BØRRESEN M1 LOUDSPEAKER LAUNCHED BY THE HIGH END DANISH HIFI BRAND

Audio Group Denmark brand Børresen has launched the flagship Børresen M1 Loudspeaker.

The Børresen M1 is Michael Børresen’s most ambitious loudspeaker project to date. The development approach and design philosophy for the M1 was to create a loudspeaker without any economic and technological constraints and with an “absolutely unrivalled sound potential”.

BØRRESEN M1 LOUDSPEAKER

For the M1 project, Michael Børresen and his team of audio engineers and designers borrowed and applied some of the most innovative technologies from the premium Ansuz, Aavik and Børresen products of Audio Group Denmark. However, the team tells us that the crucial technologies and most critical features of the M1 are new and unique to this model.

M1 BASS/MIDRANGE UNIT

The driver basket is a topology-optimized 3D-printed basket made of zirconium, designed to ensure maximum rigidity and thus minimum vibration and resonance. Michael Børresen told us: “The basket is not just a placeholder for the membrane. The energy generated by the membrane is also held by the structure behind it. The goal was therefore to eliminate the noise of the basket by designing a basket with maximum stiffness. Studies were conducted using computer-optimized finite element designs, resulting in a topology-optimized 3D-printed basket made of the exclusive material zirconium”.

Børresen M1 Loudspeaker mid/bass basket

Børresen has not only designed a basket with extreme stiffness but also added important factors such as internal damping and resonance control. Thanks to the 3D printing process, the cavities are filled with zirconium powder, which gives the basket additional damping properties.

Børresen M1 Loudspeaker membrane and basket

THE MEMBRANE

The membrane is designed to achieve maximum stiffness with minimum noise. The technological requirements for this membrane performance made it necessary to design, develop and assemble all components in-house. Michael Børresen and his team had to construct a large number of different variants and models until they accomplished their goal.

The result is a membrane that consists of four skins laminated into a single unit: two layers of spread tow carbon fibre, a layer of aramid honeycomb spacers in between, and a titanium skin with Ansuz Supreme coating.

Børresen M1 Loudspeaker membrane

Spread tow carbon fibre is designed to ensure a skin with optimum stiffness in many different directions. This unique characteristic reduces sound disturbing vibrations and resonances to a low level. The aramid honeycomb also has the best stiffness to weight ratio in the vertical direction. Titanium has been chosen as the team says it has perfect resonance control properties and supports a natural, organic sound of the membrane.

With the Ansuz Supreme coating, the skin of the membrane is further acoustically optimized. This coating is applied to the titanium skin in a Hi-PIMS (High Power Impulse Magnetron Sputtering) machine to create the finest and most uniform layer of zirconium, followed by a layer of tungsten and finished with a layer of aluminium chrome nitride.

PATENTED IRON-FREE MAGNET SYSTEM

To ensure the essence of Børresen DNA in the M1 speaker, the design team turned to Børresen’s patented iron-free magnet system. Børresen says that their iron-free drivers have an inductance that is about twelve times lower than conventional drivers. They also replaced the copper pole rings in our magnet system with in-house manufactured, handcrafted silver rings.

Børresen M1 Loudspeaker driver

CRYOGENIC TREATMENT

For Michael and his team, it was important to use only the very best both in terms of technologies, but also in terms of production processes. For this reason, as with the Børresen Silver Supreme 0 series, all metal components in the M1 undergo cryogenic treatment, which reduces inductance by an additional 6-8%. The brand claims that cryogenic treatment of all metal components of the loudspeaker results in a further significant improvement in conductivity. Cryogenic treatment of metal components involves subjecting them to extreme cooling. In the course of this process, the crystal structure of the metal contracts more and more. Alloying elements are displaced from the grain structure of the metal, which becomes very similar to a single crystal. Børresen says these structural changes in the metal have profound effects on its sound properties.

THE BØRRESEN RIBBON TWEETER

Another fundamental element of the Børresen DNA, and thus a natural addition in the M1, is the Børresen ribbon tweeter. The efficiency of this closed ribbon tweeter is 94 dB and operates from about 2.5 kHz upwards. The moving mass is extremely low at 0.01 grams. The fully concealed tweeter has the ability to operate at a very fast speed.

Børresen M1 Loudspeaker

M-SERIES CROSSOVER

Like all other Børresen loudspeakers, the Børresen M1 is fitted with a serial crossover. The reason for this, Børresen tells us,  is that the drivers have the same current flow in the area of the crossover. As a result, the electrical current is phase-locked across the crossover area. Unlike conventional parallel filtering, where each driver receives its own frequency and phase content, the serial filters work by diverting out-of-band currents around the current flows, creating a much more coherent system.

