Ruark describes the original Crusader as "one of the iconic loudspeakers of the 1980s". We'd certainly concur that its original and attractive styling has the sort of timelessness that deserves this revival as part of the company's Heritage Series, and in celebration of Ruark's upcoming 20th anniversary.

We last reviewed the Crusader in its original form back in 1997, which is some testament to the model's longevity, and at the time it cost £1,600 per pair. Nine years on, the price has gone up to an altogether more substantial £2,800 per pair.

This new version does incorporate a number of changes, most obviously in the use of a ribbon tweeter in place of the more conventional dome used in the original.

The large midrange fabric dome driver has always been a key ingredient in the Crusader package, and this unusual type of drive unit remains a part of the new version.

The styling is perhaps the Crusader's cleverest and most attractive feature. In common with its two-way Talisman stablemate, this three-way's unusual construction method effectively consists of two deep, narrow 'trays': a smaller rearward, black-finished one fits just inside a larger front section that is real-wood veneered, with nicely radiused edges front and rear.

Small in appearance

This arrangement may well have good structural properties, but the visual consequences are particularly intriguing: the eyes pick up on the pretty woodwork, and tend to perceive the rear section as more of a shadow than a solid box, so the speaker as a whole appears much smaller than is actually the case.

Construction is impressively solid, using a mix of 18mm and 25mm MDF with asymmetric internal bracing, and the standard finishes include extremely well finished oak, cherry and walnut veneers.

The front panel leans slightly backwards, which probably assists driver time-alignment and also allows the enclosure to be fairly low yet still direct the sound upwards into the room - for ribbon tweeters it's absolutely essential to be close to the vertical axis.

The speaker is slightly deeper at the base than the top, which will help spread the internal resonances in one plane, as well as keep the centre of gravity lower.

A nicely shaped, real-wood finished plinth is supplied, and this usefully extends the stability footprint a little, while also providing secure mounting for chunky 8mm spikes. There's also scope to add some useful mass loading at the bottom of the enclosure.

Large midrange domes are relatively rare among hi-fi speakers, and are actually more commonly found in the larger professional monitors, such as those made by ATC and PMC. There are both advantages and disadvantages.

Even distribution

On the plus side, they have high power handling, because the dome is driven at its edge by a relatively large diameter voice coil with high thermal capacity. And because the dome has a diameter roughly mid way between a bass driver and a tweeter, it creates a more even distribution across the audio band.

The down side is that an edge-driven dome necessarily has limited excursion, so it can only be used as a midrange-only driver, and that in turn makes a three-way configuration inevitable, with considerable extra crossover network complexity in consequence.

The bonus of a ribbon driver is that it holds a pleated conductive metal ribbon within a powerful magnetic field, so that the 'voice coil' ribbon and the diaphragm are one and the same.

The ribbon used here is 8x55mm (Ruark suggests it's 8.5x60mm), which will certainly ensure fine lateral dispersion to beyond the limits of human hearing.