triangle Borea BR03 Hi-Fi Bookshelf Speakers (Black Ash, Pair)

I own pairs of each of these: ELAC Uni-Fi UB5 Klipsch RP-600M ELAC Debut B6.2 ELAC Debut B6 Theyre all AMAZING speakers that sound fabulous at twice, three times, and even five times their price tags. None of them is anything less than superlative. Indeed, reviewers have run out of superlatives to bestow on all of them. The original Debut B6 is the all-time, possibly never to be dethroned, bang-for-the-buck audiophile speakers. If you dont have at least one pair of them, you havent lived, my friend! For $279, they simply turned Hi-Fi upside down, utterly reshuffling peoples expectations for affordable speakers. They were easygoing. Laid back. Powerful in the lower octaves. They make every recording sound great regardless of source material or amplifier. Im still speechless at what they did for THAT kind of money. It made EVERY other speaker company up their game. Dramatically. We owe a LOT to those speakers. The B6.2 had a bit more grown up sound. Simple as that. Lots of goodness there, and a bit more classy. And easier to put closer to the front wall because of the front port. The Uni-Fi UB5 brought affordable Hi-Fi to a whole nother level again. A true 3-way speaker with a coherence and holographic soundstage that leaves you breathless. Just make sure you have a GOOD, powerful, high-current amp to drive them, as theyre not sensitive, and theyre 4 ohm speakers on top of that. Theyre a glass of Châteauneuf-du- Pape, for ones who appreciate perfection and class. They never put a foot wrong. They point their pinkies. Theyre accurate. They have a pinpoint accuracy in the soundstage. But it takes a LOT of clean power to get them to drop the classy act and just light the place up, which theyll do if you ask nicely. And give them gifts. Known as high-wattage amplification. You dont get the most beautiful date to settle for beer and McDonalds, nor can you feed that to these speakers and get away with it. Bring out the Porsche, the medium rare filet mignon, and a Vega Sicilia 1989, and youre golden. (You also get rewarded with ludicrously low, detailed, and powerful bass.) The RP-600M killed all the preconceived notions that horn speakers are shouty and harsh. Good GRIEF, did they ever! And they did it with ANY amplifier. And they are always ready to have FUN. So engaging, refined, and...LOUD. Not very much bass, but did I mention that theyre fun? Id say theyre a really fine tequila. No salt or lime (or courage) needed. Plenty of flavor. Very effective. Lovely to sip in small amounts. But its ALWAYS ready to join you for five more shots, get crazy, trash the hotel room, and jump from the balcony into the pool WHENEVER you say the word. (In an experiment, I ran just the pair of them in my theater room, which is 35x15 feet. I set them on top of my main towers, told nobody that it was ONLY them playing, and they practically flexed the windows with output. Nobody believed me when I told them that I was only running a pair of bookshelves, until they walked over to them. Stunning. Ludicrous. FUN.) Enter the Triangle BR03. Put simply, its basically ALL of the best attributes of the others, but with little no none of the drawbacks. It makes recordings bring you to tears if theyre great, but doesnt punish you for bad recordings. Its presentation of the soundstage is in front of the speakers rather than at or behind them (but not as far forward as the Klipsch), and startlingly real. Its almost creepy. Like you can reach out and touch it-kind of realism. Not quiiiiite as shockingly real as the ELAC UB5, but close enough. Its got class in spades, AND it can party like a rock star. It can play as loud as you want, and it doesnt demand fancy components. There are 2 caveats. To wit: 1) A new pair of loafers needs to soften and mold to your feet. The engine on a new Audi RS7 needs the right number of revs for the right period of time, in order to have all the moving parts get bedded in and seated in their permanent operational positions. A new house needs furniture, beds, and pictures on the walls (and time) for it to feel like home. These arent imaginary concepts. These arent magical, esoteric fairy tales. These are facts. The same is true of the moving parts of a speaker. Trying to reduce it to mere test numbers on a graph doesnt measure what your ears tell you. So, back to the BR03. Right out of the box, they are BRIGHT BRIGHT BRIGHT, and the bass is merely good. This is not only fine; its also as normal as can be. Put on some good source material with plenty of vocals and cymbals for the mids and highs, crank it up, and give them 2 or 3 hours of a good workout. No, you dont need 100 hours. Yes, theyll continue to sound better, warmer, fuller, and less brassy the longer you play them, but 2 or 3 hours of loud-ish vocals and percussion will get them to open up to where you can get the proper idea of how these sound. This brings the brightness down to a still airy, but revealing and beautiful level...and it sends the bass into the stratosphere. I turn off my subs for music listening, and I had to go check the power switches on my subs. TWICE. Its ludicrous what these speakers can do down low. Youll be dumbstruck. That, or youll laugh like a right bloody idiot. Or both. For the woofers, instead of playing bass-heavy music that I find disgusting and repugnant, I skipped the middle man, and I dialed up a test tone of 25 Hz, turned the volume DOWN, then slowly adjusted it to where the woofer cone was giving me about 8-10mm of excursion, and MOST CERTAINLY NOT bottoming out nor making ANY type of untoward noise. I did this five times, at one minute each time. Again: DO NOT do this at high volumes. The result? Ooooooooh MAN. So very, VERY sweet. And POWERFUL. So DO NOT judge them on the very first notes that come out of them. Even just half an hour makes a difference. The first full week you have them, theyll transform from great to AMAZING. 2) Play with the placement. If you do it correctly, youll have a perfect sweet spot that spans the entire sofa (not just the middle seat), and the best part is that THE SPEAKERS WILL COMPLETELY DISAPPEAR. You wont be able to discern ANY sound coming from either of them. Ill tell you how I achieved that. Ive got two wonderful children, so I HAD TO put them on actual bookshelves, right up against the front wall. Everybody will tell you that this is the wrong place to put your speakers. And they would be right. Generally speaking, your speakers are at the front of the soundstage and the front wall is the back of it. Spatially, thats how it sounds. In a perfect world, you should have these on stands, roughly 2 to 3 feet out from the wall. But I couldnt do that. Also, the bass gets radically stronger the closer they are to the front wall. These are so bass-rich, it might be too much for some people. You can fix that with a little bit of EQ. I myself dont mind at all. The key to this all...is toe-in. I learned from The Legend himself, Mr. John Strohbeen (and from New Record Day on YouTube, which has a speaker placement and soundstage tutorial that is amazing) that you can make a HUGE, wide sweet spot where the speakers vanish and all you hear is music happening in your room...with some radical amounts of toe-in angle. So Ill make this quick and easy: put your speakers 9-12 feet apart, and angle them in at 45 degrees. Yes. You read that correctly: 45 degrees. First, try your speakers firing straight out into the room. Theyll sound great, but the sweet spot will be in only one seating position, and youll likely still hear sound coming from the speakers. But angle them in at 45 degrees, and hold on to your hat, because itll be blown off. Along with your brain. So buy a pair. Let them get a little exercise. Warm them up, so to speak. Then set them up correctly, put on Jennifer Warnes Famous Blue Raincoat or Lyle Lovett Joshua Judges Ruth, and be amazed. Believe the hype. Today, in September of 2020, these are the best affordable speakers on the market. p.s. If you want one of the single best system tweaks I have EVER found, get a vacuum tube preamp. But not just any. Get the Schiit Vali 2+. And get an Electro Harmonix 6922 tube, or a Sovtek 6n1p, right here on Amazon, for less than $30. Theyre dual triode tubes, and most everybody finds them to be THE best way of getting a positively MONSTROUS soundstage in width, height, and depth, or razor-sharp stereo imaging. In short, you get thousands of dollars of genuine single-ended-triode tube sound out of your existing amplifier. For next to nothing. Genius. Hope this helps!

