Advice between Kef R3 Meta or Buchardt S400 MKII ?

[Davide]

The drivers in my Revel M16's are very inexpensive 'looking'. You would not be impressed. A button tweeter and stamped steel basket woofer. I bet Harman makes that button tweeter for $2-5.
Doesn't matter as you can make a great speaker with very average parts, especially average 'looking' parts.
My set of M126be's does use more obviously expensive drivers. With big beefy motors/magnets with nice heafty baskets.

Whatever, the drivers Buchart is using are very decent and a high quality speaker can be made with them.

You can also smartly make thin unbraced or minimally braced cabinets work well.

Design is one trade off for another and there are many ways to find success.

The NHT speaker in OP's avatar uses really cheap drivers. The woofer is total crap and yet the speaker is quit decent if not a little trebble forward. (definitely needs subs and a high pass.)

@regan my experience with the original R3 is that it is a 5/5 superb speaker that would just not be my 1st choice for myself. Make no mistake that the R3 is superbly crafted and easily worth retail price - honestly I feel comfortable saying ignore anyone suggesting otherwise. The stated build quality complaints are absurd to me.
R3(non meta)is a bit clinical sounding to be my 1st personal pick. They sound to me like superb SPEAKERS and they do have a hint of pleasant richness, low distortion above 60hrz, and 'feel' very accurate yet are just not quite exactly able to get my toes tapping and cause me to be unable to stop listening past bedtime. Oh well.
If you have the C-3 from your avatar, that speaker is one I sorta liked but I just didn't love. It had a 'tiny' quality to me. In any case the R3 is a much more robust unit with vastly more sophisticated drivers. Will it be better to you is another ?.

By the way OP, it was mention so just to be clear, with subs and high passed the R3 can handle really good output levels.
I'd pick 70-100hrz as the crossover region high passing those R3's L4 and SPL ability will be really, really nice.

You also mention direct sales and Buchart. That is just a side effect of small company logistics. No small company can compare with KEF, Harman and other very large companies on cost ratios. It is not even going to be close. KEF outsells Buchart 500-1 or more. JBL/Harman who knows, just lookibg at one speaker. I think they sold 5,000+ JBL studio 530's in the USA alone over the past 4years. The prices Harman,KEF ECT pay for production of their products at their scale and volume would likely blow your mind. Especially Harman. I bet they pay $5-10 in costs for a driver that would cost $120 at a DIY store.
I suspect pound for pound the R3 is objectively a better value vs the Buchart despite the layers of business. Though I always advocate for giving the little guy a shot. Plus I think the Buchart is a very interesting speaker, though I have never heard one if them.

Thanks for your contribution.
As for my NHTs, I can say that the drivers actually seem cheap. A mid also had a distortion issue (mostly it was a tone layered over the fundamental but not harmonic), and luckily the seller replaced it for me with another unit in the shop, otherwise it cost me about 150 euros from the USA.
Apart from that, they are well sounding and well engineered speakers for the money.

 

[regan]

Ton of threads (and reviews) about actives here such as Neumann, Genelec

Yeah but studio monitors are mainly for nearfield and small rooms right?

 

[HarmonicTHD]

Yeah but studio monitors are mainly for nearfield and small rooms right?

No. Look at the distance recommendation from Genelec or Neumann.

Some might have a more narrow dispersion, but so do some passive ones too (eg some speakers from KEF).

 

[CK.]

Never understood how people are recommending speakers based on measurements alone…
I dont think the general concencus is that “better” measurements equals better lsitening experience. Harman curve is an example that a flat fr does not equal more enjoyable sound.
A good sound is not the sum of its speaker parts i think.

 

[Purité Audio]

‘Better’ measurements just mean that the loudspeaker is more transparent to the original, it doesn’t mean that the individual will enjoy that transparency.
Keith

 

[YSC]

Never understood how people are recommending speakers based on measurements alone…
I dont think the general concencus is that “better” measurements equals better lsitening experience. Harman curve is an example that a flat fr does not equal more enjoyable sound.
A good sound is not the sum of its speaker parts i think.

seems you have some common misunderstanding... harman curve is an "in room" preference curve, where as the measurement (SPIN) based here is anechoic, an anechoic flat speaker should in real room follows more closely to the harman curve due to room interaction. Recommend based on measurement alone/mostly is because:

1) better measurement (i.e. more neutral anechoic on axis response, good directivity) equates to better transparency, i.e. more hi-fi, and when paired with good directivity, preferrably co-axial, the target curve YOU liked can be dialed in without the oddness of say EQing a target to some speaker with bad directivity, messing up the reflected sound and creates weirdness

