Loudspeakers

Every now and then a speaker manufacturer appears to get ‘on a roll’, with new models launched, older ones discontinued, and product catalogues reconfigured in a flurry of activity. It’s often the arrival of a new flagship that leads to this upheaval, and that’s certainly the case for DALI, as the Danish marque has been very busy since it debuted its innovative KORE floorstander four years ago [HFN Dec ’22].

All things are relative, I guess, but in the realm of high-end audio, the Børresen X3 looks like a lot of loudspeaker for the money. Moreover, a recent price cut – just about unheard of in the modern hi-fi market – has brought the speaker down from £10,000 to £8000 a pair. Described as an ‘entry-level into the Børresen universe’, the X3 draws on technology created for the Danish company’s higher-end models [HFN Sep ’25], from the drivers to the enclosures.

When DALI launched its flagship KORE speaker [HFN Dec ’22], followed by the Epikore 11 [HFN Feb ’25], the Danish company clearly wanted to turn heads in a higher-end segment. Which worked out fine, but both speakers have a ‘downside’: they are colossal. Applying trickle-down technologies from the £85k KORE and £40k Epikore 11, the smaller £20k Epikore 7 floorstander might just be the more sensible choice for typical living rooms.

Getting big bass from a loudspeaker, many think, requires huge drivers able to shift a lot of air. However, big drivers mean big cabinets to house them, and both skill in their tuning as well as capacity on the part of the amplifier. The former, at least, is something Danish company Raidho has clearly got under control with its X2t, although these £12,500-per-pair floorstanders opt for 135mm bass drivers – one covering bass/mid up to 3.5kHz, the other purely bass to 140Hz – for a slender form factor. The cabinet is just 143mm wide, and the whole speaker only 300mm wide including its aluminium outrigger feet, of which more later.

Apocryphal it may be, but one of the lingering mysteries about Quad was why MD and chief designer Peter Walker never went ‘high-end’ with bigger amps or speakers. His answer was always that his amplifiers and speakers were ‘adequate for most needs’. While that’s true, one cannot deny the efforts of others to make Quad’s inaugural ESL go louder and deeper. So while the ESL 2912X may not be the cost-no-object/size-no-object electrostatic that some devotees of the brand might dream of, I wonder what Peter Walker would have made of the not inconsiderable £12,999 asking price?

If you thought bespoke cabinet details and custom colourways were the preserve of the very high-end loudspeaker market, maybe it’s time to think again. AudioSolutions, hailing from Vilnius in Lithuania, offers an extensive customisation programme for its mid-level Figaro series – so extensive, in fact, that there are apparently over 500,000 possible configurations for the M2 floorstander auditioned here. Despite that, pricing begins at £9750. Not pocket change, of course, but hardly outrageous either..

If you’re looking at the legend on the tweeter surround of Acoustic Energy’s new loudspeaker and wondering how a brand that was established in 1987 can launch a 40th Anniversary Edition model in 2025, the answer is simple. When Acoustic Energy founder Phil Jones began work on his original AE1 design [HFN Jan ’89], seeking an ‘accurate monitor’ for his recording studio, he certainly wasn’t intending to launch a consumer audio company. But the speaker, a compact two-way that was groundbreaking in its use of metal diaphragms for both bass/mid and treble drive units, caught the eye and ear of audiophiles. And now it’s back...