BØRRESEN X3 LOUDSPEAKER REVIEW

Børresen X3 Loudspeakers are a €10,000 pair of speakers made by Audio Group Denmark. They look not wholly dissimilar to the company’s €250K M3s, but how do they sound?

Of course, I’d heard the X3s and their bigger siblings, the X6, at Audio Group Denmark’s facilities in Denmark way back at the start of the year, but I was sworn to secrecy and bound under pain of death not to even talk about the X6 (even though Lars at AGD could barely contain himself about these €20K bigger brothers to the X3s). Anyway, whilst at the ADG HQ I learned a couple of things; first of all Lars is rubbish at containing his enthusiasm and secondly that the X3s had to come to HiFi PiG Towers for a proper run through the system…the X6s will have to wait. I’m going to give a bit of a spoiler and say that I’ve gone a bit Lars here and can barely contain my excitement for when the X6s do come, as the X3s are just so good for a €10 grand speaker. As I type I can sense other speaker manufacturers will be reading this review through gaps in their fingers as they try not to look but can’t help themselves – sort of like when you were a kid and didn’t want to see the monster on Dr Who but at the same time you didn’t want to miss it.

The X3’s drivers are a 2.5 way construction of carbon fibre with a honeycombed structure in between

So from the opening salvo of this review, I think you can take it as read that the Børresen X3s are a very good loudspeaker for their asking price, but there are caveats and there are reasons I won’t be rushing out to procure a pair. Another spoiler alert – if these are this good for €10K I want to hear what the X6s are like for €20K.

OK, so Børresen has just announced the M3 (we got to hear them back in April at AXPONA) and M6 (we haven’t heard them yet) loudspeakers that cost around €250K and €500K respectively and so the X range of speakers could be likened (if you only look at the price) the poor cousins of the Børresen range, but I think that is missing the point somewhat, and whilst the M speakers I mentioned have a whole load of interesting tech in them that just couldn’t be afforded to the X range there are similarities in their makeup.

So the X3s are a kind of gateway drug to the Audio Group Denmark universe if you like, but these are no cheap bottle of Thunderbird in the park by any stretch of the imagination, and they certainly have the air of a loudspeaker that costs a lot more. OK, the cabinets are Chinese-made which keeps costs down, but the drivers, crossovers and assembly are all done in Denmark. The Chinese thing will irk some people, I know, but if a company like AGD are to enter the “affordable” loudspeaker market, then what are their options when pretty much everyone else seems to be doing the same and outsourcing to the Far East? Audio Group Denmark has told us that it isn’t just to keep costs down though, they say that they settled on the Chinese made cabinets “because they’re the best at the moment”.

Carbon fibre detailing is included on the cabinets

The speakers arrived on a pallet (they weigh 55Kg 121lb per speaker) and were duly attached to the Total DAC Amp 1 that was serving as our reference amplifier at the time by way of run in, but a week or so into this run-in period our new Electrocompaniet AW800M amplifier arrived. I’d reviewed this amp already and kept it longer than I should have in the first instance (I loved it so much) and so I reckon I know it pretty well.

BUILD AND TECH OF THE BORRESEN X3 LOUDSPEAKERS

This is a 2.5 way loudspeaker that has a frequency response from 35Hz to 50KHZ with 2 x 4.5” Børresen bass drivers, 1x 4.5” Børresen bass/mid driver and a Børresen planar ribbon tweeter. The frequency response quoted suggests that these are reaching into the highs of super-tweeter territory with the latter having a bit of a horn loading to it.

Those bass and mid-drivers are made in-house in Denmark and consist of three skins of materials that are laminated together to one membrane that is both very light and very stiff. Basically, you have a layer of aramid honeycomb material with a layer of spread carbon fibre on the outsides. The motor on the drivers has double copper caps on the pole rings which Børresen says achieves high flux and low inductance. The two pole rings and their makeup cause loss of flux and efficiency but the company account for this by using a larger magnet.

The tweeter is the same as used in all other loudspeakers from the brand but, presumably, to save money in these speakers, there has been a reduction in magnet and iron mass on the X3s. This does have the effect of causing the tweeter to be less efficient and it does drop from 94dB to 88dB. The crossover to the tweeter is at 2.5kHz and the tweeter has a very low mass, as is the same in all this kind of ribbon and allows the tweeters to be very fast. Interestingly, most of the reference speakers we use at HiFi PiG Towers as references use AMT or ribbon tweeters.

The crossover uses the same components as in the Z series and Børresen says this minimizes “self-resonance”.

