Rauna Freja Vintage 2-Way Loudspeaker Measurements

[Putter]

This is not the first concrete speaker. My recollection FWIW is that while concrete is obviously very solid, it has no damping qualities which may account for the odd resonances.

 

[DanielT]

This is not the first concrete speaker. My recollection FWIW is that while concrete is obviously very solid, it has no damping qualities which may account for the odd resonances.

It was nothing new to use concrete, that's right. The text in #5 and the link I put in #14 should be kept in mind that it is mostly marketing, so it should be taken with a grain of salt.
But what cannot be ignored is that Bo Hansson and Ranua created a perfect storm. For the time appealing exciting design. Both the shape and the material of the speakers. Good marketing and good entrepreneurship in terms of manufacturing and then getting the speakers out in HiFi stores. This wholeness to tie everything together was Bo Hansso's greatness.Rauna were very popular in Sweden.

The Germans were apparently ahead of their time because... but in Germany they were also sold in a raw concrete finish in exclusive interior design stores.

And now Ranua's latest model in raw concrete finish:

Vale — Your Site Title

rauna.squarespace.com

Speaking of concrete as a material for speakers. Is it overkill or not? The speakers below are in concrete. A couple of DIYs I heard at a DIY fair a few years ago. Most likely, cardboard casting pipes were used when they were built.

It would have been interesting if he built a test speaker only in cast pipes in cardboard and then compared how it was vs those in concrete. Resonances and so on.

Don't ask me about that yellow rubber duck outfit.

 

[MAB]

I have been meaning to revisit these measurements. @olieb pointed out odd directivity measurements at low frequency. Part of it was my turntable couldn't adequately support the speaker while rotating around the acoustic axis. I compounded the issue by entering the wrong mic distance when merging the near and far-field measurements. I made a better turntable and can rotate the speaker directly on it's horizontal and vertical axes. The new measurements look better and make more sense.

I no longer have the elevated bass, but rather flat to ~200Hz, rolling off rapidly below that. The port's anemic response is seen just above 30Hz. The directivity at low frequency is as expected.

It's also much more in line with Stereophile's measurements, even if it's pretty clear Rauna changed the woofer from 8 Ohm to 4 Ohm between their sample and mine.

Here is the In-Room response:

It's a pleasant speaker with weak bass. I use it daily in my office, and it's well suited for that.

 

[thewas]

Very nice directivity, especially considering the age, thank you for measuring again and sharing here.