KIM

Defining a new model for a relatively new company in the marketplace is always challenging. With Borg, we made our second model a success by combining innovation and more of the same.

For our third model, KIM, we asked our dealers and distributors, and they asked for either a more expensive model or a lower-priced model, but there was no clear trend.

So, we did what we are good at – we made it our way again – a mixture of innovation and more of the same. KIM had to be a speaker that we would use ourselves, something fun. We designed another speaker for us.

Borg is and always was a statement speaker. Bold and visible, never trying to hide and with as little compromise as possible. So how could a new model be different? Importantly, could it include Borg innovations? How could we reach a retail price which makes the speaker available for more people without losing quality?

A few basic design principles stayed the same. A reflex system with a paper coned woofer with a massive magnet, Two-way construction with AMT HF unit, again based on a Mundorf core. A cabinet with everything needed to avoid unwanted radiation from the box and a highly optimised crossover with high-quality parts.

We wanted an enclosure large enough to deliver realistic low frequencies and scale but was small enough to be relatively discreet. It had to be low enough to sit below windows and work well close to walls.

FinkTeam cabinets or enclosures are always works of art inside and out. The construction centres around two critical tasks: to hold the drive units still in space and to radiate as little energy as possible.

We have talked before about the signal to noise ratio of a loudspeaker cabinet, and it is still one of those fundamentals in our thinking. It’s pointless to design and manufacture state of the art drive units and engineer crossovers with perfect knits if the cabinet is singing along with the tune.

We think of loudspeaker system design as something where the integration of the parts is a positive-sum game.

The sculptured front baffle of KIM reducing in width from 300mm to 205mm around the AMT is to aid high-frequency directivity and minimise diffraction. Multi-layers of MDF panels glued together with a new unique damping adhesive form the front baffle, which is then precision CNC routed. The sides and rear of the enclosure utilise a similar technique, but the panels are only a single sandwich.

Bracing is one-dimensional to avoid the unnecessary spread of panel resonances common in modern loudspeaker designs. Designing for the lowest radiated energy is almost impossible without the benefits of laser interferometry and FEA.

Strunk absorbers are used inside the enclosure to remove standing waves. These Helmholtz resonators in anti-phase to the standing waves cancelling them without the deleterious use of masses of absorbent material.

For years the argument has raged among loudspeaker designers between those that ‘stuff’ their boxes full of polyester fibre or sheep’s wool or other ‘magic’ absorbent and those who prefer a relatively empty box. Like all design elements, there are arguments favouring both, but to simplify it here * masses of stuff tends to ‘slow’ the speaker’s sound but possibly give it a more hi-fi sounding but less fun or involving performance.

*There will be more explanation in the KIM White paper

The KIM stand is an integral part of the design. The stand is deliberately light to have low stored energy and is open to have a low surface area to have the lowest acoustic effect.

Constructed of box steel Kim’s stand is hugely rigid and tilts KIM back at an angle of five degrees

This angle gives KIM an optimum listening distance of 3-4m.

The KIM stand comes with 6mm carpet piercing spikes or wooden floor domes.