Buchardt Audio S400 - My Review

[hardisj]

I wrapped up my review of the S400 last night and posted it to my site. Here's the link:
https://www.erinsaudiocorner.com/loudspeakers/buchardt_audio_s400_bookshelf/


I know this has been tested by Amir already. I even posted this link to that thread. But I put in a lot of time to write this review and really hate to see it get lost in the shuffle, buried in another thread, so I am splitting this off in to a new post. If that's wrong then Thomas or Amir can scold me for it and banish me for eternity... or just delete the thread. Whichever makes more sense.


One thing I have done differently from what I've seen is my polar spectrograms. We typically see spectrograms for a speaker "linearized" in to a rectangular shape. I was thinking, it would be neat to actually represent the data the way it comes from the speaker; in a 360° manner. Or occasionally we will see a polar plot with a single line representing a frequency, maybe with a few lines to represent multiple frequencies overlaid. But nothing that is really intuitive. So, I created these new polar plots for horizontal and vertical spl mapping of the speaker's radiation pattern both vertically and horizontally. Two versions of each. One is absolute output and the other is relative to the 0 degree axis. Not sure if anyone here will appreciate it as much as I am proud of it. And I'm sure someone will have something to say about how they prefer a different color or whatever... but dangit, I'm proud and I'm leaving it as is because it looks good to me. I think it's a better way of viewing the data. Some may not prefer it. But that's why I've offered the standard versions as well. Anyway, make sure to use the legend in the top left to get your bearings on the speaker direction relative to the radiation pattern.

Here are some highlights.

 

[Soniclife]

Love the directivity globes.

 

[aarons915]

Nice review, that distortion by drive level is perfect to show the rise by SPL level, @amirm should definitely "borrow" that method in my opinion.

 

[Liberal Democracy]

Caring is sharing lol

 

[bogart]

@hardisj - truly outstanding graphical output from your work. I love the polar plots in 'real' space - definitely think it's a superior representation. As well, the little choices add up - line widths, image resolution, and everything combine for really great readability. I can tell a lot of thought and refinement went into this work. Awesome.

 

[Ron Texas]

Nice graphics although I wish I knew enough to understand them better.

 

[MZKM]

Really love the 360° globe.

 

[amirm]

First class job on presentation.....

 

[Liberal Democracy]

@amirm don't scramble about in panic and try and copy this guy , remember how that worked out last time ...,

 

[bogart]

@amirm don't scramble about in panic and try and copy this guy , remember how that worked out last time ...,
View attachment 68872

....Savage.

 

[amirm]

@amirm don't scramble about in panic and try and copy this guy , remember how that worked out last time ...,
View attachment 68872

Maybe I should get in drywall business and show you how it is done!

 

[Liberal Democracy]

"Maybe I should get in the audio player business and show you how it is done!"

Said Amirm to Steve Jobs ..

 

[Ricardojoa]

Really great job.

It seems the low frequencies from 180hz and down differ from armir ones. I believe the new buchardt graph shows a flatter low end than what their previously showned as well, though not as flat as armir’s ones.

 

[BDWoody]

I wrapped up my review of the S400 last night and posted it to my site. Here's the link:
https://www.erinsaudiocorner.com/loudspeakers/buchardt_audio_s400_bookshelf/


I know this has been tested by Amir already. I even posted this link to that thread. But I put in a lot of time to write this review and really hate to see it get lost in the shuffle, buried in another thread, so I am splitting this off in to a new post. If that's wrong then Thomas or Amir can scold me for it and banish me for eternity... or just delete the thread. Whichever makes more sense.


One thing I have done differently from what I've seen is my polar spectrograms. We typically see spectrograms for a speaker "linearized" in to a rectangular shape. I was thinking, it would be neat to actually represent the data the way it comes from the speaker; in a 360° manner. Or occasionally we will see a polar plot with a single line representing a frequency, maybe with a few lines to represent multiple frequencies overlaid. But nothing that is really intuitive. So, I created these new polar plots for horizontal and vertical spl mapping of the speaker's radiation pattern both vertically and horizontally. Two versions of each. One is absolute output and the other is relative to the 0 degree axis. Not sure if anyone here will appreciate it as much as I am proud of it. And I'm sure someone will have something to say about how they prefer a different color or whatever... but dangit, I'm proud and I'm leaving it as is because it looks good to me. I think it's a better way of viewing the data. Some may not prefer it. But that's why I've offered the standard versions as well. Anyway, make sure to use the legend in the top left to get your bearings on the speaker direction relative to the radiation pattern.

Here are some highlights.

Nicely done...much appreciated.

 

[hardisj]

@hardisj - truly outstanding graphical output from your work. I love the polar plots in 'real' space - definitely think it's a superior representation. As well, the little choices add up - line widths, image resolution, and everything combine for really great readability. I can tell a lot of thought and refinement went into this work. Awesome.

Thanks, man. I definitely put in a whole lot of time on the graphics so I appreciate that they are well received.

 

[hardisj]

@amirm don't scramble about in panic and try and copy this guy , remember how that worked out last time ...,
View attachment 68872

 

[Jon AA]

Excellent review Erin. It sets a high bar for all reviewers.

 

[edechamps]

@hardisj - truly outstanding graphical output from your work. I love the polar plots in 'real' space - definitely think it's a superior representation.

It's definitely an interesting and novel way of looking at the off-axis response. I like the fact that it shows the "real" direction the sound is travelling towards, as opposed to a polar map which is "squished". The main problem I see with it is that the "distance" axis is frequency, which is… weird and not very intuitive. But then again, it's kinda nice that the plot naturally provides larger angular resolution as frequency increases (moving away from the center), since that's exactly what you'd want to visualize a typical speaker (sound field becomes more complex as frequency increases). Nice work!

 

[Soundstage]

Enjoyed the review! Very well done and very instructive for the newbies like me.

 

[hardisj]

Excellent review Erin. It sets a high bar for all reviewers.

Thank you for the kind words.