Southwest Audio Fest 2024

This superb high-end audio system, featured at the Southwest Audio Fest in Dallas, included Estelon Forza speakers ($170,000/pair) in dark silver liquid gloss powered by MSB M500 mono amplifiers ($75,000 each).

At the Southwest Audio Fest in Dallas, Børresen Acoustics took a room and outfitted it with two killer systems. The cost-no-object system featured the flagship M6 speakers; the other showed the capabilities of the more affordable but similarly imposing X6 towers.

This powerful yet precise system was tasked with filling a small ballroom with sound; in the process, it delivered a captivating performance. A pair of Stenheim Alumine 5 SE speakers ($72,000/pair) did the heavy lifting.

Some fresh, high quality products making their U.S. show debuts—not to mention the excellent sound quality that was achieved—made this system a fun one to audition.

With the consumer version of the Planet Venus Spectral Coherence Control Essential plugin ($189), adventurous audiophiles can experiment with removing distortion inherent to a recording, independent of the playback system.

The Van Zyl Audio Alpine mid-horn speaker ($12,000/pair) is designed to cover a frequency range of 125Hz up to 20kHz. It uses a horn-loaded 8" Tang Band full-range driver that connects to the amplifier directly, free of crossover componentry. The design adds a physically time-aligned AMT tweeter—implemented as a super tweeter—to extend the highs with a simple first-order crossover applied.