Buchardt Anniversary 10 Measurements and Review

[Robbo99999]

The multitone distortion results are very interesting indeed, I'm assuming that's the same thing as IMD. It's elucidating to see the effect of cutting out the bass on decreasing the multitone distortion (IMD, if I can interchange the terms?). So those are the kind of benefits that can be had by using a 3-way speaker or by using subwoofers! It's a pity because this speaker seems almost perfect apart from the the IMD and bass distortion, perhaps it would be totally fine at quiet volumes. @Nuyes , what's CHD? I don't think we've come across that term before in Amir's reviews, how's it differ?

 

[VintageFlanker]

They use this plate amp:

PRXII - WiSA endorsed/XLR 4x150W DSP quad-amplifier

Excl. VAT. The PRX/PRXII series of products are the perfect choice for any speaker designer wanting to make active loudspeakers. It is a ready-to-market solution - fully matured. The 4-channel design with integrated quad-core DSP ensures it can work with basically any application you can...

www.platinaudio.com

Not for the A10. This was the one used for A500/700/500SE. The one in A10 is a new module from Platin with dual channel FDA amp instead of 4 channels TP3255.

Combine it with a subwoofer and there's no more season to complain.

Especially when this does have a MT with 60Hz HPF.

 

[Mads Buchardt]

Thanks for taking the time to measure them and provide your comments.

I feel your evaluation is overly critical considering the speakers' intended purpose. If you had taken into account the entire package and what we offer, the perspective might change significantly.

This speaker wasn't designed to be an SPL champion. If you're seeking something that can play very loud and powerful, we have speakers that excel in that aspect.

The A10 was intended as a compact speaker suitable for small to medium-sized rooms, capable of standing alone without a subwoofer and delivering music at respectable SPL. Our aim with the A10 was sound quality over quantity, which is why we opted for a sealed construction.

Mastertunings are a significant aspect of our active speakers, which unfortunately you haven't tried or mentioned here. These would have addressed your issues with the speakers. Mastertunings can substantially alter various aspects, and it's not merely basic EQ adjustments that we apply. We also offer tunings that optimize performance in the crossover region, making them more nearfield optimized, as some customers use them as studio monitors. Flexibility and the ability for our customers to choose have always been very important to us. That also allows us to go to extremes like this, without being set in stone.

Regarding the 0.2dB difference, I don't quite see the concern here considering the industry standard, even for much more expensive speakers. Drivers, even those as sophisticated as the Danish-built Purifi, have tolerances.

Customer feedback indicates people are very satisfied with the design choices made on the A10. Most individuals are pleasantly surprised by how powerful they are for music playback, despite our marketing statements advising to "be realistic with expectations." As a consumer-direct company, overselling them would result in more returns, which can be quite costly for us, so would be a very bad business decision ;D

 

[Svet Angelov]

Great speaker regardless of price, that purifi woofer always makes me think of ferrofluid.

 

[Nuyes]

Thanks for taking the time to measure them and provide your comments.

I feel your evaluation is overly critical considering the speakers' intended purpose. If you had taken into account the entire package and what we offer, the perspective might change significantly.

This speaker wasn't designed to be an SPL champion. If you're seeking something that can play very loud and powerful, we have speakers that excel in that aspect.

The A10 was intended as a compact speaker suitable for small to medium-sized rooms, capable of standing alone without a subwoofer and delivering music at respectable SPL. Our aim with the A10 was sound quality over quantity, which is why we opted for a sealed construction.

Mastertunings are a significant aspect of our active speakers, which unfortunately you haven't tried or mentioned here. These would have addressed your issues with the speakers. Mastertunings can substantially alter various aspects, and it's not merely basic EQ adjustments that we apply. We also offer tunings that optimize performance in the crossover region, making them more nearfield optimized, as some customers use them as studio monitors. Flexibility and the ability for our customers to choose have always been very important to us. That also allows us to go to extremes like this, without being set in stone.

Regarding the 0.2dB difference, I don't quite see the concern here considering the industry standard, even for much more expensive speakers. Drivers, even those as sophisticated as the Danish-built Purifi, have tolerances.