The cabinets on the speakers we have in for review are black but you can also get them in a gloss white finish. It’s made up of a “heavily braced wood composite material and has “optical” carbon fibre inserts. From a loading perspective, the X3s have six bass reflex ports on the back and the tweeter is also vented. I’ve found rear-ported speakers to be slightly fussier than those that have front or downward-firing ports when it comes to placement and so you may want to take it into account if considering a purchase. However, and with that said, the X3s were positioned about a metre from the back walls and with one closer to the corner than the other without issue. The speakers are a little fussier than both the Audiovector R3 and the R6 speakers we have as references down here, but from an end user’s perspective that’s a “do it once and forget about it task”.

Three of the six ports found in the rear of the X3s

Around the back of the speakers and towards the bottom are a single pair of good binding posts that will accept spades, bananas, and bare wires.

Finish on the X3s is very good and they also look very smart on their integrated plinths that have adjustable footers. For the asking price I have absolutely no complaints at all with the fit and finish on these speakers.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

I try to make it a rule not to listen overly intently when I’m running review kit in, but I couldn’t help it with the X3s as I was expecting so much…and I was disappointed. I could hear what I thought was the carbon fibre of the bass and midrange drivers and throughout the music I was listening to there was a faint impression of brittleness in the mids and upper mids. This is hard to describe, but if you tap the drivers with your fingernail, it was that kind of sound – like a sharp tap on a reverby plastic plate or perhaps lightly tapping a drum. I’m not doing any better at describing it, but I hope you get my drift.

I’ll be honest and tell you now that I was really disappointed!

However, two or three days in this disappeared and I was left with a lot of what I remember (and noted) that I heard with the M3s at AXPONA, with my main takeaway in these non-critical listening periods being an exceptionally tight and (to me) accurate portrayal of bass. Even on the current show fave Ghost Rider’s “Make Us Stronger” which can sound muddy and horrible in the bass the X3s were tight and punchy. It’s a psytrance tune in essence and if you know the genre at all you will be familiar with that bass sound I’m referring to. Something still wasn’t absolutely correct with the speakers to my mind, but then whilst we had visitors the new Elecctrocompaniet amp I mentioned arrived and was immediately plugged in. This resulted in everybody in the room immediately making the comment that things were better. Now, the TotalDAC AMP 1 is certainly no slouch, and it wouldn’t have found a place in our main reference system if it was, but the Electrocomapniet and Børresen X3s just hit it off immediately. Now, this suggests to me that the Børresens like the availability of current that the AW800 M affords and so you may want to consider this when looking to audition them. With that said, the X3s are really out of their (taking price only into account) league with the €20+K amps I was using and really they should have been plumbed into the more modestly priced upstairs system, but there was no way I was going to try and get them upstairs into that system and, anyway, they seemed to be doing very nicely thank-you-very-much in this system, despite being on the end of fifty grands-worth or so of amp, pre, and DAC.

So, with all the above in mind and by way of introduction, let’s get on with the main part of the review and me trying to convey as much of a feeling as I can about these speakers using the words I have in my vocabulary.

The Borresen tweeter is a ribbon tweeter with a horn flare

MAIN LISTENING TESTS WITH THE X3s

As I mentioned, the speakers were allowed a good period to run in before any real critical listening took place and the system used was, in the main, the Electrocompaniet power amplifier, a Vinius preamplifier, and a Lampizator DAC – (Norway, Poland, Poland).

There’s a real powerful feeling to these speakers from the get-go and the tight bass is a real feature of them that I really love. In comparison to the Audiovector R3s I would say the bass is more pronounced and deeper, with the X3s being more dynamic and impactful and with more slam to them. In comparison to the R6 (three times the price) the X3s don’t have the same level of slam offered by the isobaric bass of the former and nor do they seem to go quite as low, but we are not talking huge differences here. However, it must be said that in this respect to bass and more (of which we will come onto later), the Audiovector R6 Arrete at 25K plus sterling are a better speaker, if you can afford them…but then you would expect them to be given the price.

