Description
The past couple of years have been very challenging for a number of suppliers. For Russell K, it was doubly so, coinciding with them moving production from Poland to the UK. This included getting cabinetry made here and setting up a new assembly facility.
The upshot was that, not long after launching their agreeably compact Red 120, supply fell to below a trickle. We’ve tended to ignore what we couldn’t get hold of, so very little was said on these pages.
The situation has improved markedly but we have been rather slow to make this point on here.
So, what’s the Red 120 like? For a start it’s actually two models. As with the larger Red 150, there are standard and SE variants. Outwardly, they are almost identical with only the plinth design and construction to differentiate. Grilles are standard with the SE, optional with standard.
Internally there are other differences to the tweeter and crossover design. The SE is the better, cleaner and more compelling speaker.
In terms of both, sound quality is disturbingly good! The ‘basic’ Red 120 makes a very compelling case for itself and the new 2022 UK built cabinets look exceptionally good too.
The 120 may well be compact but it sounds far larger. Bass is extended and very clean. Midrange resolution maintains the Russell K characteristic of being far more revealing of note decays and textures than just about any other speaker.
Recently, we played a whole bunch of alternative £4k ish speakers and noticed that, beyond differences of tonal balance dynamics etc, there was a common sound that we can only assume is down to the use of cabinet damping. The 120s simply gave a more open window on the performance.
Having said this, there are a mass of factors when choosing the right transducer and these will not be right for every room, every listener or every system. They do, however, have some very unusual qualities. As with the smaller Red 50 they also require surprisingly little of the electronics, meaning that relatively modest electronics can shine.
Finish options are oak, currently partnered with white baffles and bases, walnut and black oak, which both come with a dark charcoal front panel and base.
We have both versions on demonstration.
Prices are here. There is nothing to stop us shipping these to people, but it’s not the best way to sell loudspeakers at this level, so there is no click to buy.
Cabinet
- Dimensions H- 860mm (910mm including plinth, base and spikes) W-200mm D-190mm
- Construction 16mm MDF all sides apart from front baffle which is 19mm.
- Totally undamped cabinet
- 3 acoustic loading bracing shelves with multiple apertures, mounted below the tweeter, below the bass mid driver and below the sub bass driver
- 1 bracing shelf mounted near the bottom of the enclosure containing an internal port
- Internal port vents into a small chamber containing 2 asymmetric length reflex ports tuned as a system to 21Hz
Drive Units
- 2 x 5” Bass units with impregnated paper cone and curved optimised acoustic profile
- High power Ferrite magnet driving a 25mm voice coil with aluminium former and Faraday distortion cancelling copper ring
- 25mm soft dome tweeter
- Double Ferrite magnet system
- Copper Clad Aluminium voice coil wire on a Fibreglass Former and Faraday distortion cancelling copper ring
Crossover
- All drivers connected in positive phase
- Sub bass driver starts roll off at 80Hz 6db/Oct fed by “Enclosed Field Iron Core Inductor”. Features high power without saturation, very low DCR and almost no stray magnetic field
- Bass/Mid driver crossover frequency 1800Hz nominal 12 dB/Oct. Utilises an “Enclosed Field Ferrite Core Inductor “in the signal path. Very low DCR nominal stray fields
- Tweeter attenuation by misaligned Zobel network as opposed to conventional L-Pad
- All Drivers have only one component in the signal path
- Phase optimised through the crossover region
- In room usable frequency response 22Hz-25KHz (dependent on room)
- Sensitivity: 86db 1 watt 1 Metre