Customer feedback indicates people are very satisfied with the design choices made on the A10. Most individuals are pleasantly surprised by how powerful they are for music playback, despite our marketing statements advising to "be realistic with expectations." As a consumer-direct company, overselling them would result in more returns, which can be quite costly for us, so would be a very bad business decision ;D

I would like to express my gratitude for your kind comment from your company.

First, please forgive my rudeness. I hope you can understand. I live in a non-English speaking country, so all the articles I contribute to this community, ASR, are uploaded through a translator, and the same goes for comments. This sometimes leads to exaggerated nuances and misunderstandings.

My remark about the high sound pressure performance and the 0.2dB gain deviation was merely an expression of regret, like "It would have been nice if only a little ~ was done..".

Although I did not post it in this thread, I had at the same time the limited edition model from Triangle, Genelec's 1031A, and KEF's Reference 1 meta, and conducted a mono comparison listening test between these products, awarding the highest score to your A10. (This was only disclosed to the audio community in South Korea.)

I operate a separate audio review website (in Korean) and upload the content(original). Moreover, visitors to my website tend to place great importance on faithful full-range reproduction.

Of course, I respect your company's design intentions regarding the bass tuning. However, as a reviewer, I have to maintain the consistent criteria I have always used for evaluation, even if it might not be entirely objective. Therefore, I earnestly request your understanding, even if there are some excessive expressions.

 

[daniboun]

They use this plate amp:

PRXII - WiSA endorsed/XLR 4x150W DSP quad-amplifier

Excl. VAT. The PRX/PRXII series of products are the perfect choice for any speaker designer wanting to make active loudspeakers. It is a ready-to-market solution - fully matured. The 4-channel design with integrated quad-core DSP ensures it can work with basically any application you can...

www.platinaudio.com

Which is manufactured in China by:

hansongtechnology

Hansong also happens to completely manufacturer all of the lower end Buchardt speakers, and drop ship them to customers directly from China.

It seems to be a mid-range Class D product....

 

[daniboun]

Not for the A10. This was the one used for A500/700/500SE. The one in A10 is a new module from Platin with dual channel FDA amp instead of 4 channels TP3255.


Especially when this does have a MT with 60Hz HPF.

If I look at the back, it looks identical, right?

 

[VintageFlanker]

Measurements from manufacturer @Mads Buchardt :

If I look at the back, it looks identical, right?

It does look but it's not the same inside.

 

[Mads Buchardt]

I would like to express my gratitude for your kind comment from your company.

First, please forgive my rudeness. I hope you can understand. I live in a non-English speaking country, so all the articles I contribute to this community, ASR, are uploaded through a translator, and the same goes for comments. This sometimes leads to exaggerated nuances and misunderstandings.

My remark about the high sound pressure performance and the 0.2dB gain deviation was merely an expression of regret, like "It would have been nice if only a little ~ was done..".

Although I did not post it in this thread, I had at the same time the limited edition model from Triangle, Genelec's 1031A, and KEF's Reference 1 meta, and conducted a mono comparison listening test between these products, awarding the highest score to your A10. (This was only disclosed to the audio community in South Korea.)

I operate a separate audio review website (in Korean) and upload the content(original). Moreover, visitors to my website tend to place great importance on faithful full-range reproduction.

Of course, I respect your company's design intentions regarding the bass tuning. However, as a reviewer, I have to maintain the consistent criteria I have always used for evaluation, even if it might not be entirely objective. Therefore, I earnestly request your understanding, even if there are some excessive expressions.

Thank you for such a kind reply, that is rare to see in online communities where the tone is usually harsh, big respect!

If you still have the A10s, it would be great to see you do measurements on the "S400 simulation" mastertuning and the "nearfield" (which we see nearly all customers end up liking the most, despite not being in nearfield setups).

We are also working on more tunings, and we are also working on some improvements to the limiter and how we "attack" the limitations of the speakers, we did actually found that we can squeeze a bit more performance out of the bass in them, so that would be implemented soon.