Børresen M1 Loudspeaker crossover

TESLA COIL TECHNOLOGY

When Børresen designs new audio equipment, one of the main tasks is always to eliminate as much unwanted noise as possible. Audio Group Denmark have learned that many of the technological advancements and innovations in the product development of each of their three individual brands, Ansuz, Aavik and Børresen, can often be leveraged across brands. The knowledge and technology exchange that takes place among the three brands has turned out to be extremely insightful and valuable. Therefore, they have integrated their most effective Tesla coil technologies from the most advanced existing products from their three brands into the M1. For instance, the active Tesla coil technology, which is designed to be supplied with external clean low voltage from the Ansuz PowerBox.

Børresen tell us: “The principle of the Tesla coil is to have two coils wound in each direction: one coil and one counter coil. In Ansuz’s words, ‘a double inverted coil’ – the two coils both carry voltage – and when the Tesla coil encounters a voltage spike, a counter coil is activated to eliminate the noise. Since noise spikes are pure voltage and carry virtually no charge, cancellation is quite good, but still not 100%. Adding more P-TC coils in parallel, however, enhances their capacity to eliminate noise and brings the noise level further down to unprecedentedly low levels”.

ANALOGUE DITHER – 3RD GENERATION

The analogue dither technology that Ansuz has adopted in many of the Ansuz products is also used in the M1 speaker. However, a 3rd generation of the Ansuz analogue dither technology has been developed specific for the M1. Analogue dither technology originated in radar, where it ensured a stronger signal and thus greater range. Børresen tell us: “The active Tesla coils send pulsating signals at precisely defined frequencies. These signals are sent in anti-phase. This significantly amplifies the musical signal and eliminates the background noise floor”.

ANSUZ DARKZ Z2S

The M1 features built-in Ansuz Darkz Z2S resonance control decouplers mounted between the speaker and the bottom cross plate. The adjustable feet of the bottom plate are designed to sit on Darkz decouplers of your choice. Ansuz Darkz decouplers are designed to provide much better mechanical grounding of the speaker cabinet to the stand, respectively, the floor. They absorb vibrations that are not directly related to the signal path.

BØRRESEN M1 STAND

The stand for the Børresen M1 speaker was designed with auditory functionality in mind. The speaker is placed on the machined top plate, which is constructed as a sandwich solution. The base material is a heavy, compact laminate panel with titanium layers on the top and bottom. Three Ansuz Darkz Z2S resonance control decouplers are placed between the speaker and the top plate. The Darkz Z2S is made of zirconium and represents the flagship version among the Ansuz resonance control decouplers.

Børresen M1 Loudspeaker stand

The lower plate is mounted on an aesthetically designed vertical column and feet, which are designed as a cross shape. The material of the column and feet is NBCM (Natural Based Composite Material). This composite material is also used by Børresen’s sister companies Ansuz and Aavik, as it reduces distorting mechanical influence, the adjustable feet of the bottom cross plate are designed to sit on top of Ansuz Darkz.

BØRRESEN M1 CABINET

The Børresen M1 Cabinet design is an evolution and optimization of the Børresen 01 cabinet. To ensure even higher performance, the M1 cabinet is constructed with additional 5mm braced, block-milled, pressed wood structures. In addition, braces are built into the sides of the speaker to give the cabinet even more rigidity and mechanical stability. The tweeter and woofer sections are fitted with matched terminals. The cabinet is covered with black piano lacquer.

ANSUZ GOLD SIGNATURE INTERNAL WIRING

The internal wiring of the Børresen M1 speaker consists of Ansuz’s flagship cables, the Ansuz Gold Signature series.

BØRRESEN M1 SPECIFICATIONS

Frequency response: 40Hz-50KHz

Sensitivity: 87 dB /1W

Impedance: 6 ohms

Recommended Amplifier: 50W

1x Børresen planar ribbon tweeter

1x M1 series bass/midrange driver: 4.5 Inches

Finish: Black piano lacquer

Speaker and stand: H x W x D: 110,3x26x44 cm H x W x D: 43,3×10,2×17,3 Inches

Weight:  23,6 kg – 52 lbs

BØRRESEN M1 PRICE AND AVAILABILITY

USD MSRP: $100,000

EURO MSRP: €94,000

Expected to be available in October 2022

HiFi Pig Says: Known for their technological developments, the new M1 looks like it really is a worthy flagship from Audio Group Denmark brand Børresen.

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