Yeah, and I believe Mads has communicated they are working on Hypex upgrades that existing owners can self install. I imagine this will add a lot of cost and push A500/700 into new price tiers with more competition, though.
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Buchardt A500 Measurements and Spinorama
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brandall10
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Interesting... I know they have an A500SE in the works w/ purify drivers. If the cabinet itself doesn't change hopefully there's an upgrade package where you can get credit for swapping the existing components.
Before the update, muine (yes a500) would get hot (not 165 but 130ish). Since then, exactly as stated above.
The update, as i was told by Mads, fixed the excessive heating problem. It fixed mine.
The difference? no idea, should ask Mads. Maybe different plate amps
The update, as i was told by Mads, fixed the excessive heating problem. It fixed mine.
The difference? no idea, should ask Mads. Maybe different plate amps
Ah to be clear, this was a hardware swap? Because if so I'll inform my friend. Although I think he is tired of dealing with the speakers/hub at all.
no, i was referring to the software update to the hub that tamed the heat.
I have had 2 replaced plates in one speaker. The other speaker, has the original plate. As of right now, they both give apprx the same temps at idle and hours of use so, in my case different plates didnt make a difference.
Oh the HUB was getting hot?
brandall10
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Just a side observation - it's been well documented how great the CS of Buchardt is. I've emailed them probably 6-7 times myself and every time had either Mads himself or Daniel respond within 24 hours. They've been highly communicative of the status of feature development and issues first on Facebook (not my fav medium but they were informative), and now on their own forums. This is precisely the opposite of some black hole corporation that leaves you up the creek.
There's no reason for your friend to suffer in silence about his issues when he could have simply reached out to Burchardt directly and had them addressed long ago - if not with one of the myriad rolling product updates, then a warranty claim. ASR is not part of their CS arm. Perhaps instead of griping about and trying to troubleshoot second hand issues here - and consequently painting the brand in a certain light - encourage your friend to do this?
Unless Mads told your buddy to pound sand. If so, carry on.
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- The A500 is indeed very innovative combination, what with the big waveguide, room correction, calibrated loudness, uploadable profiles.
- My opinion as a consumer and as an engineer is that a product that is continuously so hot is just a design fail, period.
- Buchardt was indeed very responsive as far as communication. But some issues were simply not resolved. IIRC mis-sync between audio and video, and the hub is not made/controlled by Buchardt so they were dependent on the outside provider.
I'm not trying to troubleshoot anything (I just wasn't aware of the hub getting hot). After having convinced said friend to get the A500 due to the features, I now feel "recommender's remorse" from his "I paid €3.500,00 to be a beta tester?!?" experience. So my point to prospective buyers is be aware of these issues and if you're OK with them, go for it!
brandall10
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Yet several members are here telling you they don't have currently have an issue related to heat - not a single person is corroborating this, only one person mentioned something along these lines which has been addressed by a product update. You're informing prospective buyers of an issue they almost certainly won't experience.
Yes or no - has this been communicated to Buchardt and they told your friend they don't see it as a problem?
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One person that I see says his run at 110F. Another posted about a software revision eliminating the problem but I read that as heat with the HUB and I don't think has re-posted if it was hub or speaker. Sorry but you cannot assert "You're informing prospective buyers of an issue they almost certainly won't experience" because you really have no idea, it's hardly as though every Buchardt owner is reading this thread.
Yes, my friend's experience is one data point, as are others here complaining about other issues. But let me confirm:
- Buchardt told my friend that high temperature was NORMAL. Mads himself.
which I think is insane, that's just too hot. My friend worries his expensive purchase will literally burn up over time past the warranty period.
- Eventually I think the video sync problem got fixed
- I don't remember every other issue, and don't ask him any more because it's very touchy, especially as I was the guy who talked him into the A500 in the first place. But he used the phrase "I'm paying to be a beta tester" many times so I am reporting that experience. Maybe now 2.5 years on some things are better.