Looking a bit closer on the measurements done on the 0.2dB, it looks like the one speaker is generally 0.2dB under, which seems very strange considering you normally have these deviations a bit mixed over the frequency curve. It would be strange if both the tweeter, woofer and all 4 amps are a result of the entire speaker being 0.2dB under the other one? (4 amps as the purifi have 3 x 50watt amps connected to it) Could the speakers have been placed just a hair differently when performing the measurement?

 

[biglebowski]

If I look at the back, it looks identical, right?

View attachment 335684View attachment 335685

Not the same number of screws, indicating something is probably different inside.

 

[Dave-Oh]

Thanks for taking the time to measure them and provide your comments.

I feel your evaluation is overly critical considering the speakers' intended purpose. If you had taken into account the entire package and what we offer, the perspective might change significantly.

This speaker wasn't designed to be an SPL champion. If you're seeking something that can play very loud and powerful, we have speakers that excel in that aspect.

The A10 was intended as a compact speaker suitable for small to medium-sized rooms, capable of standing alone without a subwoofer and delivering music at respectable SPL. Our aim with the A10 was sound quality over quantity, which is why we opted for a sealed construction.

Mastertunings are a significant aspect of our active speakers, which unfortunately you haven't tried or mentioned here. These would have addressed your issues with the speakers. Mastertunings can substantially alter various aspects, and it's not merely basic EQ adjustments that we apply. We also offer tunings that optimize performance in the crossover region, making them more nearfield optimized, as some customers use them as studio monitors. Flexibility and the ability for our customers to choose have always been very important to us. That also allows us to go to extremes like this, without being set in stone.

Regarding the 0.2dB difference, I don't quite see the concern here considering the industry standard, even for much more expensive speakers. Drivers, even those as sophisticated as the Danish-built Purifi, have tolerances.

Customer feedback indicates people are very satisfied with the design choices made on the A10. Most individuals are pleasantly surprised by how powerful they are for music playback, despite our marketing statements advising to "be realistic with expectations." As a consumer-direct company, overselling them would result in more returns, which can be quite costly for us, so would be a very bad business decision ;D

Reviewers would do well to keep in mind a product’s intended role and purpose. I think this review fell short in that regard

 

[Haskil]

I would like to express my gratitude for your kind comment from your company.

First, please forgive my rudeness. I hope you can understand. I live in a non-English speaking country, so all the articles I contribute to this community, ASR, are uploaded through a translator, and the same goes for comments. This sometimes leads to exaggerated nuances and misunderstandings.

My remark about the high sound pressure performance and the 0.2dB gain deviation was merely an expression of regret, like "It would have been nice if only a little ~ was done..".

Although I did not post it in this thread, I had at the same time the limited edition model from Triangle, Genelec's 1031A, and KEF's Reference 1 meta, and conducted a mono comparison listening test between these products, awarding the highest score to your A10. (This was only disclosed to the audio community in South Korea.)

I operate a separate audio review website (in Korean) and upload the content(original). Moreover, visitors to my website tend to place great importance on faithful full-range reproduction.

Of course, I respect your company's design intentions regarding the bass tuning. However, as a reviewer, I have to maintain the consistent criteria I have always used for evaluation, even if it might not be entirely objective. Therefore, I earnestly request your understanding, even if there are some excessive expressions.

Thank you for your test... but I understand Mads Burchardt : it's as if you had tested a car without testing the gearbox and the brakes...

 

[StefanSweden]

Thank you for the write-up! Apprechiate all the accompanying texts to each messurements pictures. Helps me to understand better

 

[Deleted member 48726]

Thank you for your test... but I understand Mads Burchardt : it's as if you had tested a car without testing the gearbox and the brakes...

Yeah. It was my first thought and comment. Is it updateable and why is there no limiter.

 

[amirm]

I promoted the review but do think you are being too harsh on distortion and especially variations. I don't think you can reliably measure 0.2 dB unless you have very strict mounting process. And at any rate, I don't know any speaker company that matches beyond 0.5 dB.

 

[amirm]

On the distortion front, I always evaluate and confirm using listening. Measurements are not instructive enough. They can point out issues but one needs to listen to evaluate as the perceptual effects are not clear in the distortion measurements.

 

[IAtaman]

Yeah, some of the comments might be construed as harsh but overall the review is not totally buchardt.

