This is a review and detailed measurements of the Triangle Borea BR03 bookshelf speaker. It was kindly sent to me for testing by a member and costs US $499 on Amazon including Prime shipping.
I like the distinctive white face of the BR03 but don't care much for the imitation white oak enclosure:
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The dual ports and distance above woofer, push up the tweeter higher than other speakers I have tested, landing it above my ear height. I had to sit up during my listening tests to compensate.
Binding posts on the back were comfortable to use since they were not recessed:
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One online blogger raved about this speaker back in 2019 causing it to become quite popular. It will be interesting to see how it does in our testing.
Measurements that you are about to see were performed using the
Klippel Near-field Scanner (NFS). This is a robotic measurement system that analyzes the speaker all around and is able (using advanced mathematics and dual scan) to subtract room reflections (so where I measure it doesn't matter). It also measures the speaker at close distance ("near-field") which sharply reduces the impact of room noise.
Both of these factors enable testing in ordinary rooms yet results that can be more accurate than an anechoic chamber. In a nutshell, the measurements show the actual sound coming out of the speaker independent of the room.
I performed over 1000 measurement which resulted in error rate below 1% for most of the except around 2 kHz where it crept up to 2% error. Sound field got quite complex there suggesting multiple sources than just the two drivers (diffraction, etc.).
Testing temperature was around 59 degrees F. Speaker was kept indoor however at normal living room temperature (72 degrees).
Reference axis for measurements was the center of the tweeter. Grill was not used in either measurements or listening tests.
Measurements are compliant with latest speaker research into what can predict the speaker preference and is standardized in CEA/CTA-2034 ANSI specifications. Likewise listening tests are performed per research that shows mono listening is much more revealing of differences between speakers than stereo or multichannel.
Triangle Borea BR03 Measurements
Acoustic measurements can be grouped in a way that can be perceptually analyzed to determine how good a speaker is and how it can be used in a room. This so called spinorama shows us just about everything we need to know about the speaker with respect to tonality and some flaws:
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That's an interesting frequency response. A bit boosted around 100 Hz, then down and then boosted again between 500 and 1000 Hz. Then a few more resonances, ending with some peaking from the tweeter. Some kind of discontinuity exists around 1190 Hz and then again near 20 kHz. Not worried about the latter but the rest needs investigation so let's look at the near-field response of the driver:
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Focusing on woofer curve in red, it starts to slope down but then goes right back up??? The port is pushing it that way but I can't help but think that they are using a first order electrical filter for the woofer so letting it play for much longer than it should. That in turn hypes up the resonances from the port. Together they screw up the response in the mid-range and lower treble. The tweeter lacks even response by itself.
Early window response is not too bad:
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Floor bounce seems to accentuate the highs (!) and the 600 to 900 Hz so best to use a thick carpet as indicated.
Predicted in-room response shows a mellowing of the aberrations we have seen:
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Would the slightly boosted upper bass help offset the accentuated highs? Hard to say.
Distortion data points to woofer playing for longer than it should:
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But overall, the levels are under control at 86 dBSPL:
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Horizontal beamwidth is good:
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Resonances make the contour more choppy however:
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Typical of 2-way non-coaxial speakers, you need to keep the tweeter more or less at ear level:
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As usual, actual impedance is lower than advertised:
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Finally, here is the waterfall:
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Triangle Borea BR03 Listening Tests
First impression was warm sound and "this is not bad." Whether influenced by measurements or actual sound, I just was not a fan of the midrange. It sounded more and more grungy as I listened. And the highs started to stand out. A bit of boominess was there as well. Equalization was not effective. In blind testing, I could not tell if I always liked the post EQ version.
In truth, I cannot tell you by listening that this speaker is bad or good. It really frustrated me. Usually I am pretty comfortable teasing out whether the fidelity of the speaker is good or not. But with EQ experiments failing, I just could not get there. I changed speakers to Revel M106 and as usual, that speaker delighted with a far more clean sound and balanced tonality. It had deeper, cleaner bass compared to the slightly boomy one on the Triangle.
I should point out that the BR03 was rather efficient and could play very loud without bottoming out.
Conclusions
I don't have any for you! This speaker busted my chops. I think it is a flawed design by it is broken in a way that creates a more pleasing sound than one would expect. Not sure if this is by design or what. Or whether it is my failing in characterizing it. You have the data. You chime in as to what you think.
Overall, I am not going to recommend the Triangle Borea BR03. It just didn't sound satisfying to me. But I could be wrong enough that other praise for it could very well be correct. Once in a while, this speaker reviewing business can get hard and this is one of those rare occasions!
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As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
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