A meeting in Aalborg had already been in the planning even before the presentation of an Ansuz product in hifistatement took place. But like so many things in life, these plans proved to be obsolete from March onwards. But the postponement also had its good side: Thereupon I could give a listen to the pre-series models of Aavik's 180 and 280 series as well as those from Børresen's new Z line.
The trip to Aalborg - after all, more than 1,200 kilometers - was naturally of different nature compared to what I had thought at the beginning of the year, given the fact that you want to avoid crowded trains and planes for the time being. Well, nowadays there is no way around decelerated travel, especially because I am not one of those long-distance drivers with an affinity for high speed, like Ansuz boss Lars Kristensen, who even on the short distance from the center of Aalborg to the company headquarters gave an idea of how much horsepower his BMW M4 has under its hood. So my wife and I covered manageable distances, took time for relaxed stopovers and spent three evenings at dinner with each of the hifidtatement authors living up in the north of Germany and who I am normally used to meet at trade fairs - understandably, those are not taking place at the moment - and, moreover, who I unfortunately meet in person much too rarely: the current situation can also have its advantages.
I already mentioned in the article about the Ansuz PowerSwitch that I had met Lars Kristensen somewhere in the last century when he was still working for the cable specialists of Nordost. What I didn't know before I met them was that he managed to win Michael Børresen as developer for Nordost back then. However, since the Danish duo felt that Michael's creativity did not translate into new products quickly enough, they both left Nordost and participated in the founding of Raihdo, as you can easily spot when comparing Michael Børresen's creations at that time with the ones launched under his name today. Eventually, however, Lars Kristensen and Michael Børresen wanted to work more independently, so they left Raidho and founded Upper Level ApS in 2017 as the main shareholders with two other partners. Under this umbrella structure the companies Ansuz Acoustics, Aavik Acoustics and Børresen develop and produce cables, network technology and LAN switches, electronics and loudspeakers. It is therefore possible to purchase a complete system that exactly meets the expectations of Lars Kristensen and Michael Børresen. Of course, this also requires high-quality equipment supports and accessories for resonance control: Ansuz also has component feet, cable lifters, record stabilizers, resonators and titanium racks on offer. As you can see from my colleague Kemper's test review of the PowerSwitch A2 including Ansuz peripherals and my own report on the PowerSwitch D-TC Supreme, the quality level of Ansuz components also unfolds in other non-proprietary systems and achieves what the company name sets out to promise: Upper Level. With the D-TC this even reaches the highest level - I don't know of any switch that is better sounding. The company name, however, also gives indication of the price tags for Aavik electronics, Børresen loudspeakers and the Ansuz portfolio.
The first evening in Aalborg we met Morton Thyrrested, who had first introduced me to Ansuz products almost a year ago at the South German Hifi Days in Stuttgart. He had been a soldier and has always been interested in hi-fi. When he then met Lars Kristensen, who asked him if he would like to work for his company, he immediately agreed. Now he represents the Danish brand triple at trade fairs and is working on the expansion of the European dealer network, which is supplied directly by Ansuz, Aavik and Børresen.
The next morning Lars Kristensen picked us up to drive to the company's headquarters, a modern two-storey building in an industrial area close to the center. Until now Upper Level has only used about half of the building, but recently they have taken over also the other half. It is currently being rebuilt to meet the requirements of Ansuz, Aarvik and Børresen. Although there are already three different listening rooms in the building section now in use, more will be added. An acoustician has been called in to optimize the existing rooms, even though two of them already sound very good. But first things first.
When entering the building, one immediately sets foot in an open office, which also appears to be the communicative center of the company. Morton Thyrrested, Emil Kristensen, one of Lars' sons, the financial accounting and the administration have their desks here. I also met Michael Børresen there, with whom I had previously only spoken on the phone about the technical features of the PowerSwitches and the matching cables, as well as Per Mortensen, who is responsible for the creative part of marketing.
To the left of the company's headquarters, the cable production facility is situated. There the employees are working calmly and concentrated and free from any hectic. It's quite surprising how many steps are necessary to complete an Ansuz power or loudspeaker cable. It isn't simply a matter of assembling pre-fabricated cables from a reel, but rather soldering or screwing together different functional cable segments, fitting them with shrink tubes and outer jackets and, in the case of the high-quality range of cables, even equiping them with circuit boards fitted with electronic components. Slowly it dawns on me where the tags in the Ansuz price list stem from.
Behind the cable department, the manageable electronics production has its place. As Lars Kristensen emphasizes, the circuit boards are purchased from one of the best Danish PCB assembly companies. Aavik obtains the housings made of composite materials with an almost ideal resonance behavior from China. Final assembly and a meticulous final inspection then takes place in Aalborg. The models of the new 180 and 280 series do not differ in terms of circuitry, but do differ in the measures taken to immunize them against external influences such as interference or network contamination. Here, observant hifistatement readers run into an arsenal of "Active Tesla Coils", "Anti Arial & Resonance Coils", "Active Cable Tesla Coils" and "Active Square Tesla Coils" deployed to varying degrees and already familiar from the review of the PowerSwitch.
A glance at the loudspeaker production facility immediately makes it clear that it's not a question of quantity, but quality: Baskets, diaphragms, voice coils and surround beads are provided by suppliers and get assembled into drivers in Aalborg. Michael Børresen pays special attention to the motor unit. In his opinion, the magnetic field generated by a voice coil energized by current has up to now suffered from too little attention and is a reason for a non-linear behavior. In order to countervail this phenomenon he makes use of his own specific motor: The motive power is generated by two extremely strong neodymium-52 ring magnets separated by a copper ring. Since silver provides an even better conductivity value than copper, Michel Børresen instead uses rings of pure silver between the magnets for the Silver Supreme versions of his loudspeakers. Their highly elaborate manufacture is documented in the following images. For his top-of-the-range model, the Børresen 05, about eight kilograms of pure silver are used.
