favorite speakers of some. Very hard to drive---their impedance dropped below 1 ohm, and were very insensitive/inefficient, and were therefore commonly paired with Krell amps. And they were pretty expensive.

Its funny that you mention the Apogee ribbons. ..back in the 80's my best friends father had a machine shop and he was making the framework for the Apogee ribbon speakers. He had two sets in his house driven by Krell amps and JBL 18 in.subs..That was our after school party system for many years. ....sorry to say his wifes cats destroyed them and about 20 years later he gave me both sets....they were so big it took two men just to move the tweeter column.They were easily the size of a front house door .l posted them on Audiogon many years ago and a guy drove from New York to Indiana in a rental truck to buy them...l had no interest in restoring them...Anyway the sound they produced was very open and airy with a big sound stage....and very detailed. ....but they lacked that dynamic punch you get from a traditional cone type speaker so l had no interest in them....