• WANTED: Happy members who like to discuss audio and other topics related to our interest. Desire to learn and share knowledge of science required. There are many reviews of audio hardware and expert members to help answer your questions. Click here to have your audio equipment measured for free!

Buchardt Audio S400

617

Major Contributor
Forum Donor
Joined
Mar 18, 2019
Messages
2,398
Likes
5,277
Location
Somerville, MA
As for the cost breakdown provided by 617, its correct that the drivers cost is far from the asking price of the speakers. But its an very unfair breakdown of what expenses a manufacturer have to a product. But i would completely agree that going DIY will give you a higher value in terms of parts cost for sure! :)

But to boil down years of development/engineering, tooling costs (waveguide, packeging, custom tweeter). Labor cost of assembly, test and inspections. Support, shipping cost and warranty for 10 years. These are things that usually is forgotten when doing a cost breakdown.

My cost breakdown was not intended to show that your speakers offer poor value! Developing a waveguide and associated system is serious work and despite the low cost, the drivers you use are absolutely superb. I can't even begin to imagine how much it would cost to do the marketing, shipping, keeping parts on hand for repairs, support, etc. I think the price you ask is extremely reasonable for a product which looks beautiful and is offered with detailed measurements.

Products like yours are actually an inspiration for me as a DIY enthusiast since it is a design which is both traditional and modern - it's a simple passive box speaker, but the specific design choices (small tweeter, passive radiator, large woofer) are distinctive and show forward thinking.

Have you considered offering a 2.5 way TMM speaker? It seems like a simple extension of your existing work, and two sb17 woofers can create serious bass.
 

Mads Buchardt

Member
Audio Company
Joined
May 10, 2019
Messages
43
Likes
467
My cost breakdown was not intended to show that your speakers offer poor value! Developing a waveguide and associated system is serious work and despite the low cost, the drivers you use are absolutely superb. I can't even begin to imagine how much it would cost to do the marketing, shipping, keeping parts on hand for repairs, support, etc. I think the price you ask is extremely reasonable for a product which looks beautiful and is offered with detailed measurements.

Products like yours are actually an inspiration for me as a DIY enthusiast since it is a design which is both traditional and modern - it's a simple passive box speaker, but the specific design choices (small tweeter, passive radiator, large woofer) are distinctive and show forward thinking.

Have you considered offering a 2.5 way TMM speaker? It seems like a simple extension of your existing work, and two sb17 woofers can create serious bass.

It was not like I read it as an attack or anything :) We are pretty clear under the description of the S400 that its a very cheap tweeter we use. Its an 19mm dome tweeter, its pretty simple to manufacturer such tweeter at next to no cost. But that do no meant that its bad. We even had the beryllium Satori tweeter in the lineup for this task, this cheap 19mm just performed way better for the application we needed in this case :) Our waveguide is an casted thick aluminium one, the tooling for making this cast mold was freaking expensive! But we wanted this waveguide/tweeter design to be used in a lot of products in the future, so that should make up for that expense in the end hopefully. And we are also applying for a patent for that specific design as well.

As for the products we are working on at the moment. We have two new active speakers up next. A short description on them :

S400A : Its close to the design of the S400 and then no really. It looks like it with the waveguide on top now (we can do time alignment in the DSP here). The cabinet is a bit deeper (4 centimeters). The big change is that we here use closed cabinets. We have one woofer on the front, and one on the back over the active system. Each woofer in its own cabinet inside so we can time aligned the back woofer. They dont have much space to work with so we need a ton of power for them. Here we have 3 x 150 w of some brand new class d chips from Texas Instruments and a powerfull power supply. And high quality DSP and the CS4398 DAC in each speaker as well. They can be connected via WISA to our hub and remote. Or any WISA receiver for that matter. Or you can simply connect them via XLR to your own pre amp and run them. But using our hub, you will also have the ability to use our Room correction, witch is a topic by it self. But in short, its made directly to handle the issues in the bass coursed by the room (sub 250hz) and it touches nothing else! I really cant emphasize enough how mind great this actually works, and its very easy to setup as well and measure your room.

