Loudspeakers

'Where meticulous engineering meets creative artistry', says Audio Group Denmark of its Børresen loudspeakers. This is a not unfamiliar claim, but there’s no denying that the tall-yet-slender C1 looks suitably distinctive. Available in black or white piano lacquer finishes at £15,000 a pair, they stand just under 43cm tall, or a little over 112cm with the supplied stands, while the enclosure itself is a mere 20.4cm wide.

In practice, that piano lacquer over carbon-fibre on the speaker’s side panels doesn’t tell the whole story – the composite is only 1mm thick, and used to provide extra damping and stiffness. The main structure is machined from thick hardwood laminates, greatly contributing to the all-up weight of 18kg per speaker, rising to 24.5kg each with the stands. These custom pedestals are fashioned from the same wood laminate, rather than metal, Børresen saying this avoids any interference with the electronic components of the crossover.

Robust ribbon

The C1’s drivers are of in-house design and construction. The isodynamic RP94 ‘ribbon’ planar tweeter, operating above 2.5kHz, claims a vanishingly low 0.01g (10mg) moving mass but also boasts the robustness needed to handle even high transient peaks. It sits deep in the satin black baffle, above Børresen’s 128mm/5in DCC5 Neo mid/bass driver, which uses a triple-layer cone combining carbon-fibre skins sandwiching a honeycomb core, giving stiffness with internal damping. The driver is tuned via two of three small circular ports, venting at the top of the speaker’s inset rear panel.

This proprietary bass/mid unit is derived from pricier Børresen designs – even at almost £15,000, the C1 is the series’ entry-level model – and features double copper caps on the pole rings, implemented to lower inductance (and distortion) to present an easier load for the partnering amplifier. This was borne out by PM’s independent Lab Report [see here]. A minimum amplifier requirement of 50W is specified – comfortably exceeded by the Constellation Revelation 2 [HFN Jan ’25] used in the HFN Listening Room.

The loudspeaker’s crossover uses Børresen’s serial topology, rather than a more conventional parallel network, and for which various claims are made. For a second-order filter, a series network will require smaller inductors, at the expense of bigger capacitor values, but there’s typically no magic bullet. The stands, meanwhile, are not terminated in spikes, instead fitted with adjustable circular metal feet with a fine down-facing rim – so care must still be taken when positioning the speakers on decorative floors.

The coupling (or rather decoupling) between the C1 and its stand is also unusual, with no sign of the more common solid bolts or points. Instead, Børresen employs Ansuz Darkz S2t ‘resonance control devices’, for which cut-outs are provided on both the stand top-plates and the base of the cabinets. These use a combination of three circular stainless-steel discs, each of the two upper plates floating on three titanium balls in an effort to manage vibrations. They are part of a wide range of Ansuz accessories, from interconnects to cable lifters and network devices, offered by Audio Group Denmark.

Look behind you

Setup of the C1 speakers is relatively simple: there’s just a single set of 4mm posts provided to take cables terminated in bananas or spades, while the manual suggests a minimum 16cm distance between the speakers and the side walls, and 50cm to the rear, to avoid excessive bass. The manufacturer recommends that the speakers are positioned so the driver axes meet at a point about a metre behind the listening position – in other words, so the listener can just see the inner walls of the cabinets.

Great Danes
Thus positioned, and on the end of the dCS Varèse [HFN Feb ’25] and Constellation Revelation 2 pre/power system in the HFN Listening Room, these Børresen loudspeakers instantly set out their stall with a sound that, while necessarily lacking in ‘floorstander bass extension’, redressed the balance with impressive levels of clarity, and a smooth, focused and natural soundstage picture. Playing mezzo Magdalena Kožená and pianist Mitsuko Uchida’s L’Extase recital of songs by Debussy and Messiaen [Pentatone download], the C1s delivered a fine balance between voice and accompanist (if one could ever describe Uchida as such), set in a persuasive acoustic with just the right amount of ambience and resonance. It’s a magical performance, and these speakers rapidly draw the listener into the treasures on offer.

