Raid 1 "consists of an exact copy or mirror of a set of data on two or more disks belonging to the array". WIth Z1 in pride of place, the exact copy was everything preceding it: Soundaware D100Pro SD transport ⇒ AES/EBU ⇒ Denafrips Terminator DAC ⇒ Passive Preamp icOn 4Pro SE with 4th-order Linkwitz-Riley active analog 40Hz hi/low pass ⇒ Zu Submission subwoofer and Bakoon AMP-13R ⇒ Børresen Z1 ⇐ Furutech GTO-D2 NCF passive power distributor enhanced with NCF sleeves ⇐ Hifistay Mythology Transform X rack plus matching isolators beneath sub, Crystal Cable power and low-level cable loom, Allnic Z8000 speaker cable, Audioquest cable lifts.

"Cheat!" Some might balk at seeing the left corner's big sub included. "Calmity" I'd say right back. Jane or otherwise, that's not calamity. The downstairs system and upstairs round 2 would run unassisted. But I was already set up for a sat/sub threesome. Our usual sound|kaos 36Hz port sees 2 x 5¼" carbon woofers in a force-cancelling array. That's twice Børresen's cone surface and motor power. Still the Swiss benefits from invisibly bolted-on extra bass extension. The Dane specs out at -3dB/50Hz. With ribbons good to 50kHz, a full extra octave at the opposite end becomes extra meaningful. Hello balance. Perfect balance is when nothing stands out to be counted first. Speakers are hifi's grossest distortion generators. They transform electrical into mechanical energy. They do so with antique tech whose power conversion efficiency is at best 8% but usually just 1-2%. Then our room applies unpredictable EQ in the frequency and time domains. It's why of all our stereo kit, speakers exhibit the most personality.

The Børresen I heard in Aalborg and the B-02 I subsequently reviewed all had personality. If that issued a party invite, it'd read speed.transparency.dynamic contrast. It's what stood out. It's what got counted first. My hosts also liked to play loud to show off their dynamic expression. By adding full first-octave bass now, this personality diluted. The overall sound grew weightier, fuller and blacker. The speed/transparency emphasis normalized. Balance perfected. Clear-cut personality faded. When that happens, there's less to dig into as traits of individuality. Whatever attribute one focuses on to say "that's real good" can instantly be replaced by another just as good and so forth. In that sense adding a tall downfiring 12-inch sealed sub, its own variable Hypex filter replaced by a far superior fixed active filter with matching high pass, had reset a balance. Without the grafted-on 25-50Hz octave—more on that on the next page—the Z1 clearly prioritized transparency, light and quickness. Many listeners would call that no imbalance at all, only undeniable strengths. Thinking people understand that for any undeniable strengths to factor, they are stronger than something else. By implication, that something else must be weaker. It's simple logic.

With the system as shown, I no longer heard the sound in striated terms of stronger/weaker. Transparency coexisted with mass, excellent staging with image density, tone with resolution. My educated guess is that with the Z range's adoption of an 8-inch woofer already for its Z2 model, the same shift I created with our 12-inch woofer factors now for all Z models above the first. No matter how aspirated, the 4-inch B-range drivers used exclusively until the B-05 flagship behave different for bass than bigger woofers. To get more Z1 specific requires contrast and difference. For that I compared it directly to our Swiss residents, then Kaiser Acoustic's Furioso Mini, subwoofer defeated, mains full range. But first, some general observations about that lineup of three.