S700A floorstander : All the same jazz, just with 4 x 150 w amps and a 3.5 way design instead of an 2.5 way. This will have waveguide, 6" midrange 4 x 2 x 6" woofers (17-200hz) and on the back 2 x 6" woofers (17-100hz). Still pretty elegant and compact design, but with a ton of power! I will attach some measurements from our 3. prototype (wasting now for the final prototype to get finished).

We are also working on two new passive in a new Performance series scheduled for 2020 :

P400 : basically an cheaper version of S400. Here we will be using the PFC series of SB 6" woofers, AMAZING drivers at an low cost! We will do some changes to them, one of them is an aluminium chassis. Otherwise a cheaper cabinet and much cheaper crossover compared to the S400. But it will be our best value for money product!

P700 Floorstander : 3 way with 6" midrange and 2 x 6" woofer supported by 4 x 6" passive radiators.

Lastly we are also developing an amplifier! This might be a surprise :)

It started because i wanted to bring this fantastic new room correction to our passives as well. So we started the project as an room correction box alone. But getting more in to it, we actually ended up with an integrated design with the room correction in it instead. Tooling cost and approvals to be able to sell them worldwide and all that follows to start the production of this was estimated to cost $86.000!! This was the same cost for an room correction box on its own, so we decided to go with an all in one box (excepts streaming).
 

Attachments

  • 32750617_10155656121837857_3771557434275921920_n.png
    32750617_10155656121837857_3771557434275921920_n.png
    321 KB · Views: 600
  • 32754022_10155656121662857_3158469737743122432_n.png
    32754022_10155656121662857_3158469737743122432_n.png
    1,018.8 KB · Views: 664
  • 32831314_10155656121692857_1543468301080854528_n.png
    32831314_10155656121692857_1543468301080854528_n.png
    736.8 KB · Views: 738
Last edited:

Sancus

Major Contributor
Forum Donor
Joined
Nov 30, 2018
Messages
2,919
Likes
7,606
Location
Canada
S400A : Its close to the design of the S400 and then no really. It looks like it with the waveguide on top now (we can do time alignment in the DSP here).

I was wondering about actives. This lineup sounds really interesting. You probably don't want to disclose pricing yet, but I have to say I'm really interested in these as long as the price is right(<4K USD per pair would be awesome?).

Also, thank you for being one of the relatively few manufacturers disclosing detailed measurements. This is always greatly appreciated, and I personally am planning to try to purchase exclusively from companies that do this in the future.
 

k3nb5t

Member
Forum Donor
Joined
Mar 5, 2019
Messages
39
Likes
64
Location
Atlanta, GA
I was wondering about actives. This lineup sounds really interesting. You probably don't want to disclose pricing yet, but I have to say I'm really interested in these as long as the price is right(<4K USD per pair would be awesome?).

Also, thank you for being one of the relatively few manufacturers disclosing detailed measurements. This is always greatly appreciated, and I personally am planning to try to purchase exclusively from companies that do this in the future.

I second everything in this post :)

However, the S700A has most captured my interest. So far, most actives (outside of near-field) are pricing me out of the market.
 

Cortes

Active Member
Joined
Apr 13, 2019
Messages
291
Likes
354
@Mads,

the active versions look really interesting. I have an 'unpleasant' question. What type of innovations on active monitors can bring a small company like you compared with products from monsters corporations, such as SAM Genelec or Neumann DSP monitors?.

Fantastic to have you here.
 

maty

Major Contributor
Joined
Dec 12, 2017
Messages
4,596
Likes
3,156
Location
Tarragona (Spain)
S400A : ... Each woofer in its own cabinet inside so we can time aligned the back woofer. They dont have much space to work with so we need a ton of power for them. Here we have 3 x 150 w of some brand new class d chips from Texas Instruments and a powerfull power supply. And high quality DSP and the CS4398 DAC in each speaker as well.

They can be connected via WISA to our hub and remote. Or any WISA receiver for that matter. Or you can simply connect them via XLR to your own pre amp and run them....
...

https://www.businesswire.com/news/h...WiSA-Adds-New-Members-Growing-Roster-Includes

https://www.wisaassociation.org/our-technology/


Question:

Why not a class AB amp to the tweeter? Like KEF LS50 wireless and others.
 