The Streets’ Original Pirate Material begins with a clicky snare and bass kick drum pattern that can very easily sound overblown through the bass and if it does it hides the strings that rise in the background a smidge when they begin. You don’t get this with the X3 and they allow the bass kick, the snare, and the strings to be clearly heard with the vocal cutting through the mix as it surely was intended to. Has It Come to This? is the next track and it maintains the same clicky percussive sounds on the drum track of the opening track, but it also has a deep bassline which again can sound overblown on some speakers, but not on the X3s. When I first heard this track my first impression was that the X3s were perhaps a little bass-lite, but that’s just not the case and what you get is a very clear rendition of that bassline. No, they don’t go uber-low in the bass but that, as I’ve said in many a review in the past, could be a benefit in more reasonably proportioned rooms. In this room (10 x 5 m..ish) the speakers could well get lost in the bass, but they don’t! The speakers’ spec sheet says the speakers go down to 35Hz and I have no doubt this to be the case, certainly, I felt no need for a sub! Our Audiovector R6s feel to go deeper than the X3s on this album (and in general) and offer a more visceral dynamic to the record, but the truth is that the X3s are not all that far behind, though I’d still choose the R6s if I was forced to… and was happy to spend the extra money. I’d love to hear the X6s in this respect and do a direct comparison!

Imaging with the X3s is excellent and I think the ribbon tweeter is a superb choice for this speaker. It offers a level of accuracy and detail that gives the loudspeaker a sense of realism with regards to where instruments and sounds are placed on the stage but without the image becoming over-exaggerated. This latter point is an important one and something I’ve been banging on about for a while in reviews. These speakers do not throw a soundstage that is too forward into the room, and it does feel very natural – sort of as if you are sat mid-way back in the auditorium and in a “live” environment. However, within the soundstage presented in front of you the individual sounds are clearly defined in their own spaces and there is three-dimensionality, it’s just not over-emphasised. I remember when I first heard the Cabasse Spheres and commented on their imaging being like looking down/up at the stage, and that’s kind of what I get with the X3s.

The midrange with the X3s is transparent and clear sounding throughout the range and without anything jumping out to the fore to spoil a very balanced and proportional presentation. However, sometimes the mid-range did sound etched in the soundstage in a that it was clearly distinguished from the rest of the mix. And again, I don’t think this is a bad thing and quite possibly something that was intended on the mix. For example, the opening sequence to Todd Terry’s Blackout album has a load of synthy noises and a Japanese (I think) spoken female vocal. I have heard this vocal mush into the background in the past, but with the X3s it is somewhat separated from the rest of the mix – this is what I mean by etched.

Speed Kills by Gil Scott-Heron and Brian Jackson has the two vocalists entirely in harmony but with the two distinct vocal styles (inflections) being clearly audible. There is something about Gils Scott-Heron’s vocal that is at once both beautiful and imperfect and this imperfection is heard particularly on the first word of the tract (speed) and the way the s is pronounced slightly as “shpeed”. I love that the speakers allow me to hear this imperfection because it is often the imperfections in a piece of art that make it perfect and not having the tools to hear those imperfections can make the art less in some way. I know that all sounds a bit “Pseuds’ Corner” but I thought it worth mentioning as it is a thing the X3s allow you to hear. And I suppose that is what a good speaker allows you to do – see into a mix and into a recording and bring out details you may have missed previously.

Another look around the back of the X3s

I was searching for records from our review playlists and came across a track I used to use a hell of a lot but which hasn’t been played for a while. The track is Hardfloor’s Acperience and whilst it’s not been played for a few months, it is a track that I have played hundreds of times. The opening kick is very reverby and this comes across very well with the X3s, with the repeated 303 five-note underpinning bassline enforcing and adding to the bass weight. Nothing here is overblown or pushed to sound mushy, which it often can. Once the Hardfloor boys start playing with the filters on the 303s the sound cuts through the mix as it should and my only criticism here is that I found myself reaching for the volume control to push the dynamics a little further.

One thing I did notice with the X3s was that there is a definite and quite narrow sweetspot when listening to the speakers. Get yourself bang in the middle of it and everything snaps into place perfectly and this continues for about a body width either side. This is not particularly unusual for loudspeakers and I think that most folk who sit and listen critically to a system will do with themselves selfishly placed in the hotspot. Anyway, sit yourself in that spot-lit seat and you are rewarded with a fabulous spectacle laid out before you.

From the rear, the X3s are an elegant looking speaker but they are quite deep

A Børresen M3 on The Cheap, Perhaps?