Speakers sound fantastic, especially after some breaking in. Unfortunately one of my speakers had damage to the front bottom corner of the cabinet. I ordered a replacement set, and one of those is damaged as well. In order to minimize the shipping box size, these speakers are not adequately protected. Only thin pieces of styrofoam cover the top and bottom of the speakers. I now have 2 good speakers with non-matching serial numbers (as each pair shares a serial number). Awaiting instructions from seller as to how to remedy this situation.

Did my homework on a variety of speakers from $500 to $1K and this one received accolades from several written and video reviews. Speakers arrived 7 days before estimated delivery time (which was nice) and they are everything the reviewers said they were. Clear sound stage across all levels. My music from rock to jazz never sounded so good. Its like hearing the songs for the first time! Each instrument is sonically defined and clear where these musical nuances were not present before. I paired these with my existing JVC RX1028VBK receiver along with Polk down firing subbie that I was previously using for my home theater and it drives these speakers nicely. You cannot go wrong with these puppies. Update 2/6/22: Well over a year in and I feel an even stronger affinity for the sound from these speakers. Theyve broken in nicely and continue to provide a sublime musical experience. (Just wanted to provide this update... ; )

I’ve had these for over two weeks now and they seem to be getting better as time goes on. My previous bookshelf speakers were Kef Q100’s, which were nice but I needed something better. After doing some research I settled on these, without being able to listen to them first (it was a gamble, but with the 30 day return I thought I’d give them a try). First thing I noticed was the bass/midrange is so much more than the Kef’s. I do have a subwoofer, but to tell the truth I really don’t need it for music. One thing I was concerned about was that some reviews thought it might be to “bright” for some, at first when I listened them I was having a tough time not hearing much treble, but as I’ve had more time with then the sound is coming through balance and the treble comes through when it’s suppose to. The soundstage is great! It sounds like a concert going on right in your room. The main vocals is front and center, backup singing has its place depending on the song, and the instruments come through and compliment the vocals. One of my go to songs for instrumental is Michael Hedges’ Aerial Boundaries, it sounds amazing. Just one guy play a guitar, an amazing guy RIP, and it sounds great. One other thing of note is you will begin to hear things you never noticed before in some songs, or movies for that matter. My primary speakers are ESS AMT 1b, they’re old but I wouldn’t trade them for anything. The reason I bring that up is I think when you’re use to a curtain sound from speakers when you listen to new one’s they sound odd at first because you have expectations, however these Triangle Borea BR03 offer great sound at an amazing price. If you want some bookshelf speakers that sound better than some that cost twice as much these should be high on your list. Happy listening.

