Quote Originally Posted by davef View Post
Happy to hear that you are enjoying the towers and that they are comparing nicely against your Song 3A's. I believe the Song 3A's are ~ $4K pair so that is saying a lot...

Just wanted to clarify a few things... The RAAL we are using in our towers is a slightly customized version of the RAAL 70-20xr with the amorphous core transformer combined with a custom faceplate that I designed and was then carried over to our Sierra-2 tweeter. The ribbon in the Song 3A is the 64-10, a great tweeter but a significant step down from the RAAL 70-20xr and much less expensive. What makes the 70-20xr so amazing isn't just the additional radiating area (which is more than double) - it is the unique way RAAL is damping the diaphragm, which is something I am under an NDA regarding the details of. There is very little in common between the RAAL 70-20 and the 64-10, other than they are both true ribbon tweeters and made by RAAL.

With that in mind, the 64-10 is an offshoot of our custom Sierra-2 tweeter (there are differences and they are not interchangeable) There was great expense in the development of our Sierra-2 tweeter, literally dozens of different samples and loads of man hours involved on both ends. Aleks gave me the opportunity to keep the tweeter entirely exclusive to us, which due to the development expenses, we would have had to commit to a specific amount of volume per quarter. At the time, the number was scary and I was hesitant to commit. Aleks understood, so we agreed that an OEM version would be released (what is now the 64-10 etc)

Seemed like a fair and reasonable compromise to me so we agreed to it... RAAL is a small company and it is important in this industry to also help our vendors -- and this agreement worked out well for them and we have done well with our Sierra-2 as well. Win-Win if you ask me - because if we were not able to maintain the volume RAAL wanted with exclusivity -- it would have been a big issue for RAAL (who knows if they would have recovered) and also for us.

Hope this clarifies!
Wow Dave,

Thanks for all that information. Sort of clears up the RAAL history for me. I also have my own small company, I admire what you do and understand the peaks, valley's, and risks associated with developing products.
Your right, the Song3a's were more expensive, and with shipping was right around there. Salk has had a price increase on these since. They are nice, I like them. I don't really consider myself an audiophile, I just like music and movies, and grew up in a generation where when we had extra money we bought "new gear". I try to carry on that tradition, lol.
I would think if you decided to build a speaker in the bamboo cabinet that was "like" the Song3 it would be pretty special, but so far I think your towers are pretty special already.
I also pretty much only buy from internet direct companies at this point. I think there is some clear vision and honesty in that segment of the industry that reminds me of what it was like back in the 70/80's that I find refreshing. I started my HT speaker journey in 2002 with Home Theater Direct series 3 speakers, moved to the Smaller EMP towers and center, then to the larger ones, and now to the Sierra towers. I have had extremely good experiences with Outlaw, Emotiva, Axiom (surrounds), Dave at VinylNirvana.com (Thoren's expert) and now with Ascend. I will probably buy a pair of Luna's for my surrounds in the near future. Thanks!