2) speaker parts actually affects the final sound outcome a lot less than the room and placement it is in, I think everyone have experience of some very nice sounding speaker in a friend's home/showroom, bring it back to your place and it's meh~ so based on parts (e.g. it uses X driver, Y caps) in reality is not any better than shooting in the dark and just buy it

3) put yourself in a designer's hat, you have to have a design goal, as your product can end up in any no. of vairation of rooms, how you do that? you can't do it by just randomly get a box, put in 2 low distortion driver and random crossover to make it work, that's what hobbist DIY-er do for fun, you have to have a target curve, which, is based solely on measurement

So in recommendations, one technically better speaker based on measurement (extension, distortion, FR flatness, directivity) is always better than something with worse measurement, after purchase, one would obtain best result to place based on theories or measurement, do treatment where possible etc., and if it's a good all round one, and you have personal tast/preference on certain curve, you can EQ it without oddness with a speaker with good directivity (sane EQ of course, if you do a passive 5" spaker and try to EQ a ton of bass, you know it will break or at least sound bad)

 

[VintageFlanker]

Never understood how people are recommending speakers based on measurements alone…

Because you don't know enough.

I dont think the general concencus is that “better” measurements equals better lsitening experience.

Well, backed-up research seems to "think" otherwise, and that, for decades and decades. Have a look at @Floyd Toole work... just to begin with.

 

[CK.]

‘Better’ measurements just mean that the loudspeaker is more transparent to the original, it doesn’t mean that the individual will enjoy that transparency.
Keith

True, but still when recommending a speaker for someone to buy and saying that it has better measurements it might be misleading for someone into thinking that they will enjoy it more… thats my cocnern basically i see responces to questions about which of the two speakers i should buy

 

[JLGF1]

saying that it has better measurements it might be misleading for someone into thinking that they will enjoy it more

So, what other advice can you give if the person hasn't heard those in their inquiry? Even if someone else has heard both that doesn't mean what they like is what you will like.

IOW, if you're flying no-viz, you might as well check the instruments.

 

[YSC]

True, but still when recommending a speaker for someone to buy and saying that it has better measurements it might be misleading for someone into thinking that they will enjoy it more… thats my cocnern basically i see responces to questions about which of the two speakers i should buy

Well, coz even if you listen the contenders in another place, or even in your own place in different days, the impression will be different, especially something ear catching in short term can be (or even likely) be unfavorable in long term (ever heard of showroom sound/modes?) very common in showroom TV have a wildly vivid mode or speakers with boosted bass or highs, only when user goes home and listen for a few weeks they found that too ears.

As I mentioned above, for the personal preference thing, beside more neutral ones, the better measuring speaker referenced at least here in ASR, not only on axis neutral response, directivity and predicted in room response (which is highly affected by directivity which affecting reflected sound tonal balance vs on axis) is rated high.

When a speaker with a anechoic neutral response, but poor directivity, it won't be considered to be the better speaker most of the time unless the contender have a chewed up on axis FR, a good neutral speaker can just dail in your preference curve in and have no issue, while one with poor measurement, say, some older school brands doing good on axis linearity but obvious directivity mismatch, EQing will have some undesired effects. I personally don't see with a well measured speaker and with wide options to do some simple PEQ, how can a poorly measured speaker be recommanded over a well measured one

 

[CK.]

seems you have some common misunderstanding... harman curve is an "in room" preference curve, where as the measurement (SPIN) based here is anechoic, an anechoic flat speaker should in real room follows more closely to the harman curve due to room interaction. Recommend based on measurement alone/mostly is because:

1) better measurement (i.e. more neutral anechoic on axis response, good directivity) equates to better transparency, i.e. more hi-fi, and when paired with good directivity, preferrably co-axial, the target curve YOU liked can be dialed in without the oddness of say EQing a target to some speaker with bad directivity, messing up the reflected sound and creates weirdness

2) speaker parts actually affects the final sound outcome a lot less than the room and placement it is in, I think everyone have experience of some very nice sounding speaker in a friend's home/showroom, bring it back to your place and it's meh~ so based on parts (e.g. it uses X driver, Y caps) in reality is not any better than shooting in the dark and just buy it

3) put yourself in a designer's hat, you have to have a design goal, as your product can end up in any no. of vairation of rooms, how you do that? you can't do it by just randomly get a box, put in 2 low distortion driver and random crossover to make it work, that's what hobbist DIY-er do for fun, you have to have a target curve, which, is based solely on measurement

So in recommendations, one technically better speaker based on measurement (extension, distortion, FR flatness, directivity) is always better than something with worse measurement, after purchase, one would obtain best result to place based on theories or measurement, do treatment where possible etc., and if it's a good all round one, and you have personal tast/preference on certain curve, you can EQ it without oddness with a speaker with good directivity (sane EQ of course, if you do a passive 5" spaker and try to EQ a ton of bass, you know it will break or at least sound bad)

Many thanks for your reply, really appreciate you taking the time. I have still a lot to learn but you have helped me get a better understanding. I will be posting my post eq measurements in a new post for advise but how would i know if my speaker took well to eq? What does that oddness you mentioned translate to? ( i have the kef r3 and EQed 2k-16k region)

 

[CK.]

