Buchardt A500 subjective review

[asruser2020]

Darko just released his comparison with Kef LS50wII

His opinion:

• A500 - better sounding, bigger sound, taller soundstage, for audio "power-users"
• Kef LS50W - better value, slightly better upper mids, imaging, for those who can't afford A500, mom and pop who like simplicity

You mean: Anyone who likes simplicity.

The KEF model looks better and has a cleaner design. I really don't like seeing the screws on the A500's drivers.

 

[echopraxia]

Darko just released his comparison with Kef LS50wII

His opinion:

• A500 - better sounding, bigger sound, taller soundstage, for audio "power-users"
• Kef LS50W - better value, slightly better upper mids, imaging, for those who can't afford A500, mom and pop who like simplicity

He is a classic subjectivist snakeoil salesman and IMO links to his material are not just useless, but harmfully misleading. (No offense meant to you if you didn’t already know this — I certainly had my phase prior to realizing how many snakeoil audiophile authors are out there.)

One example among many: he claims that digital active speakers (specifically, his review of the Genelec 8341) sound better when fed by a $10K DAC into analog inputs rather than just directly using the pure digital inputs. And he says this in the same article where he acknowledges the analog inputs just get re-digitized before the speakers do anything to them. So therefore the only possible explanation is that he is either profoundly unintelligent, or scammy — logically, it can’t be any other way. I’m gonna assume the latter for no other reason than that it seems the less offensive conclusion.

Regardless, the trustworthiness of his reviews is zero (complete and utter garbage). There are countless other examples.

 

[Emlin]

Darko just released his comparison with Kef LS50wII

His opinion:

• A500 - better sounding, bigger sound, taller soundstage, for audio "power-users"
• Kef LS50W - better value, slightly better upper mids, imaging, for those who can't afford A500, mom and pop who like simplicity

And what do any of Darko's words mean? They mean: like me, please, this is how I make my living.

Every time.

 

[asruser2020]

He is a classic subjectivist snakeoil salesman and IMO links to his material are not just useless, but harmfully misleading.

One example among many: he claims that digital active speakers (specifically, his review of the Genelec 8351B) sound better when fed by a $50K DAC into analog inputs rather than cutting out the middle man and just using the pure digital inputs. And he says this in the same article where he acknowledges the analog inputs just get re-digitized before the speakers do anything to them. Therefore IMO the trustworthiness of his reviews is zero (complete and utter garbage). There are countless other examples.

Darko is one of the best reviewers today. He actually uses the products for weeks before making a review. He evaluates usability features, fit and finish, and audio quality.. How does that compare to someone hooking up a microphone, measuring SINAD, and then calling it a day?

 

[Emlin]

Darko is one of the best reviewers today. He actually uses the products for weeks before making a review. He evaluates usability features, fit and finish, and audio quality.. How does that compare to someone hooking up a microphone, measuring SINAD, and then calling it a day?

Much worse.

 

[asruser2020]

Much worse.

Darko has reviewed several thousand products over the last ten years. How many products have you reviewed? Do you have any accomplishments?

 

[Emlin]

Darko has reviewed several thousand products over the last ten years. How many products have you reviewed? Do you have any accomplishments?

You seem a little defensive. Bad day?

 

[echopraxia]

Darko has reviewed several thousand products over the last ten years. How many products have you reviewed? Do you have any accomplishments?

A liar can lie a million times, but it’s still a lie [1]. Being prolific not make an author trustworthy, especially in an industry well known to be filled with advertisements thinly disguised as reviews.

He spreads falsehoods, which seem to be little more than thinly disguised advertisement material. Why else would he recommend powering Genelec 8341’s with a $10k DAC when these speakers are active digital speakers that just redigitize any analog inputs they receive prior to doing anything with them?

Edit: [1] Note that I am not accusing Darko of actively trying to deceive anyone here. In this sentence, I am only making the logical point that a high quantity of material written by an author does not prove a high quality of that material.

I do not know Darko, his motivations, or his financial incentives — so in the absence of that context, I will gladly assume his intentions are of the utmost purity and goodness (no matter how right or wrong his advise may be on objective matters we understand scientifically).

 

[richard12511]

He is a classic subjectivist snakeoil salesman and IMO links to his material are not just useless, but harmfully misleading. (No offense meant to you if you didn’t already know this — I certainly had my phase prior to realizing how many snakeoil audiophile authors are out there.)

One example among many: he claims that digital active speakers (specifically, his review of the Genelec 8351B) sound better when fed by a $50K DAC into analog inputs rather than just directly using the pure digital inputs. And he says this in the same article where he acknowledges the analog inputs just get re-digitized before the speakers do anything to them. So therefore the only possible explanation is that he is either profoundly unintelligent, or scammy — logically, it can’t be any other way. I’m gonna assume the latter for no other reason than that it seems the less offensive conclusion.

Regardless, the trustworthiness of his reviews is zero (complete and utter garbage). There are countless other examples.

Wow! For real?!? That's completely indefensible. So he fully admits that the DAC makes zero difference, yet still recommends you spend $50k on it for...reasons(advertisement?).