Mads Buchardt

Member
Audio Company
Joined
May 10, 2019
Messages
43
Likes
467
I will try to answer as good as I can to you all here.

Glad to hear that the transparency in mesuments are well received. It can be a double edge sword showing stuff like this as there are so many different ways manufactores does it.

As for prices. It's not 100% set in stone. But s400a about 3500 EUR / pair and s700a about 5000 EUR. But note that these prices will be included shipping, tax, import duty and so on. We will change our prices so we only have one price on the website so everyone pays the same no matter where you are in the world. This means that we cover all expenses until they land at our customers door. So here s400 will be 2000 EUR in comparison.

We will also eventually make an P series active line that will be closer to half price. But these are just an idea so no information on this yet.

As for how we can compete with the giants that makes actives as well : The active solution we use is engineered by a Danish team that specializes in active high end speakers. So it's an OEM solution that other companies can use as well. We can specify what we want in this platform like the amps and dacs we use. But some of the most expensive things like approvals, testing, tooling, most engineering have been done and paid for.. So doing it like this is both better as it's possible the best team in the world to do active systems, but best of all, it's way cheaper for us so we can't end up selling the speakers cheaper than our competitors. The drawback is that you would see the same system in other speakers. But as an direct selling company, we would only see way more expensive speakers using these platforms, so it's basically a benefit for us again I would love to be able to mention what brands that are going with this platform as well, you would be surprised!

As for why we use only class d : when done properly, class d is fantastic! These class d chip we use are completely new designs, we are actually waiting now for the production of these chips, so these would most likely be the first products that uses them, they are fantastic for this application!
 
Last edited:

Cortes

Active Member
Joined
Apr 13, 2019
Messages
291
Likes
354
@Mads,

great for letting us know. All looks convincing. I know is very tricky and probably no worth the hassle, but have you considered to make the dac, amp, DSP sections of your actives 'upgradable'?. No company does that as fas as I know, but just asking ;-).

Edit, I can't resit: the room correction will be basic PEQ or include sophisticated FIR?
 

maty

Major Contributor
Joined
Dec 12, 2017
Messages
4,596
Likes
3,156
Location
Tarragona (Spain)
https://www.audioxpress.com/news/te...s-to-solve-smart-home-audio-design-challenges

Finally, the third device is the TAS3251 audio amplifier, focusing on increased sound quality and system reliability. Combining high performance and integration, the TAS3251 is the first integrated digital-input solution to support the highest output power and performance at 2x175 W, all in one single package.

The TAS3251 allows designers to achieve reliable, high-power audio, with up to 96-kHz flexible processing and self-protection features including cycle-by-cycle current limit and DC speaker protection...

-> http://www.ti.com/product/TAS3251

-> -> http://www.ti.com/tool/tida-00874?jktype=design#

[PDF] https://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/tas3251.pdf

7.15 Typical Characteristics pages 17, 28....

a thread: https://www.diyaudio.com/forums/cla...2c-controlled-integrated-dsp-amp-tas3251.html
 

Crane

Active Member
Forum Donor
Joined
Dec 16, 2018
Messages
145
Likes
163
I will try to answer as good as I can to you all here.

Glad to hear that the transparency in mesuments are well received. It can be a double edge sword showing stuff like this as there are so many different ways manufactores does it.

As for prices. It's not 100% set in stone. But s400a about 3500 EUR / pair and s700a about 5000 EUR. But note that these prices will be included shipping, tax, import duty and so on. We will change our prices so we only have one price on the website so everyone pays the same no matter where you are in the world. This means that we cover all expenses until they land at our customers door. So here s400 will be 2000 EUR in comparison.

We will also eventually make an P series active line that will be closer to half price. But these are just an idea so no information on this yet.

