Acoustic system Triangle Borea BR09 Walnut
The Triangle Borea series of speakers, the technology of which is inherited from the successful Esprit Ez, consists of six models. These include three floorstanding towers, a 2.5-way BR07, three-way BR08 and BR09, two two-way bookshelf speakers - BR02 and BR03 - and a BRC1 center channel system. Triangle Borea's MDF speaker cabinets feature perforated EVA foam interior panels that absorb low-frequency vibrations using the DVAS (Driver Vibration Absorption System) concept. In most cases, cabinets are equipped with forward-facing bass reflex ports.
Each cabinet received its own mechanical decoupling system from the reference plane.
For shelf holders these are rubber gaskets, for floor holders there are support plates, and rubber gaskets are used, for example, if you need to protect the floor. Borea midranges inherit much of the Esprit Ez design. Classic cellulose cones have an optimized geometry, their design, according to the manufacturer, is designed to soften any coloration of intermediate frequencies, creating a more realistic sound. This is especially true for vocals. For the bass drivers, fiberglass diffusers were chosen to provide powerful punch and “airy” sound.
A set of speakers has been developed for the Borea speaker series. First up is a 25mm EFS silk dome tweeter with an integrated Efficient Flow System, an efficient flow system designed to “homogenize high-frequency diffusion.” The tweeter has a neodymium magnetic system and is installed in a compact horn design. To protect the diffusers, Borea speakers are equipped with grills with magnetic latches.
Triangle Borea speaker systems are suitable for both stereo setups and home theaters up to a 9.2.2 configuration.
According to the brand, these speakers will “provide clear vocal and midrange sound combined with powerful and controlled bass.” Review of Triangle Borea BR09 from Stereo.ru portal
Triangle acoustics have been familiar to the average audiophile for a long time, but somewhere in the background. The brand does not always come up in discussions, although it would seem that it is nearby. And, by the way, it is worthy of discussion. We got a model from the Borea series for testing - the next after the initial Plaisir and the line of active acoustics. Moreover, the model went to the flagship, Triangle Borea BR09. These floor stands are of fairly standard proportions - narrow columns just over a meter high. The black version with a rough, matte black front panel and textured vinyl sides looks strict but elegant. There is a gap between the front panel and the rest of the body, quite a big one, which makes it seem as if the front panel is floating apart from the body. The acoustics stand on a wide, fairly thick pedestal, and stand confidently.
The front panel of the Triangle Borea BR09 is covered by a protective grille with magnetic fastenings - and believe me, not every high-end brand has protective grilles made so carefully. No glue drips or acoustically transparent fabric sticking out, nothing like that - it’s very nice to see such a high-quality finish in a budget line. Thanks to the inward beveled edges of the grille, it is very easy to pick up and remove with your fingers, and a pair of horizontal spacers add rigidity to the structure.
The speakers have a three-way configuration, and low frequencies are handled by as many as three 16-cm speakers loaded onto a bass reflex port located on the front panel.
Each speaker is framed in a ring with cut-off sides, decorated with thin silver semicircles. The same pattern frames the tweeter - it is cut into the horn material along with the Triangle logo. This small and seemingly meaningless design element, oddly enough, is endearing. He collects all the diversity of speakers into a single ensemble, maybe even convinces that yes, these speakers are created to work together and will not interfere with each other. With the grills removed, the acoustics look very nice - both in terms of proportions, and in terms of shades, and in terms of finishing. The large bass reflex port with recesses, located at the very bottom, practically coincides in diameter with the dustproof caps of the low-frequency drivers, which makes it seem like a continuation of the line of emitters and does not stand out from the overall picture. The Triangle logo supporting it from below, slightly silver, is not noticeable and does not interfere at all. The design came out harmonious, albeit simple - but, it seems to me, the white version still looks more interesting.
The woofers are made of fiberglass, a tough, strong material that allows the speakers to play quickly, and are complemented by large dust caps.
Large magnets also pursue the same goal: the lows do not linger for long and do not spill, adding turbidity to other ranges. The middle in the Triangle Borea BR09 is played by a separate speaker of the same caliber as the woofers, but with a completely different configuration. It migrated to the Borea series from the older Esprit Ez line: it has a shining white diffuser of a carefully calculated shape made of pure cellulose without any additional coating and a sharp phase-equalizing bullet. A special suspension profile, with a small fold, is the company’s proprietary technology: the speaker does not have a very large amplitude of movement, but due to the correctly selected combination of rigidity and compliance, as they say in the description, vocals sound very realistic.
The soft silk dome tweeter is slightly recessed into a small horn and is complemented by a silver EFS phase-equalizing pad, reminiscent of a bridge whose middle has been destroyed. Both the horn and the pad are designed to improve dispersion and reduce distortion.
But the most interesting thing happens inside the case: there is a proprietary strut system called DVAS.
It primarily tries to keep excess vibrations from the woofers in check, absorbing them with the help of perforated MDF panels and EVA foam inserts. The speaker touches the spacers through an EVA pad installed directly behind the magnet, due to which most of the vibrations are dissipated in the spacers and only a small part is transferred to the body. By the way, there is nothing interesting on the back wall of the Triangle Borea BR09: the bass reflex is brought forward, and the switching is very simple - just a couple of massive, heavy metal terminals. So you will have to do without biamping. All technologies in the series are designed to achieve maximum neutrality, realism and purity in sound - and here we return to the fact that each manufacturer interprets these concepts differently.