Because you don't know enough.

Well, backed-up research seems to "think" otherwise, and that, for decades and decades. Have a look at @Floyd Toole work... just to begin with.

Im new to this hobby indeed but dont take my word for it, i have read reviews from amir (kef r3 vs revel m16) saying that he prefers the latter althought the measurements do not support this preference. Personal preference might be the culprit of course but i do now understand that measurements play the biggest part.

 

[CK.]

Well, coz even if you listen the contenders in another place, or even in your own place in different days, the impression will be different, especially something ear catching in short term can be (or even likely) be unfavorable in long term (ever heard of showroom sound/modes?) very common in showroom TV have a wildly vivid mode or speakers with boosted bass or highs, only when user goes home and listen for a few weeks they found that too ears.

As I mentioned above, for the personal preference thing, beside more neutral ones, the better measuring speaker referenced at least here in ASR, not only on axis neutral response, directivity and predicted in room response (which is highly affected by directivity which affecting reflected sound tonal balance vs on axis) is rated high.

When a speaker with a anechoic neutral response, but poor directivity, it won't be considered to be the better speaker most of the time unless the contender have a chewed up on axis FR, a good neutral speaker can just dail in your preference curve in and have no issue, while one with poor measurement, say, some older school brands doing good on axis linearity but obvious directivity mismatch, EQing will have some undesired effects. I personally don't see with a well measured speaker and with wide options to do some simple PEQ, how can a poorly measured speaker be recommanded over a well measured one

Yep makes sense, when i auditioned my first speaker in the dealer shop i was in for a big surprised when i took it home and listened…never falling for that again…dealers where I live do not let you take the speaker home even for a day. Thanks for your explanation really helps.
PS. My biggest challenge as new to this hobby is actually figuring out which sound characteristics i liked best in a speaker, i.e. warm/cold, forward/laidback, sparkly/smooth etc.

 

[CK.]

So, what other advice can you give if the person hasn't heard those in their inquiry? Even if someone else has heard both that doesn't mean what they like is what you will like.

IOW, if you're flying no-viz, you might as well check the instruments.

From my brief experince, if someone is new to this then the advise i would give is finding out the preference in bass/midrange/highs (warm vs cold, forward vs laidback, sparkly vs smooth), if it will be used for ht/music and if eq is available. Then based on that recommend a speaker. But again i am new to this

 

[YSC]

Yep makes sense, when i auditioned my first speaker in the dealer shop i was in for a big surprised when i took it home and listened…never falling for that again…dealers where I live do not let you take the speaker home even for a day. Thanks for your explanation really helps.
PS. My biggest challenge as new to this hobby is actually figuring out which sound characteristics i liked best in a speaker, i.e. warm/cold, forward/laidback, sparkly/smooth etc.

I would say if you have a really good one with good directivity, preferrably coaxial like the R3, provided that it isn't broken, in your room try place them near walls and use REW to PEQ out the bass boost following some target curve cutting away the massive bass peaks till ~200hz (a kind of very general rule for correction only below schroeder frequency). that should be what anechoic flat sound like in a typical room, then you can use some kind of shelve filters to do something like boosting/lowering the treble or bass, that way you are mostly trying out the tonal balance difference.

One big difference you really need to trial and error is dispersion width, narower ones like the KEF will have less reflected sound and usually have a more focused imaging but soundstage width could suffer, some will prefer wider and some will prefer narrower directivity, but normally speaking, when recommending speakers, when the competitions are both in the very good ballpark (e.g. Revel vs KEF, or like the R3 vs S400 II), I would say if you can't try out both, you likely will be fine with either one sonically, the rest you need to care is how it looked, customer support in the region and price.

 

[bodhi]

So, what other advice can you give if the person hasn't heard those in their inquiry? Even if someone else has heard both that doesn't mean what they like is what you will like.

IOW, if you're flying no-viz, you might as well check the instruments.

Not to mention that if you put 99% of population in front of either KEF R3, Buchart, Revel or just about anything reasonable they think it sounds awesome. Only the small minority of people have interested in really digging into the sound and trying to find what they like or don't like (sometimes based on what they think of the manufacturer beforehand).

