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 vital loudspeakers marketed by different corporations. 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 an enormous 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 advised me earlier than I took a significant pay attention. “We construct our personal audio system for the enjoyable of it and since we love music. We can even make the most of quite a lot of costly measuring tools that we have amassed as a result of the largest a part of the Fink Team’s work includes 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 largest speaker issued by the Fink Team to date, it consists of 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 median 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 parts, which completely deserve Stereophile‘s consideration, the Borg Episode 2 delivered a number of the most participating sound I heard at Munich High End 2023. After enjoying an awesome 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, expensive man, for probably the most enjoyable observe—the solely enjoyable observe—I heard on the present. The system nailed the life and vitality of the music like few others. It’s sense of area was glorious, and the sound of chimes arresting.

I encountered a really completely different, far deeper and extra expansive soundstage on an excerpt from Shostakovich’s Symphony No.15. Sticking with amusement, albeit of a really completely different kind, 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 superbly, and possessed a readability that surpassed bass in lots of different rooms. This is completely a speaker value trying out. Soon.