 

[asruser2020]

You seem a little defensive. Bad day?

You didn't answer my previous question: Do you have any accomplishments? I need to know if you're qualified to criticize Darko. He's a member of EISA. What are you a member of?

 

[richard12511]

Darko is one of the best reviewers today. He actually uses the products for weeks before making a review. He evaluates usability features, fit and finish, and audio quality.. How does that compare to someone hooking up a microphone, measuring SINAD, and then calling it a day?

Much, much worse. DACs don't change the sound if they're competently designed, so Amir is able to fully characterize a DAC by ensuring it has sufficient SINAD and describing the connectivity. Darko listens to it for a few weeks, then lies to you about how it sounds to try to get you spend your hard earned money on a product that will make zero difference. With the $50k you wasted on the DAC he recommended(based on lies), you could have purchased 7 Genelec 8351Bs, 4 JTR RS2s, a Dirac Live 88A box, a miniDSPHD(to integrate the subs), a nice AVR, and have a truly SOTA multi channel music system. Amir's review would rightfully show you that the $50k DAC sounds no better than a $9 Apple DAC, and thus allow you to spend that money on things that actually improve the sound of your system.

Darko's review is worse than no review at all.

 

[andreasmaaan]

Nice write-up @Instar, thanks

Do we know which woofers are used in this speaker? I would have hoped for slightly better bass performance from 2x 6” woofers. But other than that, and the very narrow vertical listening window, it looks like a quality design.

Also @Instar, how does the R3’s bass distortion performance compare to the A500, if you happen to have measured it under similar conditions (and notwithstanding that it rolls off much higher in frequency ofc)?

 

[AudioJester]

Wow, this is getting interesting! ...and heated...

Well off topic, but I dont think any subjective reviewers are not called liars and cheats by some members of ASR.
Its subjective, with all its known fallacies - feel free to disagree but please stop the childish name calling

 

[Emlin]

You didn't answer my previous question: Do you have any accomplishments? I need to know if you're qualified to criticize Darko. He's a member of EISA. What are you a member of?

You really are having a bad day. Try and relax, it won't seem so bad then.

 

[napilopez]

He is a classic subjectivist snakeoil salesman and IMO links to his material are not just useless, but harmfully misleading. (No offense meant to you if you didn’t already know this — I certainly had my phase prior to realizing how many snakeoil audiophile authors are out there.)

One example among many: he claims that digital active speakers (specifically, his review of the Genelec 8351B) sound better when fed by a $50K DAC into analog inputs rather than just directly using the pure digital inputs. And he says this in the same article where he acknowledges the analog inputs just get re-digitized before the speakers do anything to them. So therefore the only possible explanation is that he is either profoundly unintelligent, or scammy — logically, it can’t be any other way. I’m gonna assume the latter for no other reason than that it seems the less offensive conclusion.

Regardless, the trustworthiness of his reviews is zero (complete and utter garbage). There are countless other examples.

Much, much worse. DACs don't change the sound if they're competently designed, so Amir is able to fully characterize a DAC by ensuring it has sufficient SINAD and describing the connectivity. Darko listens to it for a few weeks, then lies to you about how it sounds to try to get you spend your hard earned money on a product that will make zero difference. With the $50k you wasted on the DAC he recommended(based on lies), you could have purchased 7 Genelec 8351Bs, 4 JTR RS2s, a Dirac Live 88A box, a miniDSPHD(to integrate the subs), a nice AVR, and have a truly SOTA multi channel music system. Amir's review would rightfully show you that the $50k DAC sounds no better than a $9 Apple DAC, and thus allow you to spend that money on things that actually improve the sound of your system.

Darko's review is worse than no review at all.

I will just say that putting your word on every product is a bit difficult. Lord knows I've said some dumb stuff in older reviews, and I'll probably cringe at some of my reviews today in the future.

I've never met Darko, but in the context of subjective-only audio reviewers, which is still the vast majority of them, he leans more towards active designs, and I think that's important; he's part of the reason I became interested in active designs in the first place, which eventually led to measurements, etc.

Personally, I think you have to decide "are subjective reviews worth it at all?" If you believe they hold at least some value, they are naturally going to say things that don't jive with the measurements. People aren't precision instruments.

Anyway, I often find myself agreeing with his subjective speaker impressions. I have only the tiniest interest in DACs and amps, so I don't follow that, but I usually find his speaker reviews good. I do not follow them closely though.

What review are you referring to? I'd like to watch/read it for myself. Or do you just randomly accuse people of lying just because you disagree with them? Are you a Democrat?

Calm down.

(Yes, I am a democrat, but that's not relevant here.)

Darko just released his comparison with Kef LS50wII

His opinion:

• A500 - better sounding, bigger sound, taller soundstage, for audio "power-users"
• Kef LS50W - better value, slightly better upper mids, imaging, for those who can't afford A500, mom and pop who like simplicity

Interesting. Unfortunately I didn't get to try the A500 and LS50W in the same space (and still haven't received the LS50W, only the passive Meta), but frankly his comments all seem reasonable just from the measurements.

