Scansonic is owned by Dantax, the same parent company as Raidho, and the brand’s loudspeakers are designed by Michael Børresen, creator of the Raidho range.  As a result, they have much of the Raidho family DNA and pedigree but at a fraction of the cost.

Says Børresen, “Having worked with Raidho speakers for more than 12 years, I found myself faced with a completely new challenge when I was asked to design a new range of high-performance speakers for the Scansonic brand.

“From the start, I was very focused on building on all the experiences and strengths obtained from designing the Raidho speakers. At the same time, I also had to be aware of the long heritage and the Nordic design tradition of the Scansonic brand. This time, the task also came with a budget and a desire to create the very best possible within financial limits.”

Børresen was keen to ensure that certain core techniques from his Raidho designs would remain central in the Scansonic range. In particular, they would be designed around a ribbon tweeter that works with a super lightweight diaphragm, sealed around the edges to enable a seamless transition to the midrange region.

Børresen’s first designs for Scansonic’s HD range were the five models in the MB-series (named with his own initials): a compact standmount, three floorstanders and a home theatre centre channel, launched in early 2015.

The new M-series, comprising a compact standmount, two floorstanders and an active subwoofer, is designed around an ultra-light ribbon planar tweeter as used in the MB-series. Its membrane is formed by a Kapton-aluminum sandwich just 20 um thick and with an extremely low mass – approximately 50 times less than any conventional textile, ceramic, beryllium or diamond dome.

The tweeter is partnered with a paper-polypropylene coned 4.5-inch mid/bass driver (one in the M-5 compact standmount and two in the M-6 and M-9 floorstanders) with underhung magnet system. The M-9 floorstander adds an 8-inch side-mount bass driver.

Cabinets feature a heavily braced, ventilated box design with front-loaded port.

Also in the range, the M-8 subwoofer has a powerful 100 W RMS built-in amplifier. Its adjustable crossover frequency and phase angle enable you to seamlessly combine the M-8 with any existing stereo or surround sound setup.

Technical specifications 

The Scansonic HD M-series is available now, priced as follows (incl VAT). All models are available in a choice of two finishes: black-piano or white-piano.

M-5 compact 2-way stand-mount (pictured)    £399

M-6 compact 2.5-way floorstander   £899

M-9 3-way floorstander   £1,199

M-8 active subwoofer     £599

The range will be at the Bristol show lager this month.