Triangle Bookshelf Speaker - Borea BR02 (Walnut)

Product Information

Testing temperature was around 59 degrees F. Speaker was kept indoor however at normal living room temperature (72 degrees).

To some, the front of the speakers may look a tad unbalanced, with the ports a little cramped next to the mid-bass driver. However, with the magnetic speaker grilles, there is always the option of covering them up. I’m so used to listening to speakers purely for audio that my eyes are shifted. By far the best sounding speakers at this price have to the Emotiva B1s or Elac Debut 2.0 from a purely technical perspective. You also could throw in the QAcoustics 3020i but all of these have one commonality in that they are very neutral and analytical. I know the impulse jump is to buy speakers with lots of detail but that doesn’t work in all situations, especially when you are using poor quality componentry or source material. Triangle Borea BR02 has a Bass Reflex type cabinet. Bass Reflex type loudspeakers (aka Ported, Vented or Reflex Port) have enclosures that uses a port, hole or vent cut into the cabinet. Ported designs are generally more efficient than the Sealed designs. First impression was warm sound and "this is not bad." Whether influenced by measurements or actual sound, I just was not a fan of the midrange. It sounded more and more grungy as I listened. And the highs started to stand out. A bit of boominess was there as well. Equalization was not effective. In blind testing, I could not tell if I always liked the post EQ version. When it comes to sound quality, to say I‌’m impressed by the BOREA‌ BR03 is an understatement. If I had to sum up these speakers in a word, it would be “balanced.” They don’t play up any particular part of the audio spectrum; they give you what the music demands.As mentioned above Triangle really gained traction with their Magellan speaker line and over time the brand name started to carry a lot of weight in the audiophile community. The flagships are not cheap as is the case with many other speakers they produce so wanting to cater to a wider audience they introduced the Borea line designed to give consumers their first taste of what the company was capable of. Triangle has designed their drivers to be fast and precise, with large engines, that is housed in supportive cabinets. The result is a perfectly controlled rhythmic reproduction. Their rigidity provides strength to reproduce each impact while leaving space for the vocal range, allowing room for an ‘airy’ sound. Magnetic Grille TRIANGLE‌ released the BOREA‌ series calling them “The new standard of quality performance for budget compact loudspeakers,” and I‌ initially thought that was just some marketing speak. But after hooking them up to my Audiolab 6000A integrated, I said, “Wow! They may have something here!”.

The logic I applied to the pairing was based on attempted normalisation of speaker specifications. I did some googling and collected speaker pairing recommendations for the Onkyo A-9110 from around the web. Here are the results:Ohms is pretty much the standard nominal impedance amongst stereo speakers and amplifiers so Triangle Borea BR02 is not considered a difficult to drive speaker from nominal Impedance perspective. It’s not often we stumble across a pair of speakers at this price that sound as sophisticated as the Triangle Borea BR03s. I spent most of my working career as a process engineer and tool designer. Good tools are a joy, bad tools make me seethe. Shown below is a tool typically used by tube amp aficionados to adjust output bias. This tool is fine if removal of protective covers isn’t required to make adjustments. But in the event that large covers must be removed and significant portions of the circuitry are exposed then the metal clip on this tool is arc welding waiting to happen. If you use a tool like this do yourself a favour, remove the clip and throw it away. The only minor concern in the specs is the minimum impedance dip to 3.6 ohms. Most likely not a problem with a solid-state amp, though a 4-ohm output tap on a tube amp might be beneficial. I’ll report on this later in the listening test.

