Rainbow - The Ultimate Experience For Your Ears
Unadulterated, brilliant, full of details, spectacular; just some of the words used to describe the sound emitted from Rainbow components. For over thirty years now Rainbow has designed, developed and refined the art of car audio. Whether it be speakers, subwoofers, amplifiers or processors; Rainbow has set an acoustical and technical standard against which others are judged. Over the decades Rainbow components have repeatedly won reviews, tests and competitions; to such a point whereby nowadays within audiophile circles the name Rainbow is colloquial for musical reproduction beyond exceptional.

Germanium Series – The Essentials For Live Music
When dealing with live music accuracy and linearity are important, however the absolutely crucial element is faithful realism. The Germanium series have been developed specifically to pinpoint the importance of realism when reproducing music faithfully. By creating specific products to cover all genres of music; the Germanium speakers and subwoofers can reproduce the raw energy and emotion of any performance without ado, providing you an accurate recreation beyond astounding.

Design Ideologies
The Germanium series of components are the evolution of the highly acclaimed Profi-Vanadium series, boasting far superior technologies and materials in comparison with the previous ranges. Utilising elements like blackened aluminium paper composite diaphragms, large heavy duty exceptionally vented voice coils, aluminium die-cast baskets, extremely strong magnets, fully machined components and high quality plated connection terminals; the Germanium speakers and subwoofers are unlike anything previously heard within this price point. Let’s take a more in-depth look at what makes these components so special.

Elementary Kinetic Force – The Midranges
Starting with larger GL-W6 driver; the deceptively plain 166mm driver is not quite as elementary as first appearances suggest. Its cone starts with a fine woven paper pulp base chosen in order to output a delectably smooth sound. Reinforcing this and providing exceptional damping characteristics is a blackened aluminium layer. It’s been molecularly bonded with the lower diaphragm and provides an exceptional Young’s Modulus without saddling it with excessive weight. This allows the aggregate cone to maintain its structural integrity even under the most challenging of kinetic demands. The centre of the cone is home to a carefully shaped dust cap which not only combats resonance but also serves to push the speaker’s output azimuth well forward of the piston face. Not to be outshined by the exotic cone, the top suspension features a specifically profiled butyl rubber ‘dual-M’ surround. These twin parabolic curves flex and move varying distances depending on the drives linear movement, thus ensuring everything is kept within the strictest of alignments. Assisting this and forming the lower portion of the suspension is a non-progressive polycotton spider, which along with the flux oversees carefully the linear movement of the motor within and provides a sensitivity of 90dB. Unsurprisingly it’s not just any old motor either; far from it. Rainbow worked meticulously on the motor itself the result being a 32mm Kapton former wrapped with a four ohm copper voice coil, tuned by dual copper shorting rings. The first of these is embedded within the pole piece whilst the second has been placed within the confines of the magnet. Space and public interest won’t permit me to delve too deeply into the intricacies of this system, suffice to say that these rings work to rectify the various issues posed by closed loops of electrical currents within the conductor, sometimes known as Eddy or Foucault currents. In layman’s terms these rings alter the magnetic field via Faraday’s law of induction, the result being a lower inductance and far less overall distortion. Turning the unit over reveals a magnetically inert die-cast aluminum frame complete with four pairs of aerodynamically transparent webs which serve to hold the ferrite magnet firmly in place. Peppered liberally around the perimeter are numerous intake vents which allow for titanic gusts of cool air to be inhaled with each reciprocal movement. From there said zephyr travels over the voice coil and former before being expelled via a 10mm pole vent, bell mouthed to ensure that no fluid dynamics issues rear their ugly head. This cooling system is most efficient and allowing the motor a continuous power handling of 120 watts. Likewise the suspension, despite having a very low fluid resonant frequency; is robust enough to handle the odd peak burst of double that. The motor also enjoys a high Q, making it ideal for automotive locales such as doors. Palladium plated terminals are located upon one side between the web fingers and these adjoin silver-coated conductors leading to the coil within.

