Borresen Acoustics - 02 SSE (Silver Supreme Edition) - Stunning Precision Floorstanders

Offered for sale are the incredible Børresen Acoustics 02 Silver Supreme Edition loudspeakers in Natural Wood Finish in Mint Condition. I have owned these for less than a year and recently upgraded within the Børresen lineup to the sonically similar 03 SSE's, a larger model which better suit my very large, open listening space. I am therefore looking for a new home for these truly amazing speakers.

Many consider the 02's to be the ideal size for smaller to medium spaces as they take up the same amount of space as the 01's but pack a much bigger punch.  For many, they are ultimate selection as they image like a monitor but scale like a full-range floorstander.

I have owned both the standard and Silver Supreme Edition 02's and recommend the astonishing SSE option without reservation. The SSE's boast 2 improvements over the Standard version: A) cryogenic treatment of all internal components (save for the tweeter membrane), and B) replacement of the copper pole rings used in the Standard & Cryo Borresen 02's with solid silver rings, further reducing the already-low electrical inductance of Borresen's patented Iron-Free driver design even further. The sonic results of the SSE upgrade are dramatic, delivering even-greater speed, precision and transparency to an already stellar loudspeaker. Highly recommended!

The 02 SSE's include all original packaging (highly protective, foam-padded corrugated and wood crates), accessories and owners manual. They will arrive ratchet-strapped to a heavy-duty skid, surrounded by stretch wrap to add a further level of security and moisture protection. They will ship via insured freight service to ensure safe delivery to their new owners. My dealer Next Level HiFi will coordinate freight on my behalf and transfer the remaining four (4) year warranty to the proud new owner.  Moreover, my dealer is willing for your peace of mind, to facilitate the payment(s) on my behalf. Payment is available by wire, check, credit card and 12-Month Interest-Free Synchrony Finance option (interest free finance and credit card purchases add 3% credit card fee).

Trades can be considered to assist the new buyer in accruing these world-class loudspeakers - please be realistic with trade offers.  I am only interested in gear that is 8 of 10 condition or better and complete.

 

Perfectly balanced

The Børresen 02 Silver Supreme Edition speaker opens up a new quality of high-end audio resolution. It reproduces the tonality of the individual timbre of any instrument as well as the vocal range of a singer with an unprecedented authenticity that imbues any music with a captivating quality. 

 

 

Technologies and Components

Silver and cryo optimization .
The Børresen Silver Supreme Edition loudspeakers are the absolute flagship versions among the Børresen loudspeakers. By replacing the copper pole rings by in-house manufactured, hand-crafted silver rings the inductance is reduced substantially. Additionally, all metal components, are subjected to a cryogenic treatment. These loudspeakers set a new and unsurpassed benchmark. Clarity, refinement and sound staging at its very best.

Magnet system – Bass/midrange

The Silver Supreme Edition. 
The patented Børresen iron-free magnetic system has been further refined. Børresen uses iron-free drivers in all its loudspeakers. Their inductance is about ten times lower than that of conventional drivers. This exceptionally low inductance has now been even further reduced to an unprecedented new minimum level – about 12 times lower than the inductance level of conventional, iron-based drivers. Here is how we achieved this: Since silver has 6-8% better conductivity than copper, we replaced the copper pole rings with in-house manufactured, handcrafted silver rings.

To take full advantage of all the performance-enhancing audio properties of the Silver Supreme 0-series, all other metal components of these premium speakers also undergo cryogenic treatment. This reduces their inductance by another 6-8%.
The result is absolute musical purity. With their unadulterated authenticity of musical reproduction, these premium loudspeakers set a new and unsurpassed standard – clarity, refinement, and sound-staging at its very best.

Cryogenic process

Extreme treatment, huge improvement. 
Cryogenic treatment of all metal components of the loudspeaker results in a further significant improvement in conductivity – unleashing finest and most subtle musical details. When metal components undergo cryogenic processing, they are subjected to extreme cooling. In the wake of this process, the crystal structure of the metal contracts more and more. Alloying elements are pushed out of the grain structure of the metal, which now becomes very similar to a monocrystal. These structural changes in the metal have a profound effect on its audio properties, resulting in an increase of conductivity by 6-8%.

All metal components of these speaker series undergo cryogenic treatment. The cryogenic processing cycle requires a 3-day-time window. Within the first 24 hours, the metal undergoes a cooling process from room temperature to cryogenic temperatures. During the second 24 hours, the metal parts are held at temperatures around -196°C (-321°F) before the temperature, within the next 24 hours, returns gradually to room temperature. The gradual cooling and heating is critical to avoid any thermal stress. The process strengthens and compresses the grain structure of the metal components and reduces inherent residual stress that occurs when metal solidifies from its liquid phase to a solid phase.