The connection and operation system between the two speakers is more dated. The right speaker is indeed controlled by the left speaker, which governs the pair, the whole being connected by an excellent old speaker cable, to be fixed on the terminals of each speaker. Although it’s not a question of connectivity, wireless connectivity is also reduced to a simple solution when we could expect a little more modernity. Only a Bluetooth receiver is integrated with support for the aptX HD, Low Latency, AAC and SBC codecs. No multipoint, by the way. Audio Great songs and performance, execrable production. Compressed and bright, this album is a difficult listen at times. Fortunately, the BR02’s well-judged balance of mids to highs makes this as enjoyable as possible. I Knew and Gypsy in Me are two songs I especially “dig”. EFS (Efficient Flow System) is developed into the tweeters to achieve high-frequency diffusion, which reduces the audio directivity regardless of your listening location. Punchy Low EndSpeaker Cables without Connectors: If you are not sure about the lenght or need longer than standard cables with plugs, choose this option. As can be seen in the picture above, this is a ported speaker with a single pair of binding posts. At this price and performance level, bi-wiring is simply a marketing affectation, in my opinion. The BR03 is further proof that it’s an excellent time for people looking to get into the hobby. It’s funny because it seems like reviewers like me say that every year. It makes sense because every year, speaker designers find ways to give us better sound for less money. Another speaker that caught our attention was the PSB Alpha P5 Bookshelf Speakers (which got a Product Of The Year Award from Stereophile)‌. I‌ loved the deep bass combined with the sweet highs; it’s a speaker that sounds good with any music.

The speaker is a true 3-way set up. Driving the BR08 is the range standard 25mm soft dome tweeter for the highs, a 16mm and two motorised 16cm fibreglass drivers, for punchy warm bass frequencies. Unlike the BR07, the mid-range driver features a small pleat peripheral short-travel suspension to allow perfect control of the motion of the moving elements. Triangle Borea BR09 The tweeter, meanwhile, utilises a design that's common throughout the Borea range. We experienced it last year in the Borea BR03 standmounters, and here it features the same unusual two-pronged phase plug, claimed to aid tonal evenness and dispersion. There’s an element of horn loading of the dome, too, due to the dished tweeter surround. If you’ve carefully read the specs above you might have noticed that the woofer/midrange driver sports a paper cone and the tweeter is a silk dome unit, both very old-school. But before you write this technology off as being over the hill, there are some very high-performance speakers that sell in the five and six figure range that have returned to paper cones for their woofers. Remember too, that virtually all of the much sought-after vintage speakers from the 1950s and 60s, made by the likes of Altec and Klipsch, to give just two examples, utilized paper cones. (Many, if not all, of the Klipsch classics still use paper-coned woofers.) So, don’t write Triangle off just yet for their driver choice. Ditto the fabric dome tweeter used here. Spendor and Harbeth, to name just two, make very accomplished speakers using this sort of tweeter. Triangle is well known in the Hi-Fi world for designing amazing sounding and looking products. The Triangle Borea range of speakers continues with Triangle’s high standards and attention to detail. The range features bookshelf, floorstanding and centre channel speaker models in a range of sizes to suit any space and provide superb audio.

Premium, Reliable Construction

Size of a speaker can sometimes become an important decision factor due to space constraints or in some cases purely for esthetic reasons. In this section, we are going to compare Triangle Borea BR03's and Triangle Borea BR02's external dimensions. Triangle Borea BR03 has external dimensions of 380.0 x 206.0 x 314.0mm ( 14.9 x 8.1 x 12.3inch) whereas Triangle Borea BR02 has external dimensions of 310.0 x 176.0 x 274.0mm ( 12.2 x 6.9 x 10.7inch) . Triangle Borea BR02 Speakers (Pair) are bookshelf speakers, the most compact speakers in the Borea range. Perfect for small to medium size rooms, or as effect channel speakers, the BR02’s deliver a punchy, clear sound with great dispersion and power. Why the BR02 Speakers? It’s a relatively big standmount (almost 15 inches tall!) speaker designed to give you sound comparable to a floorstanding model, and while they don’t have the thump of a tower, they do dig deep. The designers extensively brace the large cabinets to cut down on distortion caused by internal vibrations. They also use a foam gasket where the 6-inch cellulose bass driver meets the bracing to absorb vibrations coming from the transducer’s movement.