- In the event more people chime in the back of their speakers is not so hot (measure please!) I'd be happy because I'd tell my friend to bug Mads about it, how to fix.
If we make some kind of a rule that nobody can post negative experiences because they are only one person, then we might as well close all forums and threads everywhere. People can read and draw their own conclusions. And now let's move on from this for heaven's sake, it is becoming too reiterative.
no, the speakers amp plate.
brandall10
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Just sent a notice to Burchardt Audio about this, linking to this chat. Let's see what they have to say.
Note to all prospective purchasers: Burchardt's stance is there are no known issues w/ this speaker as of the most recent update. That has been my personal experience. Both speakers and hub are slightly warm to the touch even after running for an extended period of time.
likely not.
Mads has said they can run hot but not 165 hot.
Either your "friend" made a mistake, has a one off, or is trying to create FUD for Buchardt for some reason.
I am no fanboi but i also think i can smell in your posts that doesnt fit right
I concur 100%
Using those A500 through XLR since a few months, I can report for this use case :
Their backplates do get hot when running. I have not attempted any measurement (and I think it is not easy do it correctly) but I assume it is between 45 to 55°C (113 to 131°F) : I can keep touching it for several minutes without feeling any pain.
After 20min without input signal they will automatically switch off and cool down to room temperature.
It is actually unusually hot for a hifi system when you have been used to pretty big amplifiers with large and efficient heat sinks, but I am not sure if it is that worrying when you know that 3 150w amp modules are active at their max level behind this plate. I assume Platin has been running tests and would have added additional heat sinks to this backplate if needed.
Of course we don’t really know about long term reliability. Buchardt is saying it has been tested, and I don’t see any particular reason not to trust them, their CS has been really great so far. I am not worried yet !
Their backplates do get hot when running. I have not attempted any measurement (and I think it is not easy do it correctly) but I assume it is between 45 to 55°C (113 to 131°F) : I can keep touching it for several minutes without feeling any pain.
After 20min without input signal they will automatically switch off and cool down to room temperature.
It is actually unusually hot for a hifi system when you have been used to pretty big amplifiers with large and efficient heat sinks, but I am not sure if it is that worrying when you know that 3 150w amp modules are active at their max level behind this plate. I assume Platin has been running tests and would have added additional heat sinks to this backplate if needed.
Of course we don’t really know about long term reliability. Buchardt is saying it has been tested, and I don’t see any particular reason not to trust them, their CS has been really great so far. I am not worried yet !
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brandall10
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What kind of volume are you running? I just pushed these as loud as I feel comfortable without getting a noise complaint (phone tells me 85 dB 1 meter away) for about 10 minutes and they're barely more than lukewarm. I'd be surprised if more than 105. They've been running for hours probably about 75 dB watching football.
Very reasonable level like 70 to 75dB at listening position (2.5m away)
brandall10
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How old are they? I've let them run like this another 10 minutes and no change. My 2019 16" Macbook Pro gets far hotter than this.
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They are like 4 months old
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Regarding the heat of the backplates. They do get warm to the touch yes. We did extensive test after the first batch as this did have potential heat autoshutdown happen for a few customers. Here the speakers would not be able to power on for one hour. This happens at 80 degrees Celsius, where the components are certified for max 105 degrees operation. The backplate is the only place, the speakers can get rid of their heat, they are a sealed design so that backplate is the heat sink of the speakers.
But we did find a problem with the first batch due to how the dampening material was placed in the production (was around the heat sink which is just an unfortunate production error). It was a super easy fix luckily where I made an easy instruction video on how to fix this in 5 min. Doing this took the temp down from around 68-74 degrees to 50-56. The speakers do not get hotter when playing louder. Only customers that had the speakers from the first batch, experienced these higher temperatures. And we do not see a higher failure rate on the modules from back then, in comparison to now. I actually do not think many did this fix, as the speakers still worked just fine for most, only a few cases where they went into autoshutdown.
