Børresen M1 - Fidelity Magazine

Making a dream come true – Loudspeaker performance at its very best

Børresen proudly introduces the new M1 loudspeaker – Michael Børresen’s most ambitious loudspeaker project to date.

The development approach and design philosophy for the Børresen M1 was to create a loudspeaker without any economic and technological constraints. The goal was an absolutely unrivalled sound potential. A very challenging task – but also the dream of every audio engineer. Particularly for Michael, it was a long-cherished dream. Since his youth, Michael Børresen has challenged the potential of various kinds of existing devices. He always had a strong desire to create and redesign them to improve and enhance their potential. Due to his love of music, one of his favorites has always been to analyze individual audio components and seek ways to improve them significantly. Therefore, the M1 project was a dream project, based on a vast amount of knowledge in the field of audio equipment manufacturing and a lifelong passion, without any limitations.

For the M1 project, Michael Børresen and his team of audio engineers and designers borrowed and applied some of the most innovative technologies from premium Ansuz, Aavik and Børresen products – all these technologies are the result of a long and intensive research and development process. No wonder, then, that the new M1 carries the best of the Ansuz, Aavik and Børresen DNA. However, the crucial technologies and most critical features of the M1 are new and unique to this model. Børresen introduces some absolutely groundbreaking and unique elements to the new M1. This loudspeaker takes the authenticity, clarity and sophistication of musical performance to a whole new level.

The Børresen M1 bass/midrange unit – truly revolutionary in sound

The basket

The basket is a real revolution – it is a topology-optimized 3D-printed basket made of zirconium. It ensures maximum rigidity and thus minimum vibration and resonance. It 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 has not only designed a basket with extreme stiffness, but also added important factors such as tremendous internal damping and resonance control, resulting in extreme clarity in overall performance. Thanks to the 3D printing process, the cavities are filled with zirconium powder, which gives the basket additional damping properties. Zirconium is by far the best choice of material. It allows the basket to generate an inconceivable quality of natural sound.

The membrane

The diaphragm for the M1 is the most advanced and sophisticated speaker membrane on the market and designed to achieve maximum stiffness with minimum noise. It has the highest stiffness and the lowest membrane resonance. The technological requirements for this unrivalled, world-class 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 uncompromising goal of ultimate membrane performance for an unprecedented sound quality. The result is a membrane that consists of four skins laminated into a single unit. Two layers of spread tow carbon fiber, a layer of aramid honeycomb spacers in between, and a titanium skin with Ansuz Supreme coating.

state-of-the-art materials

The combination of all these materials gives this state-of-the- art membrane its unique properties. Spread tow carbon fiber is designed to ensure a skin with optimum stiffness in many different directions. This unique characteristic reduces sound disturbing vibrations and resonances to an unprecedentedly low level. This is also true for resonances in the frequency range above 8 kHz. Since the membrane/driver is used up to the 2.5 kHz range, disturbing resonances have been shifted two octaves outside the effective frequency range, ensuring an absolute minimum of resonances.

The aramid honeycomb also has the best stiffness to weight ratio in the vertical direction. Titanium 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. It creates the finest and most uniform layer of zirconium, followed by a layer of tungsten and finished with a layer of aluminum chrome nitride. This coating provides the music with a truly impeccable sound quality.

The patented iron-free magnet system

To ensure the essence of Børresen DNA in the M1 speaker, it was natural to use Børresen’s patented and award-winning iron-free magnet system. Børresen’s iron-free drivers have an inductance that is about twelve times lower than conventional drivers. Silver has much better conductivity than iron or even copper. Børresen has therefore replaced the copper pole rings in the magnet system with in-house manufactured, handcrafted silver rings.

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. The result is an additional 6-8% reduction in inductance. Cryogenic treatment of all metal components of the loudspeaker results in a further significant improvement in conductivity. This allows the finest and most subtle musical details to unfold. 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 now becomes very similar to a single crystal. These structural changes in the metal have profound effects on its sound properties. In this way, all the performance-enhancing sound characteristics of the M1 loudspeaker fully come into their own.

