The ribbon surface area is equal to that of a 71mm dome midrange (roughly 3in in diameter) but with a mass that is 1/10 of a typical 25mm dome tweeter moving mass. The benefit is extreme control for lowest possible distortion. The large surface area allows the psychoacoustic critical 800 Hz to 8000 Hz frequency band to be covered by a single driver to maintain coherency of phase, timber and directivity. The net result is immediate: total ease and natural, altogether with striking dynamics, not spectacular in itself, spectacular by its natural immediacy.
Line Source
The Raven Line Source (Designed by ORCA – Made in California) is the only transducer of its kind.
The Raven Line Source is a very unique mid and high frequency drive unit; unique in what it does, and unique in the technical solutions involved to achieve that performance.
It is always a dilemma difficult to resolve for any speaker designers: where and how to cross over between the midrange and the high frequency drive units. No high frequency unit really does anything useful below a typical 2000 Hz or at the very best 1500 Hz, and most if not all midrange units cannot pretend to produce anything credible, and even less so when we talk about high end ambition, into frequencies higher than 5000 Hz or even 10000 Hz. So here it is, there is a need for two different drive units to cover that all so sensitive range, and that also means the necessity to use a crossover, with all the problems it brings relating to phase shift, level adjustment, matching dispersion patterns, etc… Great designers will come out of this but it is, no matter how we put it, one more compromise to handle as best as we can. Here we removed the dilemma and we open wide a new range of natural sound and dynamics. The Raven LINE SOURCe covers just by itself the huge range of 800 Hz to well over 40 KHz, and does it beautifully. We detail below how we came to that, but what is already important is to realize how uniquely harmonious will sound a speaker that is seamless on that all so crucial range.
PHOTOS
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Specifications
SPECS
- Ribbon Material
Pure MMX
- Ribbon Mass
0.05 g
- Ribbon Width
15 mm
- Ribbon length
264 mm
- Ribbon Area
39.6 cm^2
- Frequency Response
+/- 1.5 dB from 500 Hz to 40 kHz in 380mm wide cabinet.
- Impedance
7 Ω above 400 Hz.
- DCR
0.05 Ω
- Sensitivity
97 dB ( 2.83 volts at 1 meter.)
- Recommended crossover
800 Hz (24 dB Linkwitz-Riley. Power handling with recommended crossover 100 watts)
- Speaker System Power
Up to 300 Watts
- Face Plate
308 mm H x 134 mm W x 9.3 mm D
(12 ⅛” H 5 ¼” W x 11/32” D)
- Cabinet hole
283 mm H x 102 mm W x 130 mm D
(11 ⅛” H x 4 1/16” W x 5 ⅛” D)
- Weight
11.8 Kg (26 lbs.)
FEATURES
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RIBBON
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MMX
The MMX material used is an aerospace metal matrix composite that has about 6 times the strength of pure aluminum. MMX has a much stronger centering force to reduce distortion, increase power handling and improve durability. Here again a combination of qualities never encountered into the same device, assembled here by our design and thanks to rare and extarordinary modern materials.
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REAR AIR CHAMBER
The Raven Line Source has a 250 Hz resonance frequency thanks to a very large rear air chamber that is 76mm deep by 63mm wide. The rear chamber is lined with 12 mm thick real wool felt and filled with 50 mm thick Black Hole Stuff to completely absorb the rear wave without reflections. The water fall decay and impulse response are excellent!
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TRANSFORMER
The transformer is internal with shortest possible leads to minimize inductance and resistive loss. The transformer core is the best available for low loss, low leakage and low distortion.
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FACE
The face is 9.3mm thick aircraft aluminum. All parts are assembled with thick rubber gaskets to damp vibration – it is about as dead as a solid block of granite.
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MAGNET TIP
The neodymium magnet tips are designed to focus a symmetrical and maximum strength magnetic field to minimize distortion. The magnet tip is saturated at 1.2 Tesla for best efficiency. Over such a large gap, this is a rare performance, thanks to finely optimized magnet design.