The A500 should have a bigger sound, and they should have worse upper mids -- they're recessed in directivity.

As I've said before: I think subjective-only speaker reviews are legit with sound impressions -- recessed mids, bright highs, etc (if they weren't many harman studies wouldn't work!) . It's with value judgements you have to be careful.

 

[Haint]

I think we found Darko's Audio Science Review handle.

 

[richard12511]

Wow, this is getting interesting! ...and heated...

Well off topic, but I dont think any subjective reviewers are not called liars and cheats by some members of ASR.
Its subjective, with all its known fallacies - feel free to disagree but please stop the childish name calling

I can't speak for other asr members, but I personally do think most of them are liars to some extent. I don't really like the word liar, though. It has a malicious implication that I don't think really applies here. I don't think any of them are lying with the explicit intent of getting their viewers to waste money. There just exists a weird dynamic between subjective reviewers and manufacturers, and combined with placebo and expectation bias, it tends to have negative effects for consumers. Even if they aren't being outright paid by the manufacturers of the products they're reviewing, there's still the element of empathy pushing back against negative reviews. I appreciate Amir's brutal honesty(what makes his reviews so much more valuable), but I know I would personally have trouble being so brutally honest if I were in his position. Receiving a product from someone, then publicly bashing it is a tough thing to do. There are different kinds of lies, too. Some less harmful than others, and some can even be good(what's the correct response when a fat person asks you if they look fat?).

"Liar" also makes it seem like I hate them or something, which is just not true. I subscribe to Darko, and find his content entertaining. Some of his subjective reviews of loudspeakers have agreed with my own subjective impressions, so I do put some value in them. His sound quality impressions of electronics are useless to me, but I enjoy the feature and connectivity overviews he does. I also enjoy his different taste in music. I don't have the same taste, so it's very useful for me to find types of music I never would have found on my own.

 

[Chromatischism]

Interesting comparison, since those don't compete on price or features.

By the way, the word "liar" literally means someone who says things with the intent to deceive.

 

[amirm]

What review are you referring to? I'd like to watch/read it for myself. Or do you just randomly accuse people of lying just because you disagree with them? Are you a Democrat?

Please keep politics out of this forum.

 

[echopraxia]

Here’s the article I was referring to. Turns out my memory was slightly off, and Darko is “only” recommending a $10k DAC to pair with Genelec 8341’s (instead of a $50k one), but obviously this does not change my message at all since this is still abysmal advise from him.

To me, this reads like a giant ad for various DAC and preamp products. But you be the judge: https://darko.audio/2018/02/genelecs-the-ones-8341-think-inside-the-box/

Some key excerpts:

On cable hookups, our RCA interconnects remain in storage. Only AES/EBU digital and analogue XLR-terminated wire need apply. I go with the latter. Cutting over from AudioQuest’s Yukon to a longer run of AudioQuest’s Wind saw me (err) catch first wind of this loudspeaker’s ability to resolve upstream changes and in spite of the Genelec’s auto-digitising inputs that aren’t the obfuscators of transparency that many erroneously believe.

Playing directly into the Genelec’s, both the PS Audio and the Chord show off why they are considered two of the best DAC/pre-amplifiers choices below US$15K. German publication Stereo rates them both at ‘98%’ in their latest Hifi Jahrbuch (Yearbook) but in also acknowledging the price disparity between the two units, they award the DirectStream five stars but DAVE only three. Such absolutism doesn’t help us much when it is the qualitative nature of their sound that separates ’em.

The DAVE’s sense of hyperrealism doesn’t feel as unnatural as that H word might suggest. On Burial’s Untrue, we note a window-wiper clean view of this landmark album’s darker corners – DAVE goes further than the Redclouded DirectStream in this respect – as well as more cleanly defining player outlines without the comparatively harder etch of the Mytek. DAVE’s tonal colour-burst is superior to both rivals but the DirectStream still gets the nod on tonal mass – it’s chunkier, chewier, meatier.

The Chord unit gives us a more intimate take on The War On Drugs’ A Deeper Understanding, especially noticeable when paired with a loudspeaker, like the Genelec, that favours closer positioning to one’s listening position lest they sound a little stand-off-ish. Another reason why I opted for the 8341 over the bigger 8351 is the stronger possibility for later repurposing as desktop speakers where close range performance is even more crucial.

Where the DAVE really pulls ahead of the DirectStream is in packing the uber-dense layering of more complex recordings like Four Tet’s Everything Ecstatic. Under Chord control, densely packed productions come on with less confusion – music seems to make more sense.

The not insignificant ~US$4000 financial leap from DirectStream to DAVE holds tight to the Coloradan’s big, dynamic sound but goes deeper with aural satisfaction. In the restaurant world, an American-sized portion that pays strict attention to nutritional value.

No matter how generously you try to interpret this, it’s terrible advise. Whether it’s due to ignorance, bias due to financial incentives, or deceit — I make no judgement.