Michael Børresen explains himself?

[sigbergaudio]

I read it as if you were stating, indirectly, that Manta is much better than Borresen.
Having read it again, I probably misinterpreted it.

Manta $41,171ca wow

With two subs, yes. So for that price you get a system with 2x5.5" coax, 2x12" and 4x10". And cardioid. And everything active. Shipped to your door.

Unless you meant Wow, that's cheap, then yes, I know!

 

[amirm]

Has anyone in this thread actually listened to Børresen speakers?

Sure. See: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...c-audio-fest-report-day-2.45942/#post-1637777

And https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...pacific-audio-fest-report.45889/#post-1635793

 

[Ropeburn]

Yeah some of the comments...

View attachment 494267

Of course Amir's comment this one is answering has been removed.

 

[Wesseling Audio Lab]

"Boomy and Tubby" for $550k - Ridiculous

 

[Ropeburn]

"Boomy and Tubby" for $550k - Ridiculous

For that money you can get aforementioned BMW M1, which is guaranteed to sound absolutely great.

 

[dfuller]

$550,000 for speakers is crazy. And for speakers that are categorically worse than something that costs 0.5% as much, too.

The reasoning he gives is nonsensical too - that we can infer a fundamental from harmonic spacing doesn't mean the speaker shouldn't reproduce that fundamental... Also, considering every speaker he's """"designed"""" has a socking great resonant peak at 80hz give or take, I have to assume he's used to white box nonsense and not fundamentally good speakers.

And yeah, a speaker with a flat axial response but a nonlinear power response can sound a bit forward, but that doesn't excuse the 6dB presence hole which is going to sound horribly muffled in room.

 

[steve59]

Go to Axpona, all the major brands under 1 roof. Most demos are in small hotel rooms, buy Wilson usually uses large rooms and The Next Level with Lars C demonstrating the Raidho D1.2 1 year and the Borrensen 01 the next went with a wide shallow room with the speakers 16 or so feet apart toed in with the center seat maybe 6-8' from the component line. I also remember 4 of their power amps driving the 2 speakers to exciting levels, volumes I wouldn't expect such small drivers able to produce. It wasn't until I asked Lars how much and was told $27k, that I quit taking them seriously. I got to hear the Borrensen 02, the 3 driver floor standing model at TNL, but had dropped in while riding my motorcycle and the demo was over b4 my ears had stopped ringing from the wind noise. Both Raidho and Borrensen have been driven by Anzus components. Very expensive class d amps.

Schaumburg IL every spring at the Hilton fri, sat, and half of sunday. Hundreds of audio products for all budgets. The small rooms aren't kind to most large speakers, but it's still fun.

 

[RexrothPigeon]

As much as ASR folks will recoil from these measurements and condemn any such speaker, the fact is we know that some things can sound better than the measurements look. By that I mean certain peaks or dips in frequency response may not sound as obvious or bad as they look on a graph.
And as much as “ designing by ear” is disparaged, it’s not implausible that such a process results in frequency response deviations that “ to the ear” aren’t as obvious as they look.

And of course, the other variable: you can have frequency response variations that are only obvious or offputting with some recordings and not others. I have a bass node or two in my set up but it’s only obvious very occasionally, and in other cases I think it adds a bit of punch that I like.

And then you have the fact that people can adapt to colorations. So if you find you’ve easily adapted to the colorations in the loudspeaker, you may find yourself able to enjoy the good or more compelling aspects of the speaker.

Erin if I recall correctly said that the bass coloration in the X3 could be kind of fun and add a sense of punch, and he also commented on the spacious imaging and the very good image focus.

Likewise my friend who had the X6 noticed the recessed qualities on some piano recording right off the bat, but otherwise and lots of material it didn’t tend to show up as a single obnoxious“colouration” sticking out per se but more of a general slightly recessed, relaxed quality overall, and since he didn’t find that disqualifying of his enjoyment, he was able to enjoy the spacious and focussed imaging, the sense of easy, fine detail and the kick ass quality of the bass response on lots of tracks.

So there can be a valid sense in which we have the measurements and in which that hoary old audiophile response “but have you heard it?” has a bit of validity. If you’re looking for speakers with “ good measurements” with respect to what ASR accepts as best practises then it’s easy to dismiss any speaker that measures poorly with respect to that goal. It’s less easy for many people to precisely predict exactly how loudspeaker will sound from the measurements. Once you move in to the wild west of speaker designs in which speakers can measure all over the map in terms of combinations of on-axis frequency deviations, off axis behaviour, different room interactions, etc.

I’ve seen some ASR members try to predict from measurements the sound of speakers they have not heard, but which I’ve heard, and some where well off what I heard.

Even people well-versed in measurements like Amir, Erin, JA (and every speaker designer I can remember commenting on the topic) has had surprises here or there moving from how something measures to the subjective impressions? “ with many recordings this particular frequency response deviation did not seem as obvious to the ear as it looks in the graph.”

So do the Borresen speakers measure poorly with respect to ASR criteria? Of course.
I’m with ASR here and feeling that the measurements of Borresen speakers we’ve seen so far suggests “ the emperor has no clothes” in terms of MB’s speaker design prowess.

But that doesn’t necessarily mean that they sound as bad, or as bad to some people, as the uproar would suggests given the issues I’ve mentioned above.

Maybe some people will latch onto any frequency response deviation they detect and that will be enough to put them off.

But other listeners may adapt to that and enjoy other aspects of the speaker. I’ve heard speakers that I can clearly hear have frequency response deviations, but which nonetheless are doing some other really cool and compelling things that make them fun to listen to.