Crystal Clear Highs – The Tweeters
Rainbow has cut no corners pertaining to the design of the GL-T26 tweeters either, utilising ideologies from numerous high end design concepts to achieve its goal. Featuring a 26mm diaphragm constructed from a base of silk that’s been coated with a clandestine chemical coating; the dome profile is optimally designed to provide superb off-axis response. Even the grille protecting this hasn’t escaped Rainbow’s attention, being designed with hexagonal perforations in order to remain as transparent as possible. Living beneath the dome is a motor featuring a similar copper shorting ring to the midrange which works on conjunction with the four ohm voice coil wrapped tightly upon a thermally efficient 20mm aluminium former. Enshrouding this is a fastidiously designed neodymium magnet whose physical shape and position are such that it’s able to impress a substantial influence over the voice coil. The die-cast aluminium rear housing holding all this is no less the marvel. Back waves emanating from the diaphragm and their inherent turbulence create serious issues for a tweeter attempting to reciprocate many thousands of times per second without distortion. Each reciprocal movement sees this cavitation create a choppy mess of compression and rarefaction waves that the proceeding cycle must withstand and overcome. In order to allay this Rainbow designed an elaborate labyrinth within the backend, creating an almost aperiodic like chamber and lining it with a specially design synthetic material. This functions as the ultimate labyrinth chamber trapping the back waves and keeping them away from the underside of the dome ensuring their kinetic energy is hastily diminished. Likewise the cooling system is also a tad departed from the norm with Rainbow electing to omit the standard ferro-fluid cooling methodology and instead run with an advanced fully ventilated multiple pole air cooling system that allows for a continuous power handling of 120 watts. This aspect along with the suspension is conducive to an exceptionally unrestricted movement leading to more natural sound, deeper resonant frequency and lower F3 point. These enable to the driver to blend seamlessly with its bigger sibling.

The Frequency Distributor – The Crossovers
Speaking of seamlessly conjoining driver output; this is the domain of the crossovers. Beautifully hand crafted they come housed in robust ABS cases finished with smoked black Perspex covers. Beneath the cover reveals an interior that’s full of high quality goodies, such as MOX resisters and Mundorf capacitors, the latter working in conjunction with the low resistance air-core coils providing second order 12dB slopes centred on 2200Hz. Unlike many mid-range crossovers these units also feature phase correction. Sometimes referred to as an impedance linearization circuit; these help to align the drivers electrically by altering the phase at certain points in order to see the sound from both arrives at you simultaneously. Testament to Rainbow knowing a thing or two about crossover design there’s also a quintuple point switching system allowing you to tune the tweeter attenuation perfectly to suit your application. Defence wise if you’re one guilty of getting a little over zealous with the volume at times, rest assured Rainbow has incorporated twin protective circuits in the form of a PTC fuse in addition to a halogen bulb which will actually light up if you’re starting to encroach upon the circuit.

It’s All In The Listening – The Auditioning Process
Not only have we installed many of these components here at Fhrx Studios, we’ve also conducted extensive testing of them. Installing the full component set is quite straightforward thanks to the modest mounting depth of 65mm and 20mm respectively; dimensions that’ll see them go happily into most modern cars. With components mounted and running in nicely via correlated pink noise, we rummaged through the good old music collection accumulating all sort of titles. We were super keen to get into these drivers given our extensive experience with Rainbow equipment hitherto. Within audio circles Rainbow has quite the reputation for sounding awesome straight out of the box with very little ado; the Germanium’s extend this trend and then some. In reality when talking high-end speakers you don’t get bad ones so to speak, nevertheless some do consume entire days before they sound good. Not these bad boys though. Right from the get-go they’re quite something to behold. The midranges are very stout in their aural reproduction, punching not only with impressive accuracy but with real definition right down into the lower midbass regions, validating that combination of cone material and suspension design. The higher orders of sound are likewise remarkably precise. Whether you’re playing the normally shrill sound of violins, through to the crash of symbols; the tweeters remain clinical, smooth and crystal clear to the point where they tend to sound more akin to the real instrument than that of a mechanical diaphragm. The crossover is equally impressive, guaranteeing the drivers transition seamlessly in order to provide a harmoniously clean reproduction across the entire audible portion of their specified 39Hz – 30kHz frequency range. The overall linearity of the sound is simply beyond reproach.