Anna Meredith’s ‘Nautilus’, played by the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Dalia Stasevska, on her Dalia’s Mixtape album [Platoon DALIA01], showed bass punch improving the harder the C1 was driven. There was also speed and detail here, especially in those fast orchestral arpeggios, plus effortless soundstaging with a real sense of the scale of the musical forces involved. Such an ability to deliver presence was also in evidence with ‘Aerodynamic’ from psychedelic rockers King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard [Phantom Island; self-released download], along with – again – that feeling of speed and dynamic punch.

Switching to Pulp’s ‘Grown Ups’, from the band’s recent More set [Rough Trade RT0541CD], and the C1 provided an intimate view of Jarvis Cocker’s voice, even if the track’s chugging bass line occasionally threatened to overtake matters. ‘Farmers Market’, from the same set, remained both touching and close-up, although the spine-tingling nuances of that distinctive voice were not always front and centre.

There is, on occasion, the impression that some tracks might have a bit more to give, for example with the cinematic low-frequency content in Garbage’s ‘Love To Give’, from Let All That We Imagine Be The Light [Stun Volume/Infectious Music 964145472]. That’s probably why Børresen’s floorstanding C2 and C3 exist, to provide a meatier work out with big, punchy power-chords. That said, Shirley Manson’s vocals still sounded characteristically powerful, vibrant and generally fabulous throughout the album.

Over the moon

The simple, open recording of Moon Halo’s ‘You Me And Everybody’ [Trichotomy; MHM003] is smack in the C1s’ comfort zone. The crisp drumming was especially impressive, and the lead vocals finely delineated. The same was true with GoGo Penguin’s ‘The Turn Within’ from Necessary Fictions [XXIM Records, 19802899701] – again, the drums had good weight and impact, while the instruments above them in this jazzy track were explicitly resolved.

The more downbeat ‘Naga Ghost’ from the same set, with its rimshots and characterful upright bass, sounded superb, but the real standout here was the view of the piano, which proved almost luminous in its clarity and natural weight.

These speakers maintain their appeal with orchestral music, the Edward Gardner/London Philharmonic Britten set [LPO-0134] sounding superb in the layering of the instruments in the ‘Sinfonia da Requiem’. The massive dynamic swings of the piece had real power and wide-open, free-breathing drama. Magnificent stuff, and the Børresen C1s went on to delight with the distinctive voice of tenor Nicky Spence in the ‘Winter Words’ song cycle, before completing the album with the suite from ‘The Prince Of The Pagodas’. Opening with a fine fanfare, the C1 speakers, driven by the potent Constellation Revelation 2 amp, were at home with both the dynamics and the fine details Britten layers into his score, expertly realised by conductor Gardner and his orchestral forces.

Justice is served

That the C1s can make the most of top-notch performances and production was plain with the 2023 Rachmaninoff Vespers – All-Night Vigil recording by the King’s College London Choir, directed by John Fort [Delphian Records DCD34296; 96kHz/24-bit]. This is my favourite version of the much-recorded work, and the London choir outshines even those ensembles you might think better suited to Orthodox liturgy.

The C1s’ performance was simply radiant, aided by a sound that made the most of the acoustic of All Hallows’, Gospel Oak, while maintaining the near-crystalline singing of this young ensemble. It’s a sensational recording, and the speakers did it full justice.

I have to admit to starting this review with some uncertainty, given the price of the Børresen C1s, their unusual design, and the more obvious appeal of some substantial floorstanders for the same kind of money – or even less. Nevertheless, and with no sight of PM's Lab Report [see here], these speakers just got better the longer I listened.

Hi-Fi News Verdict

Børresen’s C1s are a fine choice if you’re in the hunt for excellent sound from compact speakers for use in smaller listening spaces. In practice they justify all that in-house technology by sounding just as good as they look – they are both solidly built and finished, and distinctive enough to stand out from an arena that’s not exactly sparsely populated. Yes, they’re different, but they have qualities that demand audition.

Sound Quality: 87%