R1 657 200,00
The TD4.8 is Raidho’s full-range flagship-tier statement speaker, and it’s not just well regarded — it’s award-winning. Hi-Fi+ and The Absolute Sound named it their “Cost-No-Object Loudspeaker of the Year” for 2018, beating out Raidho’s own XT-5 in the final shortlist. As the reviewing team put it at the time, that result was a testament to Raidho establishing itself as a genuine front-runner in a European high-end audio renaissance, capable of standing toe-to-toe with the best American high-end has to offer.
Despite its flagship status, Hi-Fi+’s reviewer was quick to note the TD4.8 isn’t imposing by “big loudspeaker” standards — it stands roughly as tall as an average middle-aged European, with a front baffle about as wide as a face, sitting on two outriggers that keep its footprint remarkably narrow. It’s deep, but shallow enough to work relatively close to a rear wall, sparing owners from needing to pull it dramatically into the room.
The design follows a true D’Appolito (MTM) configuration, with two midrange drivers and six bass drivers flanking the central ribbon tweeter — the same basic architecture as the smaller TD4.2, scaled up to full-range performance. The core technology is Raidho’s move from diamond-and-graphite-coated ceramic drivers to a further tantalum-diamond-ceramic coating process — a step reserved only for Raidho’s very top models, since the tantalum coating process is neither cheap nor fast, and can’t be scaled across the whole range the way the earlier ceramic-to-diamond upgrade was. The coating shifts the driver’s appearance to a slightly lighter, blue-white hue compared to standard industrial diamond black. Chief designer Benno Baun Meldgaard’s role on the TD4.8 was primarily final voicing on an already-signed-off project, but reviewers note his influence brought together the temporal and rhythmic qualities GamuT speakers are prized for with the vanishingly low distortion that’s always defined Raidho’s sound. Connections use newly designed “red gold” (high-copper-content gold) single-wire terminals with 4mm banana plug compatibility, and the big, adjustable feet include built-in decoupling to optimize performance across different rooms.
The Absolute Sound’s award citation didn’t mince words: the TD4.8 “makes music supremely intelligible, in a way few other loudspeakers can,” with vocal articulation a given but extending to the articulation of every instrument’s individual voice — the reviewers noted you could identify not just what instrument was playing but practically what type of reed a woodwind musician preferred. They described the experience of trying to sample just one track before moving on as ultimately impossible, calling turning the track off partway through “an act of musical barbarism.”
Hi-Fi+’s separate technical review echoed this enthusiasm, going so far as to say reviewing the TD4.8 almost felt like “an abrogation of duty” because the speaker imposes so few real limitations or system-matching headaches — a rare thing to say about a flagship loudspeaker. Despite six bass drivers and full-range ambition, it was praised as an easy nominal impedance load (mostly around 10 ohms, with only occasional dips), meaning it doesn’t force owners into a specific class of monstrous amplifier the way some full-range flagships do.
The 6-bass-driver, 2-midrange, single-ribbon-tweeter array is built entirely in-house by Raidho, from the drive units themselves down to the crossover and even the isolation feet — a level of vertical integration reviewers note as a genuine differentiator versus rivals who source drivers externally. The proprietary quasi-ribbon tweeter uses an ultra-thin diaphragm suspended between opposing magnetic fields, with a breakup frequency around 82kHz, and the underhung titanium voice coils used throughout avoid magnetic induction issues that can affect more conventional overhung designs.
At roughly £73,529/pair (around $89,640 USD, AU$125,000), the TD4.8 sits at genuine flagship pricing — but one independent comparison directly against the Wilson Audio WAMM Master Chronosonic (a speaker costing significantly more) found the TD4.8 gave up only some ground to Wilson’s true reference statement, while still delivering exceptional detail and musicality in a package that’s comparatively more amplifier-friendly and easier to place in a real room.
Pros: Award-winning musicality and intelligibility — genuinely rare praise from independent reviewers; fully in-house engineered drivers, crossover, and feet; tantalum-diamond-ceramic driver coating found only on Raidho’s very top models; comparatively easy amplifier load and room placement for a full-range flagship; proprietary ultra-fast quasi-ribbon tweeter technology.
Cons: Flagship pricing around $90,000/pair; still a genuinely large speaker with six bass drivers per side, even if more room-friendly than some full-range rivals; gives up some ground to the very top ultra-flagship rivals like the Wilson WAMM Master Chronosonic, according to at least one direct comparison.
Bottom line: The TD4.8 is a genuine award-winning statement loudspeaker — Hi-Fi+ and The Absolute Sound’s 2018 Cost-No-Object Loudspeaker of the Year, praised for making music extraordinarily intelligible while remaining more livable and amplifier-friendly than many rivals at its level. For anyone shopping true flagship territory, it’s consistently named among the best.
R1 657 200,00
R1 657 200,00
