In barely five years, the Danish brand Børresen Acoustics has designed several ranges of very high quality speakers, from the ultra-high fidelity 0 and M series to the still very high-end, although more affordable, Z and X series. From this latest series, we are testing the X3 for you today, a sumptuous speaker with three drivers and a ribbon tweeter, still at a high price, although contained at exactly €10,000. This price is justified by the sound, which is a breath of fresh air made up of superb timbres, far superior to many of its competitors. What’s more, this X3 is half the price of equivalent speakers from the Z series. It was with real pleasure that we were able to enter through the back door into the immense universe of designer Michael Børresen.
Priced at several hundred thousand euros for the M series, and six figures for the manufacturer’s 0 series when you choose the Cryo or Silver Supreme Edition versions, the creations of the Danish designer Børresen are also available at more reasonable prices. It therefore has two other series in its catalogue, the Zs, the smallest of which, the compact Z1, costs €10,000, and the Xs, consisting of three tower models, X2, X3 and X6, the number after the letter representing the number of speakers used in addition to the ribbon tweeter.
From this series, we have chosen the X3 tower speaker, undoubtedly the one with the best quality/price ratio in that it already expresses all the brand’s components, without exceeding the price of the Z1, despite its imposing size and already impeccable finish quality. Available in black or white piano lacquer, the Børresen X3 is 129 cm high and 60.7 cm deep, with a width of 34.5 cm at the base, reducing to just 22 cm at the front, tapering as the case extends towards the back to leave just a few centimetres at the end, from which no fewer than three round vents emerge at the top and four at the bottom. Reinforced by very beautiful carbon inserts, the cabinet is made in one piece from a very rigid wood composite material, designed to eliminate as many vibrations as possible as well as mechanical influences. Inside, a small pipe allows air to be ventilated and sent backwards onto the tweeter, while the midrange speaker above is partitioned off in a small space open to a second cabinet with two pipes, which evacuates the air towards the other two vents. Below, two partitions extending the full depth of the speaker separate each of the two mid-bass speakers. These internal partitions have numerous downward-facing holes that direct the air and vibrations towards a final large cabinet from which the aforementioned four low vents emerge. On the lower level of the speaker on the front, the Ø-shaped brand logo overhangs a base of two metal blades, which enclose a large wooden plate supported by four metal feet.
Manufactured on the basis of the components of the Z series, the X series crossover filter is mounted in parallel and uses three different levels of coils, which serve to minimise its self-resonance as much as possible, in addition to refining the register cuts as precisely as possible.
The planar ribbon tweeter is almost the same as the one used in the higher series, with a slightly reduced output from 94 dB to 90 dB despite a slightly shortened length, compensated by the lower mass of the components (magnet and iron) to offer a moving mass reduced to 0.01 g, due to the extreme speed of its responses from 2.5 kHz.
The equally well-designed speakers are made up of a bass-midrange element above the tweeter, which is at ear level when sitting on a conventional sofa, and two bass speakers below. For these three elements with a diameter of 11.5 cm (4.5‘’), the membrane combines, as on the Zs, three layers of laminated skins, the spacer in aramid honeycomb design sandwiched between two layers of spread carbon fibres. Both very light and very rigid, these membranes result in a significant reduction in resonance, with that of the environment providing an optimal response in the vertical direction, for a sound result of great transparency.
Last but not least, the X3 also uses the technology that made the Børresen Z-series motors so powerful, which eliminates the iron from the magnet to use a system with double copper caps on the pole rings, with the aim of accelerating the flux and flattening the inductance curve, in order to further minimise electromagnetic resonance. With all these technologies, the X3 offers an impressively transparent, wide frequency response of 35 Hz-50 kHz, for a contained sensitivity of 88 dB and an impedance of 4 ohms.