I think more than all of these factors is the fact that most of these "audiophiles" are just rich guys in their 60s and 70s who think they're golden eared expert judges of sound quality but whose hearing has actually been in decline for 30+ years already.

 

[Ropeburn]

 

[kharan]

Has anyone in this thread actually listened to Børresen speakers?
I’m not exactly dying to hear them, but if there’s a demo setup nearby,
I might try them out just out of morbid curiosity.

I have. Was not impressed. No bass, hollow sounding, weird timbre. Image well though. It was one of the more expensive one, music was some classic rock.

 

[kemmler3D]

$550,000 for speakers is crazy. And for speakers that are categorically worse than something that costs 0.5% as much, too.

I mean, even if the borrensen speakers have the exact FR and dispersion that you want... and nearly perfect distortion, and cardioid and whatever else you want in a speaker... $550K is too much. $550K is a budget you'd expect to see for a good sound system for an entire nightclub or moderately sized auditorium. For home speakers, for that budget, you can achieve any level of performance or tonality you want, top-end room treatment, and a very comfortable couch to listen from.

The only reason to spend that much on home speakers is a durable belief that audio is magic, bigger price tags make more powerful spells to cast on your music.

 

[MattHooper]

I mean, even if the borrensen speakers have the exact FR and dispersion that you want... and nearly perfect distortion, and cardioid and whatever else you want in a speaker... $550K is too much. $550K is a budget you'd expect to see for a good sound system for an entire nightclub or moderately sized auditorium. For home speakers, for that budget, you can achieve any level of performance or tonality you want, top-end room treatment, and a very comfortable couch to listen from.

The only reason to spend that much on home speakers is a durable belief that audio is magic, bigger price tags make more powerful spells to cast on your music.

I certainly do find myself annoyed by the apparent attempt of high-end companies to one up each other in how much they can charge for their speakers. At some point it just feels like they are daring people to take them seriously or not. When I look at the crazy prices for their speakers… there’s something about simply whipping up an absurd price “ just because we know somebody will buy somebody of these things no matter what price we put on them” that disgusts me.

(This is one reason why I always admired the integrity of a designer like Jim Thiel who was always trying to design the very best speakers he could for a price point - he wanted his loudspeakers to be affordable for many audiophiles. They never went in for this nutty “ because we can” pricing).

 

[kemmler3D]

there’s something about simply whipping up an absurd price “ just because we know somebody will buy somebody of these things no matter what price we put on them” that disgusts me.

Yeah, it's appalling but also fascinating in a way, like "wow, is robbing a bank really that simple? I wonder if I could..."

 

[Pearljam5000]

Would the Blade Meta 1 be better than the $500K M6?

 

[Putter]

I would make a distinction between this item which is at least a speaker that makes sound which is acceptable to at least some people and various snake oil items that in the best case don't affect the sound and often degrade it.

 

[bmc0]

Would the Blade Meta 1 be better than the $500K M6?

Almost certainly.

 

[dfuller]

I mean, even if the borrensen speakers have the exact FR and dispersion that you want... and nearly perfect distortion, and cardioid and whatever else you want in a speaker... $550K is too much. $550K is a budget you'd expect to see for a good sound system for an entire nightclub or moderately sized auditorium. For home speakers, for that budget, you can achieve any level of performance or tonality you want, top-end room treatment, and a very comfortable couch to listen from.

The only reason to spend that much on home speakers is a durable belief that audio is magic, bigger price tags make more powerful spells to cast on your music.

Firmly agree with that. $550,000 is a sizeable whole-studio buildout price, including much higher grade speakers, a large format console, and mics.

Would the Blade Meta 1 be better than the $500K M6?

Come on man, really? Can we ask smarter questions please?

 

[MattHooper]

Yeah, it's appalling but also fascinating in a way, like "wow, is robbing a bank really that simple? I wonder if I could..."

From my point of view, the “rip-off” point is a pretty subjective blurry line. For somebody of my budget my loudspeakers were very expensive. And I know that I could get objectively better performance for less. But I also am aware I was paying for the level of materials and fit and finish that I liked as well.
There’s plenty of people who would say that I paid too much for my speakers. So at a certain point, I can feel a bit like throwing a stone in a glass house.

I can only say that my own personal disgust level kicks in when it does. I love high end gear, and I still really enjoy audio show reports and lots of the online video walk-throughs of audio shows. But when I see the prices for everything it starts to feel like taking crazy pills, like the industry no longer has its feet on the ground.

 

[kawauso]

Sure. See: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...c-audio-fest-report-day-2.45942/#post-1637777

And https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...pacific-audio-fest-report.45889/#post-1635793

I thought the high-Q behavior of the X3 might be a problem unique to that model, but since amirm also described the M6 as “Boomy and tuby” and “But large presentation,” this tendency may be consistent across the entire line.
I initially thought it happened by chance, but it might actually be intentional.

 

[kawauso]

I have. Was not impressed. No bass, hollow sounding, weird timbre. Image well though. It was one of the more expensive one, music was some classic rock.

Thank you very much for sharing your thoughts based on actual ownership.
From your comments, it sounds like the Børresen may not have fully matched your preferences.
I am curious what led you to choose it initially.

To be honest, I am considering long-term value when choosing speakers.
For example, I do not personally enjoy the sound of Wilson speakers, but their strong brand presence seems to help maintain resale value.
Because of that, even if my choice turned out to be a mistake, the financial impact would likely be smaller.