When we put our weekly news roundup video up on YouTube that mentioned that we would be publishing the X3 review a reader/viewer commented that they had heard them at Munich High End and had to check with the rep’ that there wasn’t a zero missing off the price ticket. Now, I think that’s overegging it somewhat, but the X3s do have a good deal of what I remember about their much bigger and much more expensive siblings. There is clearly a sonic signature that is Børresen’s own, and it has clearly been passed down the line to the X3s. My abiding memory of the M3s was that the bass was very tight and very taut, and yet punchy and powerful with an extended top-end and a clear and highly intelligible mid-band making for a wholly integrated and “together” sounding speaker. The X3 does this too, but is not as refined (in the final analysis) in the finish of the speakers or in the overall sound. It’s a little unfair to say the X3s are a little ragged round the edges because in reference to the direct competition they certainly are not, but in comparison to the M3s and what I recall of them, they are. But then we are comparing apples and ostriches (sic) here and there is that 240K price difference that ought to be mentioned. Heard the M3s and dream of owning them but know you will never have the dosh, shy of a lottery win? Then buy the X3s or (I’m guessing here) the X6s.

And I suppose that could well be the conclusion to the review of these speakers…but I’ll write an extra one, anyway.

A brace of X3s

NIGGLES

There is a relatively narrow band for the sweet spot, but once in it you are a happy bunny and won’t want to give it up!

They do prefer an amp with good current delivery in my experience of them and so this should perhaps be a consideration. With the Electrocompaniet amp that should be well out of their league, they performed brilliantly.

Bass may not go as low as some would like (I’m not sure who this would be, to be honest), but they had no problems moving air in this room and so despite being a big speaker, they could work in smaller rooms, though you would need to look at them as they are physically deep speakers and have rear-firing ports.

Only one set of binding posts will irk some people, but I don’t see it as a problem, and it does mean that the two parts of the crossover aren’t connected by those frankly crap connectors that we see on pretty much all loudspeakers with more than one set of posts.

Børresen X3 Loudspeaker watched over by Debbie Harry at HiFi PiG Towers

CONCLUSION

I think it’s fair to say I liked the X3s from Børresen a great deal and I do think they set the current standard for speakers (that I’ve heard) at this price, and I do think in that respect they could well be seen as game-changers – they certainly had me considering what the future holds for our reference speakers in the big system. However, for the moment that crown still belongs to the Audiovector R6 loudspeakers, though I’m not sure the difference is fifteen or more grands-worth of better and I am looking forward to hearing the Børresen X6s.

The finish on the X3s is excellent but you are limited to black or white and I’m not sure that is going to please everyone, and I would have liked to have perhaps seen the option for wooden finishes. However, beggars can’t be choosers and Audio Group Denmark make no secret of these cabinets (not the drivers or crossovers) being built in China to keep costs down and get the quality of cabinet they wanted – there’s no way they could get this quality of sound for this price had the cabinets been built in Denmark.

The main takeaways from my time with the X3s is that they offer a dynamic and detailed listening experience with an imaging quality that is wide, what I consider to be accurate and not exaggerated. However, this is in the sweetspot and the sweetspot band is quite narrow…ish.

I think it’s fair to say that once they are run-in properly these speakers impressed me a great deal and that most of the criticisms of their performance I have made have been me specifically looking for faults in them – that’s my job, after all!

Would I buy them? Yes, in a heartbeat, but I want to hear the X6s in our system first!

I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that the Børresen X3 loudspeakers are fully deserving of HiFi PiG’s top award. They are superb!

AT A GLANCE

Build Quality:

Well put together but only available in black and white

Overall, an excellent fit and finish

Sound Quality:

Tight and accurate-sounding bass performance that is reminiscent of what I enjoyed so much about the Børresen M3s

Fairly narrow sweetspot but they do have scale to their sound

Extended highs but not in any way harsh sounding

Soundstaging is excellent but not exaggerated and this may underwhelm some people who want fireworks, bells, and whistles from a loudspeaker

A beautifully integrated mid performance that lets you hear very fine details, particularly in vocal performances

Overall, a very integrated sound

Happy playing anything and everything from reggae to female vocals

Value For Money:

They are not a cheap speaker, but I think they offer outstanding value for money given their performance

We Loved:

These speakers have a sonic performance that belies their asking price

Bass is deep enough for most situations and has a quality that I loved for its tight and accurate sound

Tops are extended and detailed without being at all harsh

Realistic soundstaging when in the sweetspot

We Didn’t Love So Much:

Narrow sweetspot

Limited colour availability

Elevator Pitch Review: Audio Group Denmark’s Børresen X3 loudspeakers have cabinets built in China, but with other components being made in-house in Denmark to keep prices low but quality high.  Sonically I think these speakers perhaps set the new benchmark at 10K if you have the room to accommodate them and I urge you to audition them if you have the space.

Price: 10,000 Euros

Stuart Smith

SUPPLIED BY AUDIO GROUP DENMARK