There are a ton of misinformation out there regarding or products, or just rumors or maybe simple misunderstandings I don't know, but I sometimes read stuff that are simply not true about what we say, and our products. If someone is confused or need clarification about something, for god’s sake, just ask us. We are super active and many already know that we are a company that really tries to be as transparent as possible, also about mistakes, we do not have superpowers, we still make mistakes and learn from them. Sadly, one huge disadvantage of being so transparent is that issues tend to get overblown. The A500/A700 speakers themselves are working very well, there were a few smaller software problems where they would not register a signal at low volumes over XLR (is fixed) now, and of course this with the unnecessary higher heat output. But we have a very low failure rate on the modules themselves, also some had been so unlikely that two actually failed. The god part is that they are extremely easy to exchange, and should one break out of warranty, then it's also cheap to replace as we are not interested in earning money spare parts.
Where we do see software issues, is with the Platin hub, there are still there, and even though most customers are very happy with it, and do not experience issues, we do see that too many does. It's a product that brings so many features at such as low cost, so when Platin gets everything sorted out, it's an amazing value for sure. But the Platin hubs quality and feel sadly do not match the speakers. We have been working on a more premium solution that customers can bundle with them. We do also see customers using 3. party preamp as well, there are many options out there.
Regarding the next generation plateamps module. This is on the drawing board already, but using Hypex have never been the plan, I do not know why this is a rumor? We would be using digital amps instead of Class D like you also see with Lyngdorf amps. This would most likely still be another year before these are ready, but it would of course be something that current customers can upgrade too. Should they desire to do so, then there would be a trade in program for the old modules.
Please keep in mind that I'm rarely active in here, so if you have question, just email me instead
But we did find a problem with the first batch due to how the dampening material was placed in the production (was around the heat sink which is just an unfortunate production error). It was a super easy fix luckily where I made an easy instruction video on how to fix this in 5 min. Doing this took the temp down from around 68-74 degrees to 50-56. The speakers do not get hotter when playing louder. Only customers that had the speakers from the first batch, experienced these higher temperatures. And we do not see a higher failure rate on the modules from back then, in comparison to now. I actually do not think many did this fix, as the speakers still worked just fine for most, only a few cases where they went into autoshutdown.
There are a ton of misinformation out there regarding or products, or just rumors or maybe simple misunderstandings I don't know, but I sometimes read stuff that are simply not true about what we say, and our products. If someone is confused or need clarification about something, for god’s sake, just ask us. We are super active and many already know that we are a company that really tries to be as transparent as possible, also about mistakes, we do not have superpowers, we still make mistakes and learn from them. Sadly, one huge disadvantage of being so transparent is that issues tend to get overblown. The A500/A700 speakers themselves are working very well, there were a few smaller software problems where they would not register a signal at low volumes over XLR (is fixed) now, and of course this with the unnecessary higher heat output. But we have a very low failure rate on the modules themselves, also some had been so unlikely that two actually failed. The god part is that they are extremely easy to exchange, and should one break out of warranty, then it's also cheap to replace as we are not interested in earning money spare parts.
Where we do see software issues, is with the Platin hub, there are still there, and even though most customers are very happy with it, and do not experience issues, we do see that too many does. It's a product that brings so many features at such as low cost, so when Platin gets everything sorted out, it's an amazing value for sure. But the Platin hubs quality and feel sadly do not match the speakers. We have been working on a more premium solution that customers can bundle with them. We do also see customers using 3. party preamp as well, there are many options out there.
Regarding the next generation plateamps module. This is on the drawing board already, but using Hypex have never been the plan, I do not know why this is a rumor? We would be using digital amps instead of Class D like you also see with Lyngdorf amps. This would most likely still be another year before these are ready, but it would of course be something that current customers can upgrade too. Should they desire to do so, then there would be a trade in program for the old modules.
Please keep in mind that I'm rarely active in here, so if you have question, just email me instead
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