The set-up
At the risk of never wanting to leave, unless we take the X3s with us to one of our auditoriums to enjoy them for many more hours, we found ourselves limited for the occasion by time as well as by the weight of 55 kg per piece, and had to go and discover the pair of Danish speakers at one of the brand’s dealers, the Music Hall auditorium in the 8th arrondissement of Paris. Initially paired with an integrated Chord 2800 MkII, the little big Børresen proved better suited to the McIntosh 8950, although we were unable to further develop the tests with one of the many integrated or Accuphase amp-preamp pairs available in the store. Despite the amplification and the source – a McIntosh DAC on an Aurender streamer – the roundness and the richness in the bass of the American devices were completely counterbalanced by the speakers, with a tension that made us curious to pair them up next time with Danish amplifiers, for example the new Gryphon Diablo tested in parallel in this same issue.
The sound
As we have just mentioned, the tension is one of the main components of the speaker, in that it is so fast that it stretches the sound to give it great dynamics, without the slightest notion of harshness. On the contrary, whether it is the ribbon tweeter, developed on the basis of what Michael Børresen had already extensively improved when he founded Raidho, or the midrange/bass and bass speakers, everything always sounds very clear and airy, with perfect fluidity.
Superbly toned, the fast treble takes up less dominance than on the Z2 (VUmètre test no. 37; Remarkable) and integrates perfectly with the other parts of the spectrum, with a linearity in the frequency cut-off that is impossible to notice, where this is sometimes the problem when this ribbon technology is used by other manufacturers. Only at very high volume do some vibrations begin to be felt from this component, but this check is only carried out to push the limits to a totally abnormal sound volume, never reached under normal listening conditions. With the mid-range and bass, the neutral timbres and great clarity as well as the speed of the sound remain just as evident, for a very pleasant listening experience of jazz or rock music from the 1970s. With Pléïades by Xenakis performed by Les Percussions de Strasbourg, and more specifically the piece ‘Peaux’, the perfectly recreated and airy sound stage allows you to identify all types of drums and tom-toms, carried by a very taut bass rendering with each stroke of the baton. Without overdoing the precision, the sound systematically offers large breathing spaces, which we are sure could have been extended even further in a room more open than our test auditorium.
On Beethoven’s Fidelio (Bernstein live version, DG), a slight saturation of the elements in the large choral and orchestral parts first appeared, but we partially corrected it by switching from Tidal to Qobuz, as the Hi-Res file on this platform is clearly better encoded and better distributed, with the result of restoring depth to the image and allowing the soundstage to breathe more. This made us realise that an even more refined source would have allowed us to better position the elements, for example with a more neutral DAC or a Kuzma or Brinkmann turntable. Walking around the speakers also showed that they are not hyper-directional and that several people can therefore enjoy them perfectly in a large room, without needing to be right in the middle of the listening triangle. In the final audition, Kendrick Lamar and his ‘Bitch, Don’t Kill My Vibe’ highlighted the accuracy of the membranes and the ribbon, especially the high-pitched sounds and electronic percussion effects, without the bass ever seeming to get stuck in the firm subwoofer, but on the contrary feeling free to deploy all its energy.
Our conclusion
The second model from the Danish brand, starting at the bottom in terms of price, the X3s are already true Børresens, with no limits on quality in terms of either design or sound reproduction. Impressive in all registers and all musical styles, these large speakers, 30 times less expensive than the most advanced versions from the designer, have benefited from Michael Børresen’s two decades of experience, as well as the numerous models he manufactured upstream for Raidho and then for the M, 0 and Z series. Still affordable for any hi-fi enthusiast willing to devote a substantial budget to their system, the X3s offer a gateway to sound paradise with a sound typical of northern Europe, in countries where winter means spending long hours warming up without leaving the house, making the most of every minute of music.
Author: Vincent Guillemin
Technical sheet: BORRESEN X3
- Origin: Denmark
- Price: €10,000
- Dimensions: 1290 x 345 x 607 mm
- Weight: 55 kg
- Frequency response: 35 Hz-50 kHz
- Sensitivity: 88 dB; 1 W
- Impedance: 4 ohms
- Finish: Black or piano lacquered white