(I am sorry)

 

[bennybbbx]

@Nuyes Wy do you not show group delay of this speakers ?. in the 10 subwoofers test you show group delay so you have the klippel module to measure group delay.

 

[Nuyes]

I promoted the review but do think you are being too harsh on distortion and especially variations. I don't think you can reliably measure 0.2 dB unless you have very strict mounting process. And at any rate, I don't know any speaker company that matches beyond 0.5 dB.

Yes, thank you for featuring it on your website. Your work brings me great satisfaction. I also admit that I was particularly strict in my evaluation of this Buchardt product. However, I hope you understand that this is because I have high expectations and affection for the products of Buchardt as a manufacturer. In fact, I found this speaker to be the best in its class.

Nonetheless, due to my inadequate expression, some parts of the content were misunderstood, so I need to make some modifications to the original post. (I will leave a record of the edits and changes.)

Regarding the 0.2dB, I was not pointing out any discrepancies in the units or measurements. I think this part caused the biggest misunderstanding in the translation.

I always conduct variance measurements for speakers I receive as a matched pair. I am aware of the limitations of my measurement environment to a certain extent.

In my reviews of speakers controlled via DSP, like Neumann KH120 ii, Genelec 8330A, 8351B, I wanted to suggest the aspect of amp level matching.

If the manufacturing process is not top-tier, encompassing in-house pair matching from units to the finished speaker, a variance within 0.5dB in the linearity of the final speaker product is commendable. The Buchardt A10 I measured this time is insanely excellent in this regard. However, the overall level being offset implies amp level matching. Considering the other performance aspects, I expressed a slight disappointment thinking, "For a company capable of handling details to this extent, they could have matched the amp levels a bit more precisely."

 

[Nuyes]

Thank you for such a kind reply, that is rare to see in online communities where the tone is usually harsh, big respect!

If you still have the A10s, it would be great to see you do measurements on the "S400 simulation" mastertuning and the "nearfield" (which we see nearly all customers end up liking the most, despite not being in nearfield setups).

We are also working on more tunings, and we are also working on some improvements to the limiter and how we "attack" the limitations of the speakers, we did actually found that we can squeeze a bit more performance out of the bass in them, so that would be implemented soon.

Looking a bit closer on the measurements done on the 0.2dB, it looks like the one speaker is generally 0.2dB under, which seems very strange considering you normally have these deviations a bit mixed over the frequency curve. It would be strange if both the tweeter, woofer and all 4 amps are a result of the entire speaker being 0.2dB under the other one? (4 amps as the purifi have 3 x 50watt amps connected to it) Could the speakers have been placed just a hair differently when performing the measurement?

Regrettably, the speaker in question is no longer with me, so it's impossible to conduct the additional measurements you mentioned. If I had known about this earlier, I would have performed various types of measurements and retained the data. I apologize to the readers of my review and your company for this missed opportunity.

Regarding the 0.2dB, I will quote directly from another comment I made earlie

-- Quote Below --


Regarding the 0.2dB, I was not pointing out any discrepancies in the units or measurements. I think this part caused the biggest misunderstanding in the translation.

I always conduct variance measurements for speakers I receive as a matched pair. I am aware of the limitations of my measurement environment to a certain extent.

In my reviews of speakers controlled via DSP, like Neumann KH120 ii, Genelec 8330A, 8351B, I wanted to suggest the aspect of amp level matching.

If the manufacturing process is not top-tier, encompassing in-house pair matching from units to the finished speaker, a variance within 0.5dB in the linearity of the final speaker product is commendable. The Buchardt A10 I measured this time is insanely excellent in this regard. However, the overall level being offset implies amp level matching. Considering the other performance aspects, I expressed a slight disappointment thinking, "For a company capable of handling details to this extent, they could have matched the amp levels a bit more precisely."

---

Your company's A10 maintains a top-tier level of linearity variance among active DSP speakers. I have only seen this level of performance from Neumann.

Thank you for developing such an excellent product.

As I mentioned earlier, I will refine and adjust my comments to minimize nuance and content distortion and will promptly make these edits with a record of the changes.

Thank you for your kind response and for bearing with the inconvenience.