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Hello everyone:

I exchanged a couple of emails with Romy, and since the topic may be of interest to everyone, I am posting the emails here. Just in case anyone wonders, of course I checked with Romy to see if he was alright with his reply to my email being posted here.

My email to Romy earlier today:

"Hi Romy:
 
I fear I may again have to trouble you for advice. I have been talking to Aleksandar of Raal about the Lazy Ribbon, and have dicussed its specs on paper with a friend who is more knowledgeable than me and is rather impressed.
 
Nonetheless, I have a couple of concerns. One is whether the sloping off at 20KHz and bump thereafter are a cause for concern. Alex suggests, and I would agree with him at least theoretically, that it should not be.
 
Secondly, what are the ideal specifications, in terms of the transformers, to be aimed for in a system which to all intent and purposes, in terms of topology is indistinguishable from Macondo, in this frequency range at any rate? To recap, as I do not expect you to remember, I have exactly the same complement of S2 drivers, with a choice of aluminium or plastic diaphragms, as you have and I am hoping to pretty much emulate what you have done, if you do not mind. It would be used with exactly same channel of Melquiades as you are using presently (according to the schematics). I would be grateful if you could be precise if there are any departures from specific options being suggested by Alex.
 
Maybe I shoud add a third matter that I have been thinking about. I do like the shape of the Water Drop for very functional reasons (minimisation of reflections), but the WD itself has proven such a pain for Alex that he does not even want to consider it as an option. But is there any benefit to having the Lazy Ribbon fitted in a Water Drop shape enclosure? Either I can ask Alex whether he has Water Drop enclosures which render this possible or I could have it built out of wood and drop the Lazy Ribbon in such an enclosure. What do you you think?
 
I am reluctant to post these questions on the forum at the moment as I feel that it might look like I am questioning Alex's judgement. That is not at all the case but I would love to have your opinion to make sure I do not miss opportunities which are at this early stage still open to me. Of course do not hesitate to comment on any other matters (surely many) that may be eluding me that would improve on my solution for the high frequency range and it goes without saying, assuming you have a moment to consider my concerns.
 
Regards
Rakesh"

Romy's response:

"I do not see this email as something that would be prohibitive for open forum. You  are do not questioning Alex's judgment but you are looking for a second opinion. I think in this correspondence here is a lot that might be useful for public. Since Alex is the manufacture and his opinion is conditioned I feel it is perfectly reasonable to look what other data might be at the table.  In fact I think it would be good idea to inform the public that this driver is available as there is no data at RAAL web site.
 
The bumps or anything else at 20KHz are absolutely irrelevant. In fact any linearity or lack of it above 12K-13K is more or less irrelevant.
 
The transformer is a different subject.  What kind transformer you have in mind? The Milq’s transformer directly coupled to the ribbon or ribbon en own transformer? If you go for directly coupled to the ribbon then it automatically implies multiamping. If you have a full Milq dedicated juts for the ribbon then I think it might be a bit too much.
 
Regarding the same.  The Water Drop shape is great and this was what I was looking for went I approached Alex. However, I was in a different situation. At that time Alex was  a small manufacture with little exposure or publicity and I proposed to him to do something that he never did but something the he always wanted and never had customers who would pay for it. So, run my enthusiasm wave knowing that I get a great deal just  for the abuse of the Alex’s own passion. As a result I had my Water Drop for extremely low price, high quality and I remember that I did tell to Alex that in 5 years what he will be riding in Mercedes and had overvaluing amount of order it would be much more difficult to get that “push envelop” products out of him.
 
So, is Water Drop shape necessary? I do not know. I know that baffles are bad for HF devises and I would like my tweeter to stand alone with no baffles. If I buy this Lazy Ribbon then I would ask Alex to have the front plate no wider than  the body or the ribbon and to make the mounting provision under the bottom. Alex is very resourceful man and very much willing to use his inventiveness to benefit custom solutions. I feel that in out systems his tweeter need to be treated like a piece of furniture – you need to like how it looks and fells  in context of your own setup and your own speaker frame. I think Alex has no a lot of customers who use his drivers in standalone configuration – so you need to navigate his and to get from him what you want
 
The Cat"

PS: Lazy Ribbon data: http://www.goodsoundclub.com/PDF/RAAL+The+Lazy+Ribbon+specs.pdf



 

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