When was the last time a reviewer trotted out the dollars-per-pound trope? I haven’t used it for at least a decade. I’ve reviewed a lot of large speakers over the last two years—big, room-dominating, expensive, luxurious, endgame speakers. The Estelon XB Mk II. The DALI Epikore 11. The YG Acoustics Peaks Ascent. Most recently, the Bowers & Wilkins 801 D4 Signature.
Big speakers, big money. You could buy a car for the cost of a pair of any of these speakers. But in each of these instances, you get a lot of speaker for your big money. I’m not going to do the math for you to calculate the cost per pound of each of these speakers, but I will tell you this: I’ve got the value leader in front of me right now. Behold the Børresen X6.
How big is it?
Of course, of course, weight and cost have little to do with audio quality, but these measurements make for interesting statistics. And in the case of the Børresen X6, there are plenty of formidable measurements to be found. For your $22,000 (all prices in USD except where noted) you get a pair of speakers that weigh 174 pounds each and stand 65″ tall. The X6 is deep too, at 22″.
Time to back up a little. Time for some background.
Børresen, which is part of Audio Group Denmark, showed a crazy-expensive speaker, the standmounted M1, at Audio Video Show 2022 in Warsaw, Poland. SoundStage! founder Doug Schneider and I covered that show, and we had a chance to listen to a pair of M1s. We weren’t blown away, I can tell you that. Thinking back, it wasn’t the sound quality of the M1s that underwhelmed us. Far from it—I recall liking the sound. It was more a mixture of disbelief and dismay that this small two-way speaker retailed for €94,000 per pair.
There was a fair amount of impressive technology baked into the M1, but still, that price. I think both Doug and I recoiled from that, losing some of our objectivity. First math lesson: The M1 now retails for $100,000 per pair, with each speaker weighing in at 52 pounds. That’s $100,000 for 104 pounds, which works out to $961.54 per pound. Ouch.
Over the next two years, Børresen went into overdrive, releasing several new lines of speakers. The M series remained at the top, and I’m not even going to think about the cost of the larger speakers in that series. Instead, I’d like to bring to your attention the company’s latest lineup: the X series, which inverts the value proposition, bringing Børresen technology down to real-world prices.
The X6 calculation: 174 pounds each, so 348 pounds for the pair. At $22,000 that means we’re talking $63.22 per pound. That’s a much easier number to digest.
As you can see from the photos, there are a whole bunch of drivers in each X6. At the top are two 4.5″ woofers, with another two at the bottom. These woofers are crossed over using first-order slopes to the two 4.5″ midrange-woofers.
The midranges run full-range into the bass, making the X6 a two-and-a-half-way design. According to Børresen, the smaller chamber in which the midrange drivers are mounted helps with mechanical rolloff. Further, compared to a three-way system, the X6’s topology is said to reduce phase shift over the crossover region.
The woofer and midrange cones are constructed from an aramid honeycomb sandwiched between two layers of carbon fiber. The magnet system employs two copper caps on the pole rings, which, according to Børresen, lower both inductance and impedance, resulting in an easier load for the amplifier.
A first-order filter at 2.5kHz crosses over the midrange drivers to Børresen’s ribbon tweeter. The X6’s tweeter uses the same technology as the company’s M-series speakers, but the magnet is smaller. Børresen claims that the M1’s tweeter has a sensitivity of 94dB, and the smaller motor in the X6 results in only a small hit, dropping to a respectable 90dB.
The cabinet is—obviously—very large, and there’s lots of carbon fiber on the side panels. The cabinet itself is made from 1.18″ MDF reinforced with said carbon fiber. The parts that aren’t carbon fiber are finished in black or white piano lacquer. There are nine ports on the back panel that would look great with red flames shooting out of them. The speaker itself rests on a nicely sculpted, multilayered platform. Connections are by high-quality, single-wired binding posts at the bottom of the rear panel.
Here’s where the value angle of the X6 comes into view. Unlike speakers from the other Børresen lines, the cabinets of the X series are made in China, while the final assembly is performed in Denmark. Point being, if I had been unaware of the origin of the X6’s cabinet, and if I had been equally unaware of the price, I’d have guessed that these formidable speakers would have retailed for easily three times the price.