It is recommended to install the Triangle Borea BR09 acoustics 40 cm from the wall, despite the bass reflex placed forward, with a slight turn inward, at a distance of at least two meters from each other - nevertheless, the acoustics are not the smallest and, according to the manufacturer, are suitable for rooms up to 30 m².
For us, Triangle Borea BR09 stood in a small room and played with a small system based on Pro-Ject technology - with a MaiA S2 amplifier and a StreamBox S2 Ultra network source. And it’s even surprising that such compact devices were able to cope perfectly with floor-standing devices, giving both control and cleanliness. Three bass drivers and promises of unprecedented harshness immediately put you in a playful mood and you want to hit with something richer, but reality has made adjustments: if you take, for example, the albums “BBNG” and “III” from BadBadNotGood, then you shouldn’t expect thick bass from Triangle. The bottom is delicate, tactile in a good way, but not at all stuffy or loud. It is a little soft and dry, it seems to love plastic more than kick drum, and it copes well with a drawn-out jazz-hop beat - carefully, without trying to fill the entire space with massive bass.
But in these albums, all the attention from the lower parts is transferred to the impossible beauty of the iridescent piano - crystal, sparkling, ringing and at the same time tender.
This is a completely ephemeral grace, sprinkled with light sadness where sadness usually makes it difficult to crowd through. The sound is not just airy, it seems to be additionally ozonized - fresh, like a clearing after a rainstorm. This emphasis on high frequencies is definitely there, but it is presented so gracefully and bewitchingly that it does not cause either negativity or fatigue - on the contrary, in combination with the upper register of the piano it has an almost hypnotic effect, which I was not able to catch with synthetic samples. There are a lot of details at high frequencies, you can - and even want - to swim in them, like in a cool lake in the summer, scooping with your hands. True, the crunchy recording defect in my version of “Hedron” still attracted too much attention precisely because of this accent and interfered more than before, so the quality of the music played should be treated wisely. The sound is some kind of abyss of emotions, life, maybe even with some kind of eclecticism. The acoustics convey feelings at the ends of the spectrum well - they manage both the aggression of the same Prodigy, and, conversely, some completely unreal tenderness, softness and sadness in the slow tracks of DJ Shadow and Imogen Heap.
With the Triangle Borea BR09, music is not just a parade of beauties pulled to the fore.
It seems that acoustics is trying to understand the aesthetics of sound, and it is able to find it even in the noise of industrial music and the rumble of a djent barrel. True, she sees her own aesthetics, which is completely special. Listening to Nine Inch Nails on these speakers is an experience like no other. This acoustics turns any music into a holiday, and even the apocalypse in the most depressing melodies is greeted with joy. Both versions of “The Day The World Went Away” seemed to be accompanied by bright fireworks and balloons instead of a mental atomic mushroom, and in “All The Love In The World” the offended and tired accusations were replaced by completely open flirtation. I didn’t even think that Reznor’s tracks could play like that - that all the power and pain in them could be converted into something just as huge in power, but directed in a completely different direction. An indescribable feeling that really breaks the brain. All emotions are located on the stage, stretched upward - although the room may have played a role here. The images spin around in calculated chaos on a well-defined hemisphere, without colliding with each other, but the scene could have been larger in width. Sometimes there is a lack of depth and the images seem a little flattened - but what the speakers lack in volume, they more than make up for in sensuality.
There is a lot of music.
And it seems that it’s much more pleasant for acoustics to play loudly: the emotionality reaches some tangible level. Female vocals turn into spells - sensual, deep, penetrating into the very soul. The winds gain textural expressiveness. And the same Prodigy, with all kinds of drum and bass, play as freely and uninhibited as possible - and the melodies do not fall into a crazy and thoughtless patter, but remain alive, multi-layered, accurate. In a heap of samples you can almost always catch one and watch how it flows into others. The bass remains clear, perky, correctly dosing sharpness, boom and comfort, mixing them in the most cheerful proportion without a drop of negativity. And that's the whole point of the Triangle Borea BR09: the acoustics try to find a balance between the completely physical sensation of the music and the emotional response from it, and the latter regularly wins. These columns are about images and feelings first and foremost. They are not for analysis, although they are quite detailed.
I really ask: if you love Nine Inch Nails, listened to them a lot on different systems, revel in the various types of Trent Reznor fury, and you have the opportunity to play a couple of tracks on Triangle - do it, solely so that you can then sit for five minutes and not understand what happened and how it happened.
The Triangle Borea BR09 apparently has some kind of additional magic filter-converter built into the crossover, which allows only slight fleeting sadness from conditionally negative emotions - everything that is more severe remains the same in modulus, but changes sign to the opposite. This is acoustics-festivity, acoustics-fun, and how pleasantly she plays the piano. This is not the sharpness and clarity and precision that is found in the film, this is some kind of completely ephemeral melodiousness and fluidity with a bewitching shining texture. One of my colleagues called this sound “cheerful French highs” - and if this particular feature is inherent in French manufacturers, then we can only rejoice: it is far from the worst distinctive feature.
