BØRRESEN 01

Statement 2-Way Monitor Stand Mount Speaker

The BØRRESEN 01 speaker is a premium 2-way speaker that has re-defined what is possible to achieve with a stand mounted monitor design. Its unique ribbon tweeter and the innovative membrane of the low-weight bass/mid-range driver guarantees a transparent and authentic musical performance projected onto a life-like stage.

The unique technologies implemented in the 01 result in a new paradigm in the expression of detail & information. Furthermore, the sound is free and unrestrained to the degree that it feels it is being created by a large full scale floor stander. There’s a sense of release and effortlessness with this speaker that often shocks audiophiles who have had expectations formed by experience with older technologies. The 01 unfolds its balanced and refined musicality with a remarkable natural ease. A clear and undistorted dynamic sonic performance reaching from the upper pitches to the lower bass impart any music with an unprecedented authenticity.

The cabinet is carefully designed by BØRRESEN and built by Italian artisans to coach-building levels of quality. The artistic design of the cabinet and the stand turn this loudspeaker into a perfect amalgamation of outstanding musicality shaped into a piece of art. The BØRRESEN 01 represents the pinnacle of stand mount monitor speaker design.

The Tweeter

The BØRRESEN planar ribbon tweeter is an entirely new technical development. Elaborate finite element methods have been applied to linearise and optimise the magnetic flux field, to facilitate driver movement and to ensure high efficiency and outstanding linearity. The efficiency of this closed ribbon tweeter amounts to an exceptional 94dB and operates from approximately 2.5 kHz upwards. The moving mass is extremely low at 0.01 grams. The totally concealed tweeter has the capacity to operate at an incredible speed, which is an absolute prerequisite to unlocking the most subtle and refined sound details of any kind of music. The enormous robustness of this tweeter allows it to handle extremely high transient peaks without any ear fatiguing breakups. No transformers are being used.

The Membrane

The BØRRESEN membrane consists of a composite of two layers of very thin carbon on both sides of a 4 mm Nomex honeycomb core. This composite structure (similar to the one used in Formula 1 racing cars) provides the ultimate combination of stiffness to weight ratio. The exceptionally low weight of only 5.5 grams allows a very high acceleration factor in the driver, resulting in both outstanding resolution and higher efficiency.

Bass/midrange – The Iron-Free Revolution

The patented BØRRESEN magnet system is breaking new ground. Its unique, innovative and unprecedented technological design makes it stand out from anything else on the loudspeaker market. Since the invention of the loudspeaker driver, the fundamental structure of magnet systems has not changed. Iron has been used to concentrate the magnetic flux in a narrow gap where the voice-coil is located. Iron is suited for the concentration of flux, but also poses some challenging issues when it comes to the voice-coil parameters. These parameters also change with the position of the voice-coil, creating considerable iron distortion.

The BØRRESEN magnet motor is breaking new ground here. It is uniquely designed without the use of any iron. 4 opposing neodymium ring-magnets are used to squeeze the flux lines together over two solid copper discs, which now act like pole pieces.

The BØRRESEN magnet system has a high flux of 1.1 Tesla. The solid copper pole rings act as very effective heat sinks. This endows the loudspeaker driver with a very high power handling capacity. The copper pole rings also reduce voice-coil inductance to an exceptionally low value of 0.04 MH (less than 10% of regular standard drivers). The extremely low induction provides the driver with some very desirable attributes that elevate the quality of acoustic performance enormously. A much lower induction means a much faster driver with no lag. This impacts the overall loudspeaker performance which now becomes much more refined and very detailed. Lower induction also causes less resonance impedance variation, which means less phase angles and less impedance variation for the driving amplifier. Lower induction will also curb the impedance rise over system resonances. In terms of musicality, this will result in bass that is less ‘boomy’ but much more pristine. Bass performance becomes very tight, well-focused and more real-world.

The Crossover

BØRRESEN loudspeakers are fitted with a serial crossover configuration. The reason for this is that the drivers share the very same flow of electric current in the crossover region. As a result, the electric current is phase-locked over the crossover region.