Some specifications: Børresen quotes a reasonable 88dB sensitivity for the X6, with a moderate 6-ohm minimum impedance. Frequency response is given as 30Hz to 50kHz.
This is a stunning, dramatic, futuristic speaker. The X6 does not come with a grille, so you’d better be happy with a whole bunch of drivers staring at you. I’m totally down with that look. The carbon-fiber drivers, high-quality paintwork, and general Blade Runner vibe was right up my alley.
Pull the trigger
The supporting cast in my system has remained uncharacteristically stable for the past year. Speaker cables are Crystal Cable Art Series Monet. The amplifier is the Hegel H30A, which has sufficient grunt to power a Van Halen PA rig. Working backward, there’s the Hegel P30A preamplifier. Feeding the P30A has been the VPI Prime Signature turntable, DS Audio DS 003 cartridge, and EMM Labs DS-EQ1 optical phono stage, or the EAT Fortissimo S ’table with Jo N°8 cartridge and Aqvox Phono 2 CI phono stage. The digital source, which I’m using more and more these days, is the Meitner Audio MA3 streaming DAC, fed by Roon.
The four woofers in each speaker generated a satisfying deep growl that reached down to my toes. Børresen claims that the X6’s bass response extends to 30Hz, and I have no reason to doubt that number. But more important than the low-frequency reach is the quality of the bass. The X6s were tight and quick, as you might expect given that there are four smaller drivers in each speaker, working in concert. Perhaps because of my preconceptions about smaller woofers, I wasn’t expecting the X6s to reach so low, and with such richness and warmth.
Appropriate richness and warmth, that is. As I’ve mentioned, the X6 is a big speaker, so I think it would be big news if this speaker didn’t produce serious bass. Still, 4.5″ woofers—can you blame me for being a tad skeptical?
I’ve become quite enamored of Bill Laswell’s bass playing. He’s got a ripe, warm tone, and his albums are exceptionally well produced. That he seems often to fall back on the same types of melodies I can let slide. I fell backward into a syrupy ocean of bass with “Black Aether” from Invisible Design (16-bit/44.1kHz FLAC, Tzadik / Tidal), with the X6s easily reaching down to the bottom of Laswell’s range, with abundant speed on the brassy sound of his fingers sliding on the strings. When required, the bass just leapt out of these speakers, providing a wild amuse-bouche.
“Welcome to Hell” by black midi from Hellfire (16/44.1 FLAC, Rough Trade / Tidal), the band’s second album, is a frenetic, Mr. Bungle-esque romp through a psychotic break, and there’s some terrific, lithe, almost gymnastic bass work going on. Here, the Børresens just erupted, showing what I’d hoped these large cabinets could achieve. Deep and tight, with no overhang, the bass output was consistently satisfying.
The X6s floated a dramatic center image, especially with vocals, which they presented just behind the plane of the speakers. On “A Penny More,” from the Skydiggers album Restless (16/44.1 FLAC, Flood Ross Entertainment / Tidal), Andy Maize’s voice was rounded and three-dimensional, and so tactile I found myself leaning forward to try to get closer to it, wanting to reach forward and cup my hands around it. It was almost as if he was there in my room, just a tiny bit smaller than life-sized.
Solo instruments took full advantage of that imaging prowess. I cued up J.S. Bach: The 6 Unaccompanied Cello Suites Complete on Roon, playing my own ripped version of Yo-Yo Ma’s performances (16/44.1 FLAC, Sony Classical), and found myself drawn into that vivid space in which this album was recorded. There’s huge ambient air around Ma’s cello, and the X6s spun up an appropriately large room around the bow. Where the wave propagated from the strings to the instrument’s body, I noted an additional feeling of depth, the image pulling out to the sides of the strings and then recessing backward. It was a delightful presentation, providing simultaneous scales of width and depth. Again, I was most impressed by how the image of Ma’s cello floated completely free of the speakers.
I mean, really—all of the speakers I’ve had in my system over the past couple of years have imaged well, without calling attention to themselves, but the Børresens stood out in this regard, sounding practically invisible.
