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Buchardt and Purifi A500 Signature Edition
- Thread starter muslhead
- Start date
How does it compare to the A700? Are the A700s just for bigger rooms or more bass?Basically, A500 with more extension.
At moderate levels, both sound very similar, but Signatures do have better bass definition and tightness. Maybe clearer mids, the Purifi woofer are crossed higher than SB Acoustics.
At high SPL, there's no contest. Much less compression, meaning more bass extension and punch. I will try some measurements of the low end behaviour when I have time.
Exceptional speakers, but there are still some flaws. Again, the auto-mute feature is very annoying, they go silent way too soon and clearly not quiet enough... It has been fixed with the regular A500, but now, I have to deal with that nonsense again.I hope Buchardt will fix this thing, otherwise it could drive me mad on the daily basis.
I measured the bass compression behavior this afternoon. Please note that is on-axis, in-room response, with obvious room modes at 60Hz and 35Hz...
I could not measure higher than 102-103dBSPL (@35Hz, red line) since it puts my UMIK into clipping. It clearly gets louder and lower than regular A500 with less aggressive compression. For the record, this is what I measured under about the same conditions 18 months back (beware, it is different scale and smoothing):
And with the overall response on-axis (1 meter) :
Really full-range up to 85dBSPL. Pretty decent for such small speakers !
Edit: Distortion plot added (45cm, on-axis):
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View attachment 224185
I measured the bass compression behavior this afternoon. Please note that is on-axis, in-room response, with obvious room modes at 60Hz and 35Hz...
View attachment 224201
I could not measure higher than 102-103dBSPL (@35Hz, red line) since it puts my UMIK into clipping. It clearly gets louder and lower than regular A500 with less aggressive compression. For the record, this is what I measured under about the same conditions 18 months back (beware, it is different scale and smoothing):
And with the overall response on-axis (1 meter) :View attachment 224187
Really full-range up to 85dBSPL. Pretty decent for such small speakers !
Edit: Distortion plot added (45cm, on-axis):View attachment 224202
Any chance of measuring vertical directivity? I'm interested in these for nearfield, but on the original measurements of various tunings it seemed to be only +/- 10 degrees before there was a spot of trouble. Buchardt says a newer tuning with different crossover slopes improved upon that, not sure if that's OoB for signature edition but would love to see it.
They're sold out anyway.
I can't.
Few reasons for that:- I won't have enough precision to get accurate vertical off-axis plot with my UMIK under in-room conditions.
- A500 Signature doesn't have any Nearfield MT for that matter and won't give the same results as regular A500 (different woofer, different crossover point)
- My regular A500 are going for resale and I will lack time do perform such measurements (which will probably be inaccurate according to point a)
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I can't.
- I won't have enough precision to get accurate vertical off-axis plot with my UMIK under in-room conditions.
- A500 Signature doesn't have any Nearfield MT for that matter and won't give the same results as regular A500 (different woofer, different crossover point)
- My regular A500 are going for resale and I will lack time do perform such measurements (which will probably be inaccurate according to point a)
Understood; on the surface speakers look great. But for my use case, around 80cm, I can't get over that tight +/- 10 degree window. And, combined with below, I can't help but feel I may still need a sub for bass heavy music or if I move them into a theater arrangement with A700 someday
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80cm?? These are not desktop speakers. You should look at the iLoud MTM.
My wallet would certainly appreciate that but my interest is in trying out a 25-20 speaker and, per the manufacturers, its basically A500 ($) or 8C ($$$) for such a short distance
My A500 Signature Edition Story
I read everything about the standard A500 and was preparing to buy them. But suddenly Mads Buchardt announced "special", limited A500 Signature Edition with even better sound. It was limited to only 50 pairs, so there was no time to waste. I had to make a decision. And I thought that this is the time to get those speakers (and join the elite club lol). I ordered them, the first problem that I encountered, was that my bank was not allowing me to pay more than 5000 EUR using credit card and the bundle with Primare SC15 was listed at 5600 EUR. That was the sign. But I ignored it and made the payment using another bank.
Finally I got my A500 Signature Edition. My number is 3x out of 50. I was lucky, I thought. The first bad impression was the assembly of all of this. The power cables for the speakers were missing. Hopefully I had some spare ones (they are regular computer power cables). Now...how should I pair the speakers with the Primare? There was no manual, no nothing. The only guide was the video made on YT by Mads. Ok, I got through it and pretty soon everything was in place and ready to rock.
I started playing music.
OMG I thought. Are those 5600EUR speakers or 25EUR plastic ones? The sound was that horrible.
The music was squeezed inside of the speakers, like trying to play through a thick wall. Ok, I thought, that's probably the "burning in" issue. I started playing the music for hours (I just turned on internet radio). After 30 hours the music started getting out of the speakers. The volume increased too. I was playing and playing. Some improvements were hearable. But now, after about 70 hours I don't see them improving anymore. And what is the verdict?