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 an exceptional 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 incredible speed. This is an absolute prerequisite for unlocking the subtlest and finest sonic details of any type of music. The tremendous robustness of this tweeter allows it to handle extremely high transient peaks without causing any ear deafening breakups. Elaborate finite element methods were used to linearize and optimize the magnetic flux field, facilitate driver movement, and ensure high efficiency and excellent linearity.

Crossover – M-series

Like all other Børresen loudspeakers, the M1 is fitted with a serial crossover. The reason for this 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. With conventional parallel filtering, each driver receives its own frequency and phase content. The serial filters, by contrast, work by diverting out-of-band currents around the current flows, creating a much more coherent system. This unparalleled and innovative technological approach takes your listening experience into an entirely new echelon of musical delight.

Tesla coil technology

When Børresen designs new audio equipment, one of the main tasks is always to eliminate as much unwanted noise as possible. This is of course also the case with the M1, to provide such uncompromising musical authenticity. In the pursuit of this benchmark, Audio Group Denmark have learned that many of the technological pioneering 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 and by far the most effective Ansuz noise reduction technology.

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. This significantly improves the perceived blackness in the music.

Analog dither – 3rd generation

The analog dither technology that Ansuz has adopted in many of the Ansuz products with great success is of course also used in the M1 speaker. However, a 3rd generation of the Ansuz analog dither technology has been developed specific for the M1. Analog dither technology originated in radar, where it ensured a stronger signal and thus greater range. 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.

Analysis and studies have led to new options – and a lot of listening has resulted in this 3rd generation design which is a further optimization of the most effective frequencies which opens the soundscape even more and with the tiniest details when it comes to reproduction of the recordings.

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 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. The absorption prompts a vibration feedback that audibly purifies the sound quality. It is this natural and authentic sound that Ansuz Darkz devices are designed to preserve.

The stand – Aesthetics with sonic potential

The stand for the M1 speaker was designed with auditory functionality in mind to ensure the impressive performance of this world-class speaker. The speaker is placed on the meticulously 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. This unique sandwich construction supports a natural and organic sound. Three Ansuz Darkz Z2S resonance control decouplers are almost invisibly placed between the speaker and the top plate. The Darkz Z2S is made of zirconium and represents the flagship version among the resonance control decouplers.

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, especially hysteresis. The sonic result is clearly audible. In addition, the adjustable feet of the bottom cross plate are designed to sit on top of Ansuz Darkz.

Cabinet – Redesigned and reinforced

The design is an evolution and optimization of the stunning 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 to ensure highest efficiency. The cabinet is covered with black piano lacquer.

Internal wiring – Ansuz Gold Signature

The internal wiring of the M1 speaker consists of Ansuz’s flagship cables, the Ansuz Gold Signature series. Ansuz Gold Signature cables feature by far the most innovative and most advanced audio cable technology, literally paving the way to an extremely clear, natural, and authentic sonic reproduction.

Børresen M1 – Loudspeaker performance at its very best

When designing the M1 loudspeaker, Børresen’s overriding goal was to challenge existing technological constraints and pioneer into new and unorthodox realms of audio technology. This comprises the absolutely new design of loudspeaker components, finding effective ways to fight resonance and vibrations, and searching for materials that provide the ultimate properties to elevate the sound quality to unprecedented new level.

The M1 is the absolute high-end version of a loudspeaker that incorporates all the premium elements of the most innovative and advanced audio technologies that both Ansuz, Aavik and Børresen stands for.
The performance of the M1 loudspeaker makes it necessary to redefine the quality of absolute high-end music reproduction. It is therefore almost impossible to calibrate the M1 along conventional audio factors such as speed, dynamics, bass range or holistic staging etc. They all fall simply too short of helping to describe and appreciate the true and absolutely unique dimension of musical experience that can be instilled by this top-of-the-line M1 Børresen loudspeaker.

Please visit the Børresen website to find your local dealer, contact your dealer, or contact us at sales@audiogroupdenmark.com – we would be delighted to help arrange a personal listening experience for you.