Swapping over to LP, I spun up Exile on Main St. (Rolling Stones Records COC-2-2900). I’m a peripheral fan of the Stones, so I don’t really play them very much. Meaning, I won’t change the station on the radio when they come on. Something about the X6s made me want to hear them, though. My favorite track on the album is “Sweet Virginia,” but the Børresens blew up the front of my room, making me sit through the entirety of side 2 with a big grin on my face. After the EAT Fortissimo S had played the whole thing through, I reset the Forte S arm to the start and played that sucker again. Image placement was, again, superb.
Along with the excellent free-floating images, the X6s featured a silky yet extended treble. If I closed my eyes and thought about it, yeah, I could hear that this was a ribbon tweeter. Done right, a ribbon tweeter rides that fine line between purity and listenability. And Børresen does it right. Take the opening few seconds of “Torn and Frayed,” with that loosely strummed guitar that’s only there for an instant. The first musical bar frames the song, sets it up. The Børresens floated it perfectly in space, giving it a sweet, warm flavor.
The X6 isn’t a laid-back speaker. But while it does pull out high-frequency detail, it does so cleanly, showing respect to the source. I was able to play the X6s quite loudly without strain, which points to two admirable qualities. First off, they could play at high volumes without hardening up, which is great; but more importantly, they maintained their silkiness in a linear, considered manner.
Still running records, I cued up Vladimir Ashkenazy’s 1973 recording of Franz Schubert’s Piano Sonata in G, D.894 (London CS 6820). Here, I began to scratch my head a bit. After listening to a full side of the massive, planet-smashing power of this monstrous music, I began to feel like something was missing. I’m used to this album making my listening room feel like a tomb that’s a hundred feet underground. It’s ponderous music, relying more on the left hand than the right, and it relies on the power of the entire piano, of the instrument as a unified device, to make its point.
The X6s recessed the piano in space, moving it backward into the soundstage, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but they also removed much of the power of the actual instrument, making it sound thin and small. I listened to this LP a couple of times, while moving the X6s around in an attempt to reinforce the lower mids a touch. Spreading the speakers out wider and toeing them in so that they pointed at my ears improved things a little.
With the additional width and the toe-in, the soundstage increased in size and scale, which was a very good thing—more about that later. The lower-midrange dip was reduced in intensity, but still there. After I’d satisfied myself that I had the X6s positioned properly, I decided to run the X6s through the Anthem Room Correction process that’s built into my Anthem MRX 300 home-theater receiver. Now mind you this—I only use the MRX 300 for watching movies. I run the front L/R preamplifier outputs into my Hegel P3A preamp, with the MRX 300 powering the center and two surround speakers. I run ARC on any speaker that’s going to hang around in my room for any length of time, mostly to balance the volume levels between the main left and right and the other three speakers. I’m far, far from critical regarding home-theater sound quality. So long as it’s in the ballpark, I’m happy.
I’ll repeat in clearer terms—I did not use the ARC-modified signal to drive the X6s for this review. ARC provides me with a generalized, not-too-detailed view of what’s going on in my room—one that’s reasonably consistent from speaker to speaker. Looking at the room curve, I noted a fairly wide trough, centered at roughly 200Hz, that maxed out at nearly 10dB. This, it seemed, was where the power of the piano was hiding.
The red trace is the measured response
Once I’d accounted for this trait, I continued listening without much concern, as there was so much to like about these speakers.
What a monstrous soundstage! Spread this wide, you’d think that maybe the center wouldn’t hold, but that wasn’t the case. I’ve written about Astor Piazzolla’s Tango: Zero Hour (Pangaea PAN-42138) on many occasions. This thin slice of vinyl wrestles for top position in my collection for both best sound and most magnificent performance. Maybe it’s both? I’ve played this record hundreds of times, and it’s also my go-to talking point for the physical resilience of the LP format. It sounds as good today as when I picked it up, already used, at a garage sale. Through the X6s, “Milonga del ángel” filled the entire front of my room. In what ended up being a consistent trait, the center image was the most vivid; its clarity continuing to the left and right of the soundstage and decreasing in crispness as it expanded outward. Piazzolla’s bandoneon was razor sharp, while Pablo Ziegler’s piano appeared on the same side but just behind it. Fernando Suárez Paz’s chameleon of a violin was a little to the left of Piazzolla, vividly differentiated.
