Ribbon distortion

[jirka]

Hallo, this subject has been discussed in another threads.

Orca design has new website http://www.orcadesign.com/
There are new measurements of RAVEN ribbon drivers.

Another new manufacturer of ribbon drivers is RAAL http://www.raalribbon.com/products_flatfoil_140-15.htm

When I compare the impulse responses of Raven R3.2 MMX and RAAL 140-15D, both drivers are very good.

But there is the world of difference in the waterfall plot. Both drivers have consistent decay characteristics through the whole spectrum. The RAVENs decay to -20dB is somewhat long, it takes several miliseconds. The RAAL has very clean decay (shorter than 500 microseconds).

Is the longer and consistent decay of ribbon responsible for audible distortion?

Do you think the RAAL will not have common clean but distorted sound asociated with ribbon tweeters? Will the RAAL be closer to the Manger?

[jirka]

Does anyone have any measurements of RAAL or RAVEN? Thank you

[Taco]

The only measurements of true ribbon drivers I have seen are published in the german Hobby Hifi magazin. In the last issue they measured the Alian costing 2000 euros (designed by the same guy as the Raven ribbons). It displayed quite a lot of distortion (k2 >1 % in the high frequency domain).

In the past they also measured the Raven R1 which also had a bit more distortion then a conventional dome.

But like I said only from the german HobbyHifi magazin, never used or measured a Raven or Raal.

[serengetiplains]

Taco, can you post a scan of relevant parts of the Hobby HiFi tests?

[jirka]

Every measurement is welcome. I think the Alian is large ribbon and will sound distorted. But the other side is that this type of distortion can be very pleasing as it is with Lowther.