As for how we can compete with the giants that makes actives as well : The active solution we use is engineered by a Danish team that specializes in active high end speakers. They where the engineers that made all the Dynaudio actives as well. This platform is close to what you see in the focus XD line, just an newer version. So it's an OEM solution that other companies can use as well. We can specify what we want in this platform like the amps and dacs we use. But some of the most expensive things like approvals, testing, tooling, most engineering have been done and paid for. And we are talking expenses of millions of dollars to develop stuff like this from the bottom. So doing it like this is both better as it's possible the best team in the world to do active systems, but best of all, it's way cheaper for us so we can't end up selling the speakers cheaper than our competitors. The drawback is that you would see the same system in other speakers. But as an direct selling company, we would only see way more expensive speakers using these platforms, so it's basically a benefit for us again I would love to be able to mention what brands that are going with this platform as well, you would be surprised!

As for why we use only class d : when done properly, class d is fantastic! These class d chip we use are completely new designs, we are actually waiting now for the production of these chips, so these would most likely be the first products that uses them, they are fantastic for this application!

Great to have you here with us, it's quite refreshing to see transparency and amazing work. On that note when are you planning on releasing the S400A, it's definitely something worth waiting to see how it turns out based on your previous speakers.
 

617

Major Contributor
Forum Donor
Joined
Mar 18, 2019
Messages
2,398
Likes
5,277
Location
Somerville, MA
Our waveguide is an casted thick aluminium one, the tooling for making this cast mold was freaking expensive! But we wanted this waveguide/tweeter design to be used in a lot of products in the future, so that should make up for that expense in the end hopefully. And we are also applying for a patent for that specific design as well.

I'm curious about this. The 19mm tweeter may work well in the waveguide you developed, at significant expense, but as you make larger and larger speakers, do you have any concern that the 19mm tweeter will be able to keep up with the increased SPL capabilities of a speaker with 2x 17 cm woofers? Will you adjust the crossover point?
 

Sancus

Major Contributor
Forum Donor
Joined
Nov 30, 2018
Messages
2,919
Likes
7,606
Location
Canada
Glad to hear that the transparency in mesuments are well received. It can be a double edge sword showing stuff like this as there are so many different ways manufactores does it.

One thing I'd like to see is vertical contours in addition to horizontal :)

As for prices. It's not 100% set in stone. But s400a about 3500 EUR / pair and s700a about 5000 EUR. But note that these prices will be included shipping, tax, import duty and so on. We will change our prices so we only have one price on the website so everyone pays the same no matter where you are in the world. This means that we cover all expenses until they land at our customers door. So here s400 will be 2000 EUR in comparison.

This sounds great honestly. I note that the dynaudio focus XD 20/30 are much more expensive than this(5000/7500 euros respectively, I believe) and without the shipping/import benefits, so getting a similar electronics platform and possibly even better speakers(I have not seen detailed measurements of the focus XD) at that price seems like a solid value proposition.
 

Ron Texas

Master Contributor
Joined
Jun 10, 2018
Messages
6,005
Likes
8,803
Value wise, my concern with anything made in Europe is high overhead and labor costs. If these were slapped together in Asia, they would cost half as much.
 

Mads Buchardt

Member
Audio Company
Joined
May 10, 2019
Messages
43
Likes
467
@Mads,

great for letting us know. All looks convincing. I know is very tricky and probably no worth the hassle, but have you considered to make the dac, amp, DSP sections of your actives 'upgradable'?. No company does that as fas as I know, but just asking ;-).

Edit, I can't resit: the room correction will be basic PEQ or include sophisticated FIR?

They are upgradable in the sense that its very easy to change the "box" on the back. Its a few screws and you can disconnect it with just one cable. So if we release an new box (more likely when in the future). Its just a simple upgrade. Same goes with our crossovers, we can sent out upgrades or changes that you can load via a USB key on the back. Very easy.

The room correction is super-sophisticated stable IIR, best of all worlds :)
 

Mads Buchardt

Member
Audio Company
Joined
May 10, 2019
Messages
43
Likes
467
Great to have you here with us, it's quite refreshing to see transparency and amazing work. On that note when are you planning on releasing the S400A, it's definitely something worth waiting to see how it turns out based on your previous speakers.
Release is scheduled for late 2019. We are currently working on the design of the feets for the S700A these days, so we are almost done with the design processes.
 

