Fink Team’s New Highly Impressive Borg Episode 2 Loudspeaker

I admit that I did not get what the Fink Team of Essen, Germany was all about till I met the person himself, Karl-Heinz Fink, who’s well-known inside the business for designing many necessary loudspeakers marketed by different firms. Fink, who additionally owns the Epos loudspeaker model, started his personal engineering firm 40 years in the past. Then, about seven years in the past, the late and revered Ken Ishiwata of Marantz requested him to construct a giant speaker for Marantz. Out of that got here the Borg, a two-way system with an AMT tweeter that was launched 5 years in the past. The Borg Episode 2 (€30,000/pair), which is marketed by the Fink Team, replaces the unique mannequin.

“We are very unbiased,” Fink instructed me earlier than I took a significant hear. “We construct our personal audio system for the enjoyable of it and since we love music. We may also benefit from loads of costly measuring gear that we have amassed as a result of the largest a part of the Fink Team’s work entails automotive engineering for Nissan, Tenor, Naim, Boston Acoustics, Polk, Denon, and Marantz.”

The Borg Episode 2 sits on a bass plate that is inclined 4–5° to allow higher integration between drivers, listeners, and room. The greatest speaker issued by the Fink Team to this point, it contains an AMT (Mundorf) tweeter and a high-power 10.25″ bass unit with a 3″ voice coil. With a frequency response of 41Hz–30kHz, –6dB, or 32Hz–35kHz, –10dB, it has a mean impedance of 10 ohms and a minimal impedance of 6.5 ohms at 20kHz. Sensitivity is specified as 87dB, distortion <0.2% at 87dB spl, and weight is 114.64lb.

I’ve saved the juicy stuff for final. Paired with Japanese-made SoulNote 3 Series elements, which completely deserve Stereophile‘s consideration, the Borg Episode 2 delivered a few of the most partaking sound I heard at Munich High End 2023. After taking part in an amazing rendition of “Dance Me to the End of Love,” Karl-Heinz cued up a 24/96 stream of Jacob Collier and JoJo’s “It Doesn’t Matter.” Thank you, pricey man, for essentially the most enjoyable monitor—the solely enjoyable monitor—I heard on the present. The system nailed the life and vitality of the music like few others. It’s sense of house was glorious, and the sound of chimes arresting.

I encountered a really totally different, far deeper and extra expansive soundstage on an excerpt from Shostakovich’s Symphony No.15. Sticking with amusement, albeit of a really totally different type, Karl-Heinz selected the motion by which a really sardonic and bitter Shostakovich quotes the William Tell Overture. Again, the speaker and electronics conveyed each little bit of the music’s emotion. In addition, the low finish of the orchestra was sorted fantastically, and possessed a readability that surpassed bass in lots of different rooms. This is completely a speaker price testing. Soon.