The Børresen tweeter

Exceptional efficiency. 
Elaborate finite element methods have been applied to linearize and optimize the magnetic flux field, to facilitate driver movement and to ensure high efficiency and outstanding linearity.

The efficiency of this closed ribbon tweeter amounts to an exceptional 94dB and operates from approximately 2.5 kHz upwards. The moving mass is extremely low at 0.01 grams. The totally concealed tweeter has the capacity to operate at an incredible speed, which is an absolute prerequisite to unlocking the most subtle and refined sound details of any kind of music. The enormous robustness of this tweeter allows it to handle extremely high transient peaks without any ear fatiguing breakups. No transformers are being used.

Membrane – Bass/midrange

Impressing stiffness to weight ratio. 
The Børresen membrane consists of a composite of two layers of very thin carbon on both sides of a 4 mm Nomex honeycomb core. This composite structure – like the one used in formula 1 type of racing cars – provides the ultimate combination of stiffness to weight ratio. The exceptionally low weight of only 5.5 grams allows a very high acceleration factor in the driver, resulting in both outstanding resolution and higher efficiency.

Crossover O-series

Serial configuration, coherent system. 
Børresen loudspeakers are fitted with a serial crossover configuration. The reason for this is that the drivers share the very same flow of electric current in the crossover region. As a result, the electric current is phase-locked over the crossover region. Unlike standard parallel filtering, where each driver receives its own frequency and phase content, the new serial filters work by diverting out-of-band currents around the current flows, thus creating a much more coherent system. This unrivaled and innovative technological approach takes your music into a new echelon of acoustic delight.

For the crossover filter, we went to great lengths to source the very best and most sophisticated state-of-the-art components. The coils are foil types wound with paper isolation and impregnated with resin under vacuum to make them mechanically extremely solid and stable.

For crossover capacitors, we use arrays of small military spec stack-foil types. They have the best mechanical stability and lowest induction of any type of capacitor on the market (and they sound wonderful, too).

For tweeter attenuation resistors, we use metal strip types since they have, by far, the lowest noise figures and additionally, a very low thermal variation.

Cabinets

Performance and design tradition.
The cabinets are heavily braced, block milled, compressed wood structures, beautifully veneered in walnut and fitted with solid walnut inserts. They follow the best of Danish furniture design traditions paired with the stylish shapes that were initially created by the late Franco Serbelin from Sonos Faber.

The tweeter section is vented to balance out the build-up of air pressure. The bass sections consist of tuned ports calibrated for musically relevant frequencies.

Ansuz Darkz – Invisible resonance control 

Børresen 02-05

Ansuz Darkz decouplers have been designed to ensure a distinctly better mechanical grounding of the speaker cabinet to the stand, respectively to the floor. Ansuz Darkz consist of 3 discs separated by 3 titanium ball bearings. Ansuz Darkz are available in 4 alloys that allow for different sonic levels of grounding qualities. 

The floor-standing loudspeakers have built-in Ansuz Darkz T2S resonance control decouplers fitted between the loudspeakers and the ground cross plate. The adjustable feet of the ground cross plate are designed to sit on Darkz decouplers of your choice.

The Tesla coil principle

The principle is to have two coils that are wounded in each direction / a coil and a counter coil. In Ansuz words: “A double inverted coil” – the two coils are both carrying voltage – and when the Tesla coil encounters a voltage spike a counter spike is activated in order to eliminate the noise. As Noise spikes are pure voltage and carries virtually no charge, the cancelation is quite good, but not 100%. By adding more P-TC coils in parallel the performance increases. By implementing this the perceived blackness in the music improves significantly. Ansuz Tesla coils are available in various types as they complement each other in terms of strengths /weaknesses.

Anti aerial resonance coil technology

Prevents airborne noise. 
All cables and cable screens are acting like antennas for airborne RF noise which of course is a huge problem. The passive cable Tesla coil is wounded on the external part of the cable and protects the signal from absorbing the airborne RF noise. This noise is absorbed in the Tesla coil. 

As there is a voltage running in the conductor itself, and it is wounded in the counter direction – this is used as the counter coil and the RF noise is then eliminated.

Specifications

Frequency response 40Hz – 50KHz
Sensitivity 88 dB / 1W
Impedance 4 ohms
Recommended Amplifier > 50W
1 x Tweeter Børresen planar ribbon tweeter
2 x Driver Børresen iron free bass/midrange driver: 4.5 inches
Finish: Walnut veneer

H x W x D: 105,5 x 30,5 x 51,0 cm
H x W x D: 41.3 x 11.8 x 20.1 inches
Weight: 67.2 lbs each