Yup. The SuperHemp. With room gain, and where my ears are located for serious listening, lying on the floor with head propped up, all kinds of very well damped bass. The big flared port does a hell of a lot more than just vent the box, playing them backward, I realized there was a ton of info coming out of there, and when placing them back I realized that they actually were adding a considerable amount of ambience. This added radiation from the big port combined with SET is, for a BR speaker, far closer to bipole, etc., than I ever would have thought. This is something new. Louis notices the same thing, apparently. An added benefit.
For the last ten years, my favourite 8 inch wide ranger/coaxial driver in general has been the Radian 508 coaxial, which I have owned for years, an Emilar 8, with the special secret herbs n spices paper recipe used in the same cones in the Tannoy Pre$tige Line. Arguably this line represent the eternal Arch-Lords of the Point Source speaker.
www.tannoy.com and you will see what I mean...This is because the American wing of Tannoy was producing the drivers up the road, and Radian was a spin off of Emilar. ...Now, this hemp matrix cone stuff, and with a little radiating surface, ----> 8 inch <----for which there is no substitute, (sorry you 4.5" fans) has come along and blown all that coaxial stuff into the ...weed, ...pardon the pun. No crossover, no phase issues, no material dissimilarities, no aluminum diaphragms and on...
Mine aren't even broken in yet, having only been played quite quietly on nothing more potent than 6 watts ClariT, and recently they are really coming into their own. I have been ill, and as such have not been interested in listening to anything much heavier than Beethoven chamber counterpoint. Soon, they will get something crunchier to chew on. Point is, they are NOT burned in, and they still sound fabulous.
The state of the art so far as higher efficiency 8 inch drivers appears to have been pushed forward once again. The hemp 8 OEM driver has a Fs=~44Hz, Qts ~.45, in a 2.5ft^3 box, with room gain? ...attaining 36Hz is a no brainer, expecially with lower damping factor of a tube amp. TONS of bass. There is a bass TL in the room, and no inclination to plug it in. To me this is proof of fullrange E. Nuff. Completely exceeded my expectations. What it doesn't tell, is the story of this unbelievably high calorie dry, sweet, warm organic thing coming out of these speakers. Turns out that almost all of the current owners of SuperHemps are using SET amps, and about half are using the world's most loved 2A3, Don Garber's Fi X. Synergy. Credibility. Uber musicality
The Radian 508, and thus the Galante Rhapsody only reeeelly sound great using micro power SET. The hemps sound great using Class T, 45SE, 6DN7 SE, Hafler A/AB, the hemps sound ridiculously great with all these different topologies. The guy selling the Rhapsodies is likely trying to fund the upgrade most appropriate to him: the SuperHemps.
