For me, sitting down and writing a formal article requires a generalized sense of structure and a setting of stability. I’ve had neither for the past couple of months and it’s harshing my mellow.
Swirling chaos descended upon me back in April. At that time I’d finished my review of the Musical Fidelity M8xTT turntable. It was time to box the big guy up and ship it back. Disassembly of a big ’table always stresses me out. Assembly? No big deal—just yank parts out of the box and jam them together in whatever way seems appropriate, right?
Not for me—for me, assembly is fraught with peril. The ease that should coalesce into a successful disassembly, especially where turntables are concerned, is directly proportional to the quality of the assembly process. Did I keep all of the plastic bags for screws, belts, and parts in discrete and appropriate cubbies of the packaging materials? Did I keep all the supplied tools in a separate place, or did I mingle them with my own? Did I accidentally destroy or misfile any foam dividers in my haste to set up the turntable? Did I take enough photos so that I could figure out what goes where when the time came to ship the thing back?
The answers to those questions are usually maybe, sometimes, or not always. That said, I’m getting better at this stuff. If the handle of the fridge gave me an electric shock every time I opened it to grab a beer, pretty soon I’d stop drinking. The negative stimuli I’ve received at disassembly time have given me sufficient pause to break this cycle of self-inflicted disarray.
The M8xTT disassembly process wasn’t too bad. The resultant wooden crate, fully loaded, clocked in at around 100 pounds, so there were many trips back and forth to the garage with the parts, as I needed the completed package near the exit and perched on its shipping pallet. A quick trip to Home Depot to pick up some ratcheting straps and I was done. Not so bad, I thought.
Then God went and screwed me over by upping the ante. Next up was the Thales TTT-Compact II turntable and matching Simplicity II arm. As I documented in my May editorial, there were several complications with this nutty Swiss ’table, arm, and matching cartridge, and—once again—my haste made it more difficult than it needed to be.
Between then and now, I shoehorned in two cartridge reviews—the X-quisite Voro and the Charisma Audio Signature Two—and a trip to Santa Fe to preview the new Master Crown line of cables from Siltech.
This brings us to late June. A little bird had told me that Wynn Audio—which distributes the aforementioned Thales brand—had recently picked up the Børresen line of speakers for distribution in Canada. Following publication of my Thales and X-quisite reviews, a series of back-and-forth emails with Wynn Wong solidified my plan to review the Børresen X6 speaker.
We firmed up the delivery of the X6s and pickup of the Thales, and I gave some thought to that turntable and its complications. I was a bit more worried than usual about the disassembly process. As you can tell from reading about my experience in setup, I got all turned around and did stuff out of order.
So as Wynn and I discussed delivery plans, I asked if he’d do me a solid and pack up the ’table for me. He sounded a touch surprised, but agreed nonetheless. Asking for this favor felt, to me, somewhat unprofessional, but I had a lot on the go at that point:
- Summer holidays were getting started, and we were short a couple of reviews so I had to pull forward some of the tasks I’d planned for later in the year.
- The Voodoo Labs cables were working well in my system, and I needed to get that review finished.
- The European Audio Team (EAT) Fortissimo S turntable had just arrived, so that 210-pound crate was squatting ominously in my garage awaiting assembly.
- I was still running flat-footed from my trip to Santa Fe, which had taken more bandwidth from me than I’d anticipated.
- It was the end of the school year, and my wife was totally exhausted from the shut-down, clean-up, say-goodbye finale.
- We were leaving in two days for a weeklong summer trip.
So I was wearing several hats—supportive husband and father; busy-busy reviewer; stalwart senior editor—and I was running out of bandwidth.
EAT Fortissimo S turntable—it’s a big one
Wynn arrived Friday morning, accompanied by Kenneth Cheung, his product specialist. In our conversations, Wynn had quizzed me on my listening room’s access path. At 174 pounds, the X6 is a heavy speaker, perhaps the heaviest I’ve yet had in my room—it’s actually eight pounds heavier than the DALI Epikore 11—and in retrospect, I could see why Wynn was concerned. I assured him that it was a straight shot through my garage, with no stairs involved.
Wynn and Kevin
I hadn’t actually looked up the X6’s weight before that day. I ass-u-me-d that it was heavy, but I didn’t know the actual number. My first clue that this was going to be an ordeal was when I spied Cheung’s lifting-support belt, which was cinched up real tight.
It was a tough haul even for three people, but on the second speaker we used my dolly lined with a yoga mat, and that made things easier. We got the X6s set up in my basic starting positions and I hooked them up with the Voodoo Labs Witchcraft cable, which you can read about here. I booted up the Hegel amp and preamp and we checked that the speakers were working properly.
Wynn set about disassembling the Thales, and I was right impressed by his quick, decisive movements. It was obvious that he’d done this more than a couple of times. There was some concern on my part as he called for various screws and parts and I scrambled to try and remember where I’d put them. It all worked out in the end, though, and we loaded the packed-up boxes into Wynn’s car.
After Wynn and Kenneth had departed, I took stock of the situation in my listening room. Back when I first proposed the review of the X6, I’d immediately noted the similarities to the Epikore 11. Both are very tall speakers, each with four woofers in a similar configuration—two woofers at the top and two at the bottom—and a midrange-treble conglomeration in the middle. The Epikore 11 is armed with four 8″ woofers, and they overloaded my room a touch. Not enough to annoy me—far from it. The Epikore 11s’ bass was world-class, and I luxuriated in the presentation of low frequencies. But the level was obviously higher than ideal, not quite accurate, which pointed to the DALIs needing a slightly larger room.
With its quartet of 4.5″ woofers, the X6 should be more appropriate in low-end output given my room layout. The X6 is narrower than the Epikore 11, which works out well, but the depth is essentially the same—both speakers are very deep. So these guys fill my room and make my wife shake her head in equal parts amusement and irritation each time she has to sidewind past them when she wants to get to the backyard.
As I said earlier, I headed out of town two days after the X6s arrived, so I haven’t had a chance to give them a good listen yet. But the few album sides I ran through the speakers, even without messing with position, showed huge promise, especially considering their (extremely) reasonable price of $22,000/pair in the US.
While we’re gone, a friend of my wife’s is house-sitting for us. Lorie has stayed over at our place in previous years, and she’s never once said anything about the sound system. Our listening room also hosts our home-theater system by way of a drop-down screen and JVC projector. The Hegel preamp’s aux input is fed by the front L/R preamp outputs of my Anthem receiver, so the main speakers are also in the circuit for video use. On her first visit, Lorie looked at the VPI and decided that she wasn’t interested in using the turntable, and so she only uses the basement listening room for streaming movies from Netflix.
On our first day away, I received a text from Lorie. Apparently, the Børresens had made an impact:
So next up is that EAT turntable. I just checked, and while the shipping weight is over 200 pounds, the actual ’table itself only clocks in at 103 pounds. I guess the balance was the wooden box and shipping pallet. Only 103 pounds . . . I think I’ll need assistance getting this chonker out of the box. The manual shows assembly as being straightforward, so that’s a bonus. The F-Note tonearm, on the other hand, looks like something I’ll need to study up for. The first paragraph on the first page of the manual indicates that EAT has dealt with my type before:
Although it may seem like asking for driving directions, please take a few moments to read all of this manual. It has many helpful tips and ideas on properly setting up and using your system. We promise that if you take the time to read and follow these tips you’ll get better system performance and enjoyment.
I’ll take that advice. Next week I’m setting up the Fortissimo S, which means I’ll spend the next day or two reading through the manual so I don’t mess it up.
. . . Jason Thorpe
jasont@soundstagenetwork.com