Comparada con las bocinas que usamos los pobres, esta es simplemente una de las mejores, mejor que Polk Audio, mejor que Boston Acoustic, mejor que otras marcas que he utilizado en pareja de bocinas de estantes por debajo de los 800 dólares. Mi parecer sobre el mercado de bocinas sobre el precio de los 1000 dólares, es que tienen muy poco que aportar, aparte del estatus de tener algo caro que otros no pueden tener. Es como la comparación entre un Toyota Camry y un Mercedes Benz, simplemente el estatus de quien lo usa, pero la usabilidad diaria para transporte de un ser humano común, ambos son iguales. La calidad del sonido de estas bocinas es genial, muy detallado y los bajos hay que decir que son potentes y ajustados, ayudados por la versatilidad de que tienen el puerto de refuerzo de bajos por delante y lo tienen doble. La mayoría de la gente de este post que habla tan bien de este par de bocinas, no puede estar equivocada, valen cada centavo por ellas.

This is not like a monitor, meaning, it will not make a terrible recording, sound like a terrible recording. I used it to play In Rock album by Deep Purple Mk.2, and Jesus Christ, I have never heard that terribly produced album with such clarity and detail. These are ROCK AND ROLL speakers if Ive ever heard one! It destroys anything from Rock, Metal, Jazz, Blues, it is simply phenomenal with music that has instruments and very dynamic sounds being produced. Now for a review of the drivers: It is a standard two-way driver, a one inch tweeter and a 6 inch woofer, tweeter is aluminum, woofer is paper, which is a nice bonus, gives it great bass and fuller sound, top to bottom. The treble is very slightly recessed and lacks the resolution of a true monitor, but if you are looking for a fun desktop bookshelf or a nice stereo bookshelf, you wont be able to tell the difference... Actually, you would probably prefer it, like I do. I dont need the treble shouting at me and piercing me ears, instead, this speakers treble is warm and smooth and still had good resolution, its still full HD, maybe not 4k UHD like a monitor, but most people dont need that. The mids, oh boy the mids, they are pretty much perfection for this price range, you wont find much better for the price, even up to 1000, unless you find a monitor that is mid forward. These speakers are very slightly mid-forward, this really helps bring clarity, imaging and soundstage to the midrange and sound reproduction of instruments. The bass is incredible, due to the paper woofer, you will get very good low end, and clean low-mids. I just love this speaker and I think the only upgrade to it for a reasonable price is the Buchardt S300. But there is one major downside to it... Although it has great French engineering, it is very unreliable build quality due to China. One of the corners on mines, looks like it is not attached very well, exposing the wood cabinet very slightly. Its not a deal breaker, but for $550, they could have done way better. I would have paid $100 extra if it came in a nice and sturdy black gloss, which is much better material and more reliable. I may get the S300 one day, but I have a very tiny room and even now I dont get the full experience from the BR03.

Well I first got Paradigm SE Atom, then to Klispch 600m, to JBL Stage 190, to Jbl studio 530. I think I have something I can live with. It is is small room 10 x 11. The Bro 3 have a balanced sound, great vocals, great bass and clear sounding. Im powering them thew yamaha intergrated amp s801. 100 watts per channel @ 8 ohms. And something happened, when I was playing at a pretty high listening level, I felt this cool breeze come over me. It was refreshing he he. Well those two front base ports were pumping out cool air that I could feel at 6 feet away. Better I not go to 3/4 volume it might knock me out of my chair (a little exaggeration here). I now prefer front ported speakers over rear ports. Im thinking if they sound this good now, what more lovely they will sound after 40 hours or so break in! I wish they would insrease the whoofer to 7 inch in larger speaker. 7 is Gods favorite number, I once has ADS 710s and they were a favorite speaker for me in the 70s and 80s.

The best speakers I owned for under $600. Clear, accurate, and pleasant sounding for music.

I bought these based on positive reviews from several trusted youtube based reviewers. Those reviewers are still trusted, these are great sounding speakers out of the box. They produce a full range of sound including clear highs, strong bass (no sub required) and very smooth mid range vocals. Im looking forward to spending a lot more time with these speakers.

Amazing soundstage! Incredible detailed speaker. Solid bracing. Perfect speakers for all music genres. Getting another pair for my folks for Christmas!