Of course, with such a character comes genre compatibility: something gothic-industrial-djent is better not to include on the Triangle Borea BR09, but playful rock and roll, loud and nimble electronics without a touch of destructiveness, compositions in which vocals come to the fore and, of course, instrumental tunes with piano and thoughtful percussion are great options.
They shine brightest at high volumes, even with such a compact amplification, but even purring quietly they will give out a solid dose of endorphins. Specifications Triangle Borea BR09
Type Bass Reflex Sensitivity (dB / W / m) 92.5 Frequency response (+/- 3 dB Hz - kHz) 35-22 Amplifier power (W Rms) 170 Impedance 3.3 Ohm Dimensions (H x W x D) 1095 x 315 x 206 mm Weight 21.8 kg / piece
Triangle in the budget
The sound of Triangle acoustics has long divided audiophiles into two camps: there are those who sincerely love it, and there are others who just as sincerely do not accept it. We think that the sound of this budget series will be able to reconcile them to some extent. Over its 37-year history, the French company Triangle has known both triumphs and extremely difficult periods that put it on the brink of survival. One of these episodes was the release of electronic components that had good sound, but rather low reliability. Fortunately, having walked the razor's edge at that time, the company focused on what it does best, namely, producing speaker systems with a recognizable design and sound signature. The company's headquarters are located on the outskirts of the city of Soissons in Picardy, the heart of the ancient kingdom of the Franks, and there are also production workshops where some of the expensive models are assembled.
We got to test floor-standing speakers from the Altea series, which have been successfully sold on the Russian market for several years. In the Triangle hierarchy, these acoustic systems belong to the entry-level - the price in Russia is 50,000 rubles - however, their proprietary approach to design is clearly visible in them. Let's start the description with the speakers used in the Triangle Altea Borea. Traditionally, the high-frequency range is sounded by a tweeter with a metal dome, in this case aluminum. Following the same tradition, it is loaded onto a small horn with a phase-equalizing insert, which has long been a generic feature of Triangle speakers. The presence of a small core at the mouth of the horn should not be underestimated - it helps not only to ensure the correct directional pattern at HF, but also makes it easier to match all the speakers of the system in terms of sound pressure level. Neodymium is used in the magnetic system, and the tweeter design also includes a special rear chamber to absorb the back radiation of the dome.
Moving on to the mid-frequency speaker, we note that it also follows the ideas of Triangle founder Renaud de Vernet about the choice of material for diffusers. In his opinion, the sound of this important range can only be entrusted to a paper membrane, and Triangle Altea Borea was no exception to the general rule. It uses a white cellulose diffuser with a diameter of 165 mm, mounted on a foam rubber suspension, and a phase-equalizing core is also present. The woofer also has a cone with a small diameter - 165 mm, only it is clearly heavier and made of black cellulose, the central hole in which is covered with a regular dust cap. The choice of such a woofer is not surprising since we are dealing with a 2.5-way configuration, where both speakers help each other on the bass in order to provide a higher sound pressure level. The speakers are fixed flush, and the places where the baskets are attached to the front panel are covered with neat decorative overlays. Naturally, the entire front panel can be carefully covered with a protective grille with an acoustically transparent fabric stretched over it.
The speaker housings are made of high quality fiberboard, covered with vinyl film, imitating natural veneer. In the lower part there is a support plate into which spikes are screwed, designed for better mechanical decoupling of the speakers from the floor. The bass reflex port is located on the front panel. On the back wall there is only one pair of connectors for connecting speaker wire, but it accepts all types of cables, both stripped and not. There is no indication of the place of assembly, there is only an inscription that the model was developed in France. Well, where else?
Like all experienced audiophiles, we are very familiar with the signature style of Triangle speaker systems, so the initial impressions did not come as a surprise - there is definitely a slight emphasis on the upper mids and highs, but it is quite easy to level it out, you just need to turn the speakers parallel to the front line and not direct them directly to the listener. The selection of amplifier also plays a big role. In our laboratory, a device from Audio Analogue was simultaneously tested, and so it helped tame the agility of the speakers in the high-frequency range.
After completing all the necessary steps to place the system in the room, Triangle Altea Borea pleased us with a very mature sound with excellent bass, lively mids and emotional highs. It must be said that the sound of Triangle has long divided audiophiles into two camps, there are those who sincerely love it, and there are others who just as sincerely do not accept it. It seems that the sound of this budget series will be able to reconcile them to some extent. Moreover, according to some indicators, the work of the inexpensive Triangle Altea Borea seemed to us even better balanced than that of their more expensive counterparts. Well, it was difficult to expect such fast and clean bass from such miniature floorstanding speakers. In general, both macro- and microdynamic abilities have always been Triangle’s strong point, even in the most budget series. We highly recommend paying attention to these, albeit small, but very capable floor-standing speakers.
Pros:
• Emotional and fast sound • Amazing bass for its size
Minuses:
• You will need to carefully select the amplifier
