Buchardt A500 Measurements and Spinorama

[brandall10]

If my speakers actually worked i would respond.
As soon as i receive replacement parts i will see what effect MC2 has

What's broken?

 

[muslhead]

My guess after days of diagnosis is a bad wifi receiver transmitter in one speaker. One works ok.

 

[VintageFlanker]

My guess after days of diagnosis is a bad wifi receiver transmitter in one speaker. One works ok.

Can you tell us more about the issue?

 

[muslhead]

when i first received the speaker worked fine. Neither has been very stable with my wifi but eventually the bad one would not pair. In contact with Buchardt i did all the things needed to confirm there was a problem with the speaker/hub and not me. We decided to try a new hub first. Expected it not to be the hub because one speaker paired always and kept paired perfectly. Received the new hub and unfortunately, it did not fix the ability to pair with the bad speaker. It did though, fix the problem i had with the original hub which was to pair with the remote. The remote kept falling out of synch and would not pair.
Buchardt has dispatched a new plate to me for the one bad speaker. As soon as i get it i will replace and expect to see it pair as well as my good one. Until then. they are just living room furniture.

 

[sharock]

The drop in sub bass helped a lot (9db less distortion in that area). But the rest is overall worse all the way...

Not worth upgrading in your opinion? Is trading distortion in the bass for distortion higher up a good thing?

(I've not upgraded my hub to allow for 2.0)

 

[daftcombo]

Not worth upgrading in your opinion? Is trading distortion in the bass for distortion higher up a good thing?

Isn't that choide (deeper bass, more distorrion / less bass, less distortion) already among the factory settings?

 

[VintageFlanker]

Not worth upgrading in your opinion? Is trading distortion in the bass for distortion higher up a good thing?

It could. The sub bass distorsion was waaay too high (pretty close to the fundamental) in the previous tuning. The distorsion in mid frequency is less an issue (when you look at the scale).

Anyway, I like the sound out of the MasterTuning 2.0. The auto-standby each 20 seconds of silence...not so much.

 

[sharock]

Isn't that choide (deeper bass, more distorrion / less bass, less distortion) already among the factory settings?

There are a couple that do something along those lines already. So that's why I'm curious why this is being touted as an evolution rather than just another choice of tuning? I hope Buchardt supply a FR graph for MT 2.0 like they have done for their other tunings.

It could. The sub bass distorsion was waaay too high (pretty close to the fundamental) in the previous tuning. The distorsion in mid frequency is less an issue (when you look at the scale).

Anyway, I like the sound out of the MasterTuning 2.0. The auto-standby each 20 seconds of silence...not so much.

I guess I will have to try it for myself. I'm just nervous about bricking the hub with a firmware upgrade. I thought it would be able to auto-update since it has internet connectivity.

 

[VintageFlanker]

I'm just nervous about bricking the hub with a firmware upgrade.

Well, you should.

I dropped the Hub. It sucks so hard that I can't enjoy my A500 anymore with such instability. And new issues (rather than fixes) comming updates after updates...

Last week, I received my Matrix Mini-i Pro 3 and it does everything that the hub was supposed to do in the first place (except WISA). Just flawless.

 

[sharock]

Well, I'm now on the latest hub firmware and MT 2.0. Not sure I can hear the difference yet as I think I deafened myself in the process!

The Buchardt README file does warn you that the hub will set volume to 100% during the update process, but I didn't expect my music to automatically resume when the hub came back on after I paused it. Unsure what damage I may have done to my ears (listening distance = 1m) or speakers at this point.

 

[daftcombo]

Well, I'm now on the latest hub firmware and MT 2.0. Not sure I can hear the difference yet as I think I deafened myself in the process!

The Buchardt README file does warn you that the hub will set volume to 100% during the update process, but I didn't expect my music to automatically resume when the hub came back on after I paused it. Unsure what damage I may have done to my ears (listening distance = 1m) or speakers at this point.

So, the volume gets set at 100% and the music starts automatically...
They should provide earplugs in the package.

 

[brandall10]

They just released the LLE adjustment variants... one with it significantly reduced, one without it entirely.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/15jAbqy_K4t87DHBcUnNJ_MeQBm1K7U2R

Trying out the reduced one, sounds more balanced for sure + appreciate it more for early morning listening.

 

[VintageFlanker]

They just released the LLE adjustment variants... one with it significantly reduced, one without it entirely.

Re-measured with all of them.

This one will a tad more complex... These are the 3 LLE Tunings 2.0 available: Original from yesterday, "Recommended" one and the last with LLE disabled. Let's see how each behave at 65, 75 and 85dB. I had no choice but to smooth them all at 1/6 for more clarity:

Please zoom and refer to legend above.

Note that there is absolutely no difference when measured at 85dB. As it is to be expected. However, I noticed that the "No LLE" showed the best distortion behavior at 85dB:

 

[brandall10]

Re-measured with all of them.
However, I noticed that the "No LLE" showed the best distortion behavior at 85dB:

What the heck? Why do you think that might be?

It's good to see this behaves mostly as expected. I would have expected the attenuation for the more minimal LLE to be a few DBs more than shown here though. Also interesting how the mids and top end are flattened with it turned off @ 65 dB - so it's more than just LLE, it's overall frequency shaping for fletcher munson.

 

[VintageFlanker]

it's overall frequency shaping for fletcher munson.

It definitely is.

 

[muslhead]

A new hub did not fix my problem but a new rear speaker plate did the trick. Finally after 6 months after ordering, both speakers are working as expected individually and together. Big shout out to Buchardt's responsive new support guy, Daniel Lindholdt, in helping me get through this debacle.

 

[VintageFlanker]

New Master Tuning variations released yesterday !

https://buchardtaudio.com/pages/mas...765&utm_medium=email&utm_source=shopify_email

Sadly, none of these get rid of the stupid 10 seconds auto mute "feature"... Seriously, who asked for this to begin with? Who on earth prefers a pop-pop noise every 10 seconds (while not playing sound) instead of a constant, but barely noticeable "hiss"...? Anyway, Mads Buchardt promised to fix this issue "very soon".

Back to the new MT 2.0. I quickly took a few captures to see the effect of these so-called "variations" on FR. Remember these still are low-res, On-Axis measurements and above all: in-room and nearfield (50cm). Then smoothed to 1/12 to show differences more clearly.

I didn't try the "Wall Filter" yet.

For some reason, the Stock Tuning was 2dB quieter than others on my SPL test before measuring. What is also surprising is the gap <40Hz apparent with every other Tunings, that were not supposed to change the bass response in the first place. The "Reduced Bass Response" looks promising in intend to cross the A500s with some sub (and I plan to do that). Otherwise, it seems to behave the same as the "Forward Midrange" above 400Hz. Note that each of these Tuning happen to work with LLE compensation, but it was not there at this SPL anyway (85dB at 0.5M).

Unsurprisingly, the "Reduced Bass Response" also comes with much lower sub-bass distortion:

PS: I forgot to mention! The regular Stock Tuning 2.0 still sounds stellar to me. Big upgrade over the former Stock Updated (now rebaptized "Theoretical"). I'm honestly not interested by either of the new variations, apart from the Reduced Bass for specific purposes, as mentioned.

 

[muslhead]

Thanks for doing this.
I would have expected to see bigger differences in the plots than you show based upon what i thought i heard.

 

[Chromatischism]

The regular Stock Tuning 2.0 still sounds stellar to me.

Is this a 2-way or 3-way?

 

[VintageFlanker]

Is this a 2-way or 3-way?

2.5 way.

There's also a 3-way Tuning supposed to work best for nearfield.