Vivid. That’s the best word for the X6’s imaging—it was vivid, giving equal weight to lateral staging and depth delineation. While its imaging did favor the center of the soundstage, I found myself totally enamored with the way that the X6s presented real instruments in space.
The crossover between the midranges and that sexy ribbon tweeter was nearly invisible (inaudible?), rivaling the clarity of the Bowers & Wilkins 801 D4 Signature. “Red” from King Crimson’s Absent Lovers: Live in Montreal 1984 (16/44.1 FLAC, Discipline Global Mobile / Tidal) just bombarded me with upper-midrange and treble information—two angry guitarists fighting with a furious electronic drum kit. The X6s kept the instruments discrete, with the well-behaved interplay between the drivers rendering the performance front and center without me having to think about how it was all working.
For a large portion of my time with the Børresen X6s, I was conscious of the speakers themselves as large, ominous, monolithic presences in my room. I mean this in only the best way possible, as their physical appearance spoke to me in a deeply appealing manner. They were science-fiction-solidified, large wedges of carbon fiber that looked like they were approaching warp speed while standing still.
Initially, the contrast between the X6s’ dramatic appearance and their aural disappearing act imposed a disconnect on my reaction to the speakers. As time went by, though, it got to the point where I could focus my attention on those huge, alien cabinets ready to destroy my world, or throw a switch in my brain and have them disappear completely, leaving only free-floating, disembodied music.
Pull the trigger?
There was much to like here with the Børresen X6. The bass was excellent, and up top, the X6’s highs were smooth and unfatiguing. The Børresens threw an image in my room that was delightful in its solidity.
I wasn’t that bothered by the X6’s lower-midrange dip. I’m quite adept at listening around deviations such as this. I did, however, find myself gravitating somewhat toward music that didn’t rely on this power region. I’d be remiss if I did not mention that several people who listened to the X6s in my room were put off by this frequency aberration.
There’s a boatload of value in the Børresen X6. A speaker of this size, with this build quality, this sound quality, for this price? Coming from a well-established company, with an extensive dealer network, you can hear for yourself whether the X6 is the speaker for you.
. . . Jason Thorpe
jasont@soundstagenetwork.com
Associated Equipment
- Analog sources: VPI Prime Signature and EAT Fortissimo S turntables, EAT Jo N°8 and DS Audio DS 003 cartridges
- Digital sources: Logitech Squeezebox Touch, Meitner Audio MA3
- Phono preamplifiers: Aqvox Phono 2 CI, Hegel Music Systems V10, EMM Labs DS-EQ1, Meitner DS-EQ2
- Preamplifier: Hegel Music Systems P30A
- Power amplifier: Hegel Music Systems H30A
- Integrated amplifiers: Hegel Music Systems H120, Eico HF-81
- Speakers: Focus Audio FP60 BE, Aurelia Cerica XL, Totem Acoustic Sky Tower
- Speaker cables: Audience Au24 SX, Nordost Tyr 2, Crystal Cable Art Series Monet
- Interconnects: Audience Au24 SX, Furutech Ag-16, Nordost Tyr 2, Crystal Cable Diamond Series 2
- Power cords: Audience FrontRow, Nordost Vishnu
- Power conditioner: Quantum QBase QB8 Mk II
- Accessories: Little Fwend tonearm lift, VPI Cyclone record-cleaning machine
Børresen X6 loudspeaker
Price: $22,000 per pair
Warranty: Five years, parts and labor
Audio Group Denmark
Rebslagervej 4
9000 Aalborg
Denmark
Email: info@audiogroupdenmark.com
Website: audiogroupdenmark.com
Canadian distributor:
Wynn Audio
20 Wertheim Ct #31
Richmond Hill, Ontario L4B 3A8
Phone: (647) 995-2995
Email: info@wynnaudio.com
Website: wynnaudio.com
