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Soundstaging was in keeping with class expectations and wide, duly deep and of excellent image focus. But more important than wondering whether the piano had been left half a meter closer or farther was that the Burmester expressed how dynamic expression both macro and micro is far more vital to musical enjoyment. Such responsiveness translated to clear descriptions of associated ancillaries. I tried altogether four different amplifiers including units from Bryston, Symasym and Naim. Their personalities came across without effort – powerfully controlled for the Bryston; open, lively and impulse for the Symasym; rhythmically and dynamically most emphatic with the Naim. Burmester’s B10 thrives on power and plays astonishingly loud but did well also with the more limited wattage of the Symasym and Naim units to not insist on arc welders.

I mustn’t fail to explain just how brilliantly the B10 got on with electric guitar. In 2007 Gary Moore played a Jimi Hendrix homage concert whose well-mastered Blues for Jimi album had him joined by two original members of the Jimi Hendrix Experience on the last three numbers, Billy Cox on bass and Mitch Mitchell on drums. How Moore mimics Hendrix to express his reverence whilst still inserting his very own personality is simply genius. Not many guitarists would have  pulled that off. Here the B10 acted like a very grown-up Marshall stack. The white magic of Rock became tangible to a degree that seemed physically well nigh impossible for such a compact box. Pure energy!


Now what had Berndt Stark said about that minimal tweeter wave guide – that its controlled directivity might be less than 100% ideal for hifi applications? Let’s return to "Kiss" for an excellent illustration of what it implies. Founder of Brit firm Quad Peter Walker once described the speaker’s role as a "window onto the recording studio". Devotees of this sonic ideal express a desire to hear predominantly the recorded acoustics and as little as possible of their own which after all can only contribute errors to the recorded signal. And that also describes studio monitors. One wants to hear what’s on the recording. Deliberately beaming speaker trigger less of the playback acoustics and thus interfere less with the recorded ambiance than speakers with a broad off-axis response. The latter tend to place the performers into the listening room to sound as though they performed in situ rather than in a studio halfway around the globe.


Those wanting a window onto the studio accept as a consequence that at the proper distance – 1-2m with the B10-one must listen exactly on axis and without much head movements to obtain the least ‘infected’ impression of the original in the relative near field. In a domestic context many listeners meanwhile prefer the sonic image to be integrated with their own venue and not to have it shift much with altered seating positions. The Prince cut showed how the B10 may conform to either expectation. Seated 1.5 meters away, speakers 2 meters apart and aimed directly at the listener, one hears absolutely nothing of the room in which Prince’s voice was captured. And that’s as it should be. He was apparently recorded in a highly sound-absorbent crate. The B10 makes no bones about that as there’s zero reflective aura around the voice.

With an altered setup—B10 firing straight our or only modestly toed-in and sampled from a greater distance—one does notice that there’s clearly less reflected treble than usual because the room sound gets a bit darker though the effect is less intense than with most horn tweeters. This speaker still energizes the room sufficiently to believe that Prince made a personal appearance. In modern décors with plenty of hard unadorned surfaces where sidewall reflections with broadly dispersing speakers can turn the sound too bright or sharp, Burmester’s diminished room interaction can be very helpful.

Here another aspect assists further. Where most speakers determine best placement with their in-room bass response, the Burmester (within reason) allows placement wherever it looks best. Adaptation to the room then comes from the bass settings (plus or minus, with or without plug). I had a clear preference for the minus setting. Plus was less clear, clean or rhythmically structured and the mid/upper ranges exhibited a minor veil which I didn’t hear with minus. The better rhythmic differentiation alone would have had my vote for the minus position.


My preference for the plug was just as clear-cut. In please. Plus and open port were mighty indeed but also boomed a bit to perhaps be fun with Reggae excess but otherwise not my taste at all. As a result I ran the Burmester as a quasi sealed alignment. In this tuning I could place the boxes within 25cm of the front wall and not book noticeable bass loss despite my 42m² overall space where the maker only recommends up to 30m². A side effect of my setup was the need to hit a certain loudness before reaching proper tonal balance. That wasn’t the speaker’s fault but caused by hearing physiology and our varied sensitivity at different frequencies. With the B10 the tonally correct loudness was higher than for the similarly priced KEF R900 which I recently hosted. For late-night whisper sessions I simply flicked the bass switch to plus and pulled out the damper. This nearly acted as its own loudness compensation.