Mads Buchardt

Member
Audio Company
Joined
May 10, 2019
Messages
43
Likes
467
I'm curious about this. The 19mm tweeter may work well in the waveguide you developed, at significant expense, but as you make larger and larger speakers, do you have any concern that the 19mm tweeter will be able to keep up with the increased SPL capabilities of a speaker with 2x 17 cm woofers? Will you adjust the crossover point?
Great topic! For the actives and for larger speakers, we needed a woofer that was a better choice for a higher crossover frequency. Here we are going with papercones 6" that we have no issue to do an crossover at 2.7-3k hz with. Here we can play very very loud with it. We did an prototype with 2 x 12" and 1 x 6" and the tweeter/waveguide, it could play so freaking loud! Its also very important to note that our waveguide design is unusual deep compared to most other waveguides, so the amount of "help" the 19mm gets in the lower frequencies really helps us. The concept was that we get all the benefits of these tiny dome tweeters, without the drawbacks that usually makes them useless as you need to crossover so high. Also to form the waveguide so its matches the contour response of this exact 6" SB cone. This makes the crossover completely seamless witch is also very clear from the measurements. With this deep waveguide and small tweeter, we actually also get rid of egde diffractions from the cabinet as the tweeter "releases" at about 50 degrees off axis. Tons of nice stuff :) But a drawback is that the drivers are far apart so you need at least 1 meters distance for OK driver integration.
 

Mads Buchardt

Member
Audio Company
Joined
May 10, 2019
Messages
43
Likes
467
One thing I'd like to see is vertical contours in addition to horizontal :)



This sounds great honestly. I note that the dynaudio focus XD 20/30 are much more expensive than this(5000/7500 euros respectively, I believe) and without the shipping/import benefits, so getting a similar electronics platform and possibly even better speakers(I have not seen detailed measurements of the focus XD) at that price seems like a solid value proposition.

We will have a vertical contour plot available as well. Here a coaxial driver would do better, also with nearfield. And I was actually pushing the engineers for a coaxial design back when we started. But they convinced me not to do that with all the drawback it brings, they rather wanted to do an waveguide instead. It might be a question on who you ask to what they prefer.

I would say it like this. If the Focus XD are better, then we wont release ours, it should not even be a matter of taste if you AB test them. Using the same engineers, they would be the best team to beat their previous work :)
 

maty

Major Contributor
Joined
Dec 12, 2017
Messages
4,596
Likes
3,156
Location
Tarragona (Spain)
The design of a good/very good coaxial speaker is more complicated and expensive, especially for a small business. It is more logical to focus on the waveguide at this time.

I LOVE my modded coaxial 5.25" speakers. With acoustic instruments sound very good. Coherence?
 

maty

Major Contributor
Joined
Dec 12, 2017
Messages
4,596
Likes
3,156
Location
Tarragona (Spain)
It will be almost a year since Danny Ritchie said he was designing a coaxial (the driver). Maybe you should contact him. http://gr-research.com/
 
Last edited:

Mads Buchardt

Member
Audio Company
Joined
May 10, 2019
Messages
43
Likes
467
Value wise, my concern with anything made in Europe is high overhead and labor costs. If these were slapped together in Asia, they would cost half as much.

Our production is in China actually. Though its a half Danish factory, so its not an cheap factory to manufacture at, but the quality and experience is fantastic there!. Being there and seeing what brands they manufacture for, was an absolutely shock to me! Brands that you would NOT think is made in China is actually made there. The rules of this "made in" are completely broken if you ask me. We could do it as simple as just slap the drivers in the speakers here in Denmark and legally call them "Made in Denmark".

Its sad to see that so many people falsely believe that made in China = cheap crap and bad working conditions. It was true 20 years ago and possibly at some factories still and this is what we hear about in the media. The labor cost there is about 40-50% lower than here in Denmark, but the workers are only charged 4% tax on there income there, where workers here in Denmark are charged 40%.. So its not like its poor people like many think, heck all workers i saw had Iphone X there :)

If you are interested, we actually have both pictures of the production and company along with some more information on our "About" tab in our website. So no hiding here, all about transparency.

For customers that really want speakers to be made in Denmark, we do also offer our Signature editions that also comes with a few other upgrades and differences. Fun fact, these are actually made by me and my brother (this labor cost again in Denmark...) :-D
 
Top Bottom