Coming into land; rocking up to your local audio competition proudly proclaiming your car is full of Rainbows might garner you the odd snicker from those folk a little less mature. Trust us though when we say you’ll have the last laugh. For one doesn’t just happily return to audio mediocrity once they’ve auditioned speakers of this ilk. Rainbow has long had a reputation for upstaging its competition, and the Germanium components highlight perfectly why this reputation is so well deserved.

Quality Controlled
Given Rainbow has been developing and testing loudspeakers of all sizes for over thirty years now, you’d have expected the company to all but perfected the art of loudspeaker design, and you’d be correct. Between its manufacturing processes and developmental acumen; all Germanium drivers are developed and manufactured in accordance with Rainbows strict quality control regime. This guarantees high quality in terms of performance and workmanship.

Design Features
The rich heritage of this astute company, together with its ever-increasing technical acumen; is conducive to the Germanium speakers and subwoofers featuring a vast array of impressive design ideologies and latest technological advancements. Below are but a few highlights.

Laying Foundations And Producing Sweet Music – The Cones
– Blackened aluminium-paper cone hybrid for articular bass and precise midrange.
– Double M surround profile for controlled excursions of all sizes.
– Low resonance magnetically inert aluminium die-cast basket for maximal transparency.
– Palladium-plated screw terminals and silver-coated conductors.
– Specially shaped anti-resonance dust cap to project the sound ahead of the driver diaphragm.
– Extensive ventilation and cooling of dust cap, magnet motor, air gap and spider.

The Perspicuous Top End – The Domes
– Aluminium die-cast housing with lead through loudspeaker cables.
– Ventilated, ferrofluid free magnet system and an acoustically accurate volume makes for the deepest resonance frequency possible.
– Dome tweeter with hand coated silk offers an audiophile quality reproduction.
– Magnet back plate with 12-way drilled holes connects the tweeter with the tuned
acoustic chamber.
– Advanced ventilation engineering.
– Optimized protection grill with hexagon punched holes. This grille is also removable.

Controlling The Performance – The Crossovers
– Phase corrected second order crossovers with adjustable crossover point for woofers and tweeters.
– High quality Mundorf capacitors in upper frequency range offer a smooth handover reproduction.
– Large low-resistance air coils.
– Low noise MOX resistors with machined aluminium heat sinks.
– Five step attenuation for the tweeter.
– Positive temperature coefficient tweeter protection.

Electrical Specifications
– Nominal configuration: two-way 6.5″ & 1″ passive component set
– Continuous power handling: 80 Watts
– Maximum power handling: 150 Watts
– Voice coil diameter: 25.4 mm
– Frequency response: 39 Hz – 30000 Hz
– Sensitivity: 90 dB
– DC resistance (Re): 3.9 Ohms
– Resonant frequency (Fs): 38 Hz
– Xmax: +/- 4.2 mm
– Compliance (Vas): 18 l
– Total Q (Qts): 0.48
– Mechanical Q (Qms): 4.87
– Electrical Q (Qes): 0.53

Physical Specifications
– Mounting diameter: 142 mm
– Mounting depth: 66 mm
– Weight: 2.5 kg

Documentation
– Fhrx Studios’ review

Important Disclaimers
Given the dynamic nature of electronics industries these days; below are listed some very important specifics you need to be aware of.

Brand Authorization And Stock Sourcing
We are a fully authorised Australian dealer of this brand and all stock is sourced through legitimate channels. It therefore enjoys full Australian warranty, backing and support.

Pricing Structure
Whilst we endeavor to offer the best price possible, we ask that if you do find a better price elsewhere from an authorised dealer; please contact us. Also be aware that we regularly conduct group buys and sales, therefore pricing can sometimes be subject to change without notice.

Stock Structure
Being a dynamic store is conducive to our inventory constantly changing. We list only a small portion of our stable online, usually products most popular. Aside from these we also stock numerous other variants and configurations of these products, hence if you don’t see what you’re after please contact us.

Shipping
All our products are shipped with registered and insured postage. Upon ordering you’ll be issued with a receipt, a consignment note via which you can track your order, and we’ll also SMS you photos of the package for identification purposes.

Technical support
This last one we cannot emphasise enough! Please contact us if you require any further information or assistance with the setup and use of this product, especially pertaining to aspects more technical. As we want you to get the very best from this product.