Recommending anything to the 1% is then again fools errand as this minority can have wildly varied preferences. For example thinking that speaker A has so harsh treble they get migraine just listening to the first few tunes of any song or the soundstage is so constraining that it sucks they soul out of everything making any kind of enjoyment impossible. Even though a skeptical person might wonder if they could notice these things in a controlled environment.

Still, if one got paid by results of their recommendations I think most would go with the measurements without intimate knowledge of the recipients preferences.

 

[dominikz]

True, but still when recommending a speaker for someone to buy and saying that it has better measurements it might be misleading for someone into thinking that they will enjoy it more… thats my cocnern basically i see responces to questions about which of the two speakers i should buy

But people might not like any product you recommend them for a multitude of reasons.
The upside of recommending based on measurements is that hard data is objective, and there is even research evidence that listener preferences under controlled conditions are more uniform than people usually expect. As many others I highly recommend dr. Floyd Toole's amazing book "Sound Reproduction: The Acoustics and Psychoacoustics of Loudspeakers and Rooms" to anyone interested in the hobby.
Recommending based on subjective listening impressions is more likely to be wrong due various perceptual and cognitive biases that are simply part of the human experience.

Im new to this hobby indeed but dont take my word for it, i have read reviews from amir (kef r3 vs revel m16) saying that he prefers the latter althought the measurements do not support this preference. Personal preference might be the culprit of course but i do now understand that measurements play the biggest part.

The reason why @amirm didn't initially like the Kef R3 was due to a room resonance and not due to the loudspeaker - as he explained in detail in one of the subsequent reviews: see the "Speaker Listening Tests" part of this post (though the whole post is worth reading).
This just highlights how important room EQ is with any loudspeaker (and how unreliable uncontrolled listening impressions can be)!

 

[BrokenEnglishGuy]

Never understood how people are recommending speakers based on measurements alone…
I dont think the general concencus is that “better” measurements equals better lsitening experience. Harman curve is an example that a flat fr does not equal more enjoyable sound.
A good sound is not the sum of its speaker parts i think.

True, but still when recommending a speaker for someone to buy and saying that it has better measurements it might be misleading for someone into thinking that they will enjoy it more… thats my cocnern basically i see responces to questions about which of the two speakers i should buy

The other problem is measurements dont add '' human errors or weird room issues ''

Measurements just tell you the truth, the rest is your work: like understand the measurements and fix the in-room errors. That being said, the research also include somethings like people will prefer 25% a speaker more brighter and 25% more warm(I cant remember the exact numbers), so all you have to do is know how to read these graphs and measurements and then suit the speaker to your personal liking.

For example i think my KEF R7s are very very nice speakers speakers with 3 filter:

Because i know i like smooth speakers i down -1.5dB (2 filters) around 3000hz-9000hz and because i also know i like things like cymbals i EQ the sheen/airy things at like 10.5khz. So the 3rd filter is +4dB 10,500hz-20k.



You have to understand your liking and your room too.

 

[YSC]

Many thanks for your reply, really appreciate you taking the time. I have still a lot to learn but you have helped me get a better understanding. I will be posting my post eq measurements in a new post for advise but how would i know if my speaker took well to eq? What does that oddness you mentioned translate to? ( i have the kef r3 and EQed 2k-16k region)

If you EQ based on anechoic data and don’t do high Q correction (coz inevitably unit to unit variation of various minor peaks and dips will persent anyway) then it would correct minor flaws given the good directivity of the R3, but if you do 2-16khz based on in room measurements I would suggest you not to, since our ears can differentiate direct vs reflected sound quite well in those frequencies. Those corrections would likely result in Weirdness could appear something like shifted image center or noticeable boost in one speaker at certain frequencies

 

[CK.]

I would say if you have a really good one with good directivity, preferrably coaxial like the R3, provided that it isn't broken, in your room try place them near walls and use REW to PEQ out the bass boost following some target curve cutting away the massive bass peaks till ~200hz (a kind of very general rule for correction only below schroeder frequency). that should be what anechoic flat sound like in a typical room, then you can use some kind of shelve filters to do something like boosting/lowering the treble or bass, that way you are mostly trying out the tonal balance difference.

One big difference you really need to trial and error is dispersion width, narower ones like the KEF will have less reflected sound and usually have a more focused imaging but soundstage width could suffer, some will prefer wider and some will prefer narrower directivity, but normally speaking, when recommending speakers, when the competitions are both in the very good ballpark (e.g. Revel vs KEF, or like the R3 vs S400 II), I would say if you can't try out both, you likely will be fine with either one sonically, the rest you need to care is how it looked, customer support in the region and price.

Yes i recently bought the r3 online and still in the 30 days return policy. Out of the box it sounds a bit harsh/bright but the build quality and looks are spot on with my taste so trying to eq it. I will share results in a new post for advice