The speakers are disappointing.
When you try to judge individual parts of the sound, there are elements that sound good or even great. For sure the treble, voices sound really good. The bass is loud, punchy and goes really low. But the midrange is not that great. It's more than that - some of the frequencies make the impression that they are missing, especially at the lower end of the midrange.
If you are listening to rock or other voice heavy music, maybe it won't be so noticeable. But if you are listening to electronic music, where the majority of it is closer to lower end you will hear the difference. The missing difference.
It's not subtele. It's not "oh, something is missing". It's "OMG, what happend to this track, where did the music go".
So for now the speakers are hardly usable for me, but I've spent 5600EUR so I'm still hoping that they will burn in, that the music will magically be back.
One of the reviewers of the original A500 said that buying those you are not limited to the sound of the speakers as there are the mastertunings, that can do magic.
Well....maybe this is true for A500. But in A500 SE we have only 3 mastertunings (stock, 40Hz and Cardioid).
So there is nothing to choose from. Yes, the Burchardt's page says "more to come", but to be honest, there are only 50 of us. Who would like to invest time to do something for only 50 customers? I doubt if there will be any new mastertuning for those speakers.
One thing about the Cardioid mastertuning. I was checking this one of course, in hope that "maybe" it will fix something.
Well, this mastertuning is unusable entirely. It changes the music, distorts it. I wonder why it was released at all.
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That's not a burn-in issue. Speakers basically don't burn-in, anyway.
There is definitely something wrong elsewhere... Probably your WISA configuration.
That is misleading. If you hate the stock MT so much, others MT will not bring night and day difference.
Also, you should remove the grilles, that kills the horizontal directivity (fact measured, not imagination like burn-in
)Previously I had B&W 685 with Onkyo TR-805.
My "perfect" sound comes from my headphones Audeze LCD-2 with Copland 215. I was hoping to get something similar from the speakers
Maybe. But to be honest, what can be wrong with WISA configuration? There is only pairing available
Both Left and Right channels could be mixed together, that leads to many parts of the music missing. Check that both your speakers are properly set by looking at the led on their back. If it doesn't fix, you should contact @Mads Buchardt and describe the issue.
OK. Well, the A500s (even regulars, not to mention Signatures) should literally destroy your actual system. I know there're personal preferences, blablabla... But objectively speaking, Buchardt are so much more accurate, whatever regarding accuracy, imaging, soundstage, clarity, bass extension or anything else.
Damned
Member
I agree with @VintageFlanker you have to be sure about the right left signal. First you can use a "song" I have one in Spotify saying signal left and right in a boucle. At a time I had both signals in one speaker (always after a new Mt installed) Then you can very easily fix it with the buchardt app, on setup you click on a speaker then click again and stay clicked that way it will produce a sound so you can check if it's the correct right and left signal, if not you drag the icon speaker to the good side, very straightforward process. Do not pay attention to the led at the back of the speakers they can show wrong when it's not.
NB there is a video from Mad somewhere explaining just that
NB there is a video from Mad somewhere explaining just that
Looks like the Burchardt App is not working very well with Primare SC15. I can connect, but the only thing that is working is firmware update (partially, as it always initiates the update regardless if the same version is already installed).
But in Windows I can test only one channel and it looks like it's paired correctly.
I did some tests using my smartphone (Samsung S10e) and test wave from here
Does it look ok?
During the test I could hear, that the wave was not even, there were louder and quieter peaks.
I think they happen below 300Hz. Higher it sounds ok.
(Edit: Updated measurement)
I'm not an expert, but for me this looks really bad.
If you have differences of about 20dB in nearby frequencies, this produces a mess that I'm experiencing
But in Windows I can test only one channel and it looks like it's paired correctly.
I did some tests using my smartphone (Samsung S10e) and test wave from here
Does it look ok?
During the test I could hear, that the wave was not even, there were louder and quieter peaks.
I think they happen below 300Hz. Higher it sounds ok.
(Edit: Updated measurement)
I'm not an expert, but for me this looks really bad.
If you have differences of about 20dB in nearby frequencies, this produces a mess that I'm experiencing
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What is the timeframe you are using in Spectroid? Try to slow it down.
The latest measurement I was doing taking the wave generated by https://onlinetonegenerator.com/frequency-sweep-generator.html
And I set the range 20 - 20k to be played in 120 sec.
What time would you suggest to use?
And I set the range 20 - 20k to be played in 120 sec.
What time would you suggest to use?
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That's a nice setup, but where's the subwoofer?......oh wait, Buchardt....my bad....never mindI tried everything from pointing them at me to set them parallel to each other and ended up toeing them half way in. Everything has changed since then (new electronics, speakers an furniture) so no comments on insufficient sources or amps please
View attachment 146482
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