Unlike standard parallel filtering, where each driver receives its own frequency and phase content, the new serial filters work by diverting out-of-band currents around the current flows, thus creating a much more coherent system. This unrivaled and innovative technological approach takes your music into a new echelon of acoustic delight.

For the crossover filter, BØRRESEN went to great lengths to source the very best and most sophisticated state-of-the-art components. The coils are foil types wound with paper isolation and impregnated with resin under vacuum to make them mechanically extremely solid and stable. For crossover capacitors, BØRRESEN use arrays of small military spec stack-foil types. They have the best mechanical stability and lowest induction of any type of capacitor on the market (and they sound wonderful, too). For tweeter attenuation resistors, BØRRESEN use metal strip types since they have the lowest noise figures (by far) and a very low thermal variation.

The Cabinets

The cabinets are heavily braced, block milled, compressed wood structures, beautifully veneered in walnut and fitted with solid walnut inserts. They follow the best of Danish furniture design traditions paired with the stylish shapes that were initially created by the late Franco Serblin from Sonus Faber. The tweeter section is vented to balance out the build-up of air pressure. The bass sections consist of tuned ports calibrated for musically relevant frequencies.

The Feet

Ansuz Darkz decouplers have been designed to ensure a distinctly better mechanical grounding of the speaker cabinet to the stand and/or to the floor. Ansuz Darkz consist of 3 discs separated by 3 titanium ball bearings. Ansuz Darkz are available in 4 alloys that allow for different sonic levels of grounding qualities.

The BØRRESEN 01 stand-mounted loudspeakers have three cavities in the surface of the upper plate of stand that accommodate built-in Darkz resonance control decouplers between the loudspeakers and the plate. The feet of the stand are designed to sit on Darkz decouplers of individual choice.

Versions and Pricing

The 01 comes in three versions – Standard, Cryo and the Silver Supreme Edition (listed separately)
The standard version is AUD 51,000 and the Cryo version is AUD 54,400.

The Cryogenic treatment of the speakers’ metal components results in a further improvement of conductivity, unleashing finest and most subtle musical details. When metal components undergo cryogenic processing, they are subjected to extreme cooling. In the wake of this process, the crystal structure of the metal contracts more and more. Alloying elements are pushed out of the grain structure of the metal, which now becomes very similar to a monocrystal. These structural changes in the metal have a profound effect on its audio properties, resulting in an increase of conductivity. The result is literally opening up a new dimension of musical performance – a sound that is crystal clear, truly natural and extremely refined.

Videos

Next Level HiFi, Borresen 01 Loudspeakers, Aavik Acoustics U 380, Ansuz Acoustics, Show Winner, RMAF

Reviews

Enjoy the Music, Dr.Michael Bump, 2020

At first impression, one will likely be drawn into the incredible level of resolution the Borresen Acoustics 01 present. Quickly, however, observant ears will note this isn’t another audio parlor trick via tight bass and artificially extended upper frequencies to gain attention. True, they are direct and vivid, but they are foremost musical. It is the realism of image, stage, the balance of envelope, and timbral authenticity that keep you there. Their presentation is not one that you have to process or has to grow on you. Their improvement to whatever you’ve been accustomed to is obvious. Immediately, subtleties you were unaware of in well-worn references are being introduced for the first time. A smile is permanently affixed to your face, and you’re left thinking, “you’ve got to be kidding.” At the heart of it all, I simply and thoroughly enjoyed listening to music through these speakers. Often, I would take time out from writing this review to go back and listen for a point I was attempting to compose, only to find that the rest of the evening flew by as I was once again kidnapped in my listening room……What I can say is, if one is capable of commanding this level of audio investment, the return will be an unending oasis of musical reality, brought to you in ways likely unimagined.

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Hi-Fi Knights, Dawid Grzyb, 2020

It’s tempting to label today’s Børresen as a luxurious top shelf specimen that delivered everything it promised, but this approach dearly misses the big picture. The 01’s articulation, textural exuberance, upstairs elegance, bonkers power and control achieved without any active assistance, big cones or substantial cabs, spell out next-level engineering cleverness beyond subjective talk related to voicing. That’s the real money sink. Considering all measures necessary to turn the Børresen 01 into what it is, I understand why its makers charge this much for a performer this small.

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