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Buchardt E50

A bit about how we do some of our listening tests

With our setup in our listening room, we could swap between these crossover designs within 5 seconds. When conducting subjective A/B tests, the time between the comparisons is crucial to keep as short as possible! The tested designs were done in DSP, but constructed like you would do a passive crossover. This is to exclude any variations of crossover components and their tonal signature, all that come much later in the process when choosing individual components.

We were usually multiple people in the listening room, but only one knew what crossover design was used. People were placed differently in the room, with seats swapped, so all could experience the changes from different listening positions. There were multiple tests conducted over many days, both with single and multiple persons present, all varying in experience.

The surprising result and final measurements.

The result of the test was very surprising! There was a big contrast between the 4. orders designs and the 1. order design, with the 1. order design being everyone's favorite by a very significant amount. The general description of why it was preferred, were summed up to it being much more relaxed and easy going, without a big notice of changes in tonality. It was not considered “warmer” sounding, it just felt more natural and less constrained.

We did not expect the result, but decided to go with our subjective preferences. And over the next 8 months, we worked on multiple adjustments to find a crossover design and components selection that tonally, brought out what we wanted to achieve with the E50. We ended with a design using a 1st order filter on the Purifi woofer, only using one component in the signal path, being the Jantzen Crosscoil Foil inductor. For the tweeter, the end result was a 3. order filter. This crossover design has an easy impedance load of minimum 4.9ohm at 160hz, so the E50 does qualify as an 6 ohm speaker.

We did not expect the result, but decided to go with our subjective preferences. And over the next 8 months, we worked on multiple adjustments to find a crossover design and components selection that tonally, brought out what we wanted to achieve with the E50. We ended with a design using a 1st order filter on the Purifi woofer, only using one component in the signal path, being the Jantzen Crosscoil Foil inductor. For the tweeter, the end result was a 3. order filter. This crossover design has an easy impedance load of minimum 4.9ohm at 160hz, so the E50 does qualify as an 6 ohm speaker.

Final words.

Objectively, the E50 won't win any gold medals. But it's hands down the best subjectively sounding speaker we have done to date, and we feel it is worth the compromises to the objective performance. But don’t take our word for it, take a listen, and form your own opinion about its sound! We are super proud of the end result, and we hope you have enjoyed this insight in the process and our thoughts behind the E50 speakers.

Enjoy!
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"Objectively, the E50 won't win any gold medals. But it's hands down the best subjectively sounding speaker we have done to date"

The vertical directivity plots with the low order crossover filter remind me a bit of B&Ws which sound I personally know and has its own character which can sound impressively with some music, but in the end is a sound effect generator.

1743243865934.png

Everyone must decide what her likes most and for music end products consumers it doesn't matter which, what I find worrying though is their statement that its their best sounding design ever, with this logic why bother also with the waveguide and other measurements and they bring themselves into competition with companies like B&W which have optimized their sound effect generators for decades.
 
I would also like to add that I don't think that their low order crossover preference was a direct result of it but rather of the different resulting on and off axis responses, thus direct sound, directivity, early reflections and sound power.

Would have been interesting to see also the similar full measurement set of the high order candidate but I am quite pessimistic that we will never see it.
 
Speakers tend to still have the omni lower frequencies. Maybe some people liked the balancing out of frequencies or they gravitate to "details".

Of course, there are other similar Purifi speakers, so should we really be making what is functionally going to be so similar the only reason you would choose it is for looks?

March Audio Sointuva AWG
AsciLabs A6B and whatever the all Purifi is called
Radiant Clarity 6.2
Buchardt's own A10 or a500 SE (admittedly sold out now)
 
If I had build a speaker with such a response, I would stop at such a point and have an intensive listening test. There is no need to get any speaker flat to the last decibel. If the drivers used are of high quality and distortion is low, even an uncovered window in a listening room may bend a response more than the dips the Buchard has on this high resolution plot.
It is a good example that any passive speaker is a compromise between too many passive parts sucking the life out of the sound and a ruler flat response.
In reality it may be a very well sounding speaker. The high price is what a western made luxury item costs to manufacture with a reasonable profit, environmental standards, social security and taxes paid. If you don't like that, you got to DIYS your speakers or buy Chinese.
Don't judge it without having a real listening experience first.
 
One thing that is rarely mentioned is the difficulty to truly blind test speakers to remove cognitive bias for an experienced designer and listener.

If you know what's inside the crossover and how they behave, you would be able to identify the more linear/non linear speaker by ear even if you have an ABX switcher device. And since you can identify what you hear by ear, you're not removing cognitive bias.
 
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the odd order (electrical) passive woofer low pass filters have no shiny cap across the woofer and the woofer looks straight into an indoctor. this raises the high frequency load impedance of the woofer and this reduces the magnetic hysteresis distortion. Could be at play here when comparing 1-st and 4th order filters.
 
This whole approach kind of highlights the gravitas that ASR and Klippel scans now hold in the industry. Interesting that going with a subjectively preferred voicing warrants an entire write-up on the product's website to establish that it's a deliberate deviation from neutrality, not a design shortcoming. I think it would be fun to take a listen to the different crossovers in action.
 
ksulliva01 said:
This whole approach kind of highlights the gravitas that ASR and Klippel scans now hold in the industry. Interesting that going with a subjectively preferred voicing warrants an entire write-up on the product's website to establish that it's a deliberate deviation from neutrality, not a design shortcoming. I think it would be fun to take a listen to the different crossovers in action.
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I hope the active version will allow us to switch between. I made this comment https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/buchardt-e50.57192/post-2266408 both out of genuine reaction, but also for fun. I was really keen on this speaker, it looks amazing and it's generally what I want in a speaker. My thinking is, why go through all of this effort, only to use a single coil on the woofer. Like yes, the chassis are good and they can take it. But really, you are custom machining the waveguide for the tweeter, you did all of this development effort, and then you put a single coil on the woofer?

Maybe it is better indeed, but for the price I will not buy it like this. If I could switch between sounded and supposedly "perfect" crossover it would be more attractive for me.
 
digitalfrost said:
I hope the active version will allow us to switch between. I made this comment https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/buchardt-e50.57192/post-2266408 both out of genuine reaction, but also for fun. I was really keen on this speaker, it looks amazing and it's generally what I want in a speaker. My thinking is, why go through all of this effort, only to use a single coil on the woofer. Like yes, the chassis are good and they can take it. But really, you are custom machining the waveguide for the tweeter, you did all of this development effort, and then you put a single coil on the woofer?

Maybe it is better indeed, but for the price I will not buy it like this. If I could switch between sounded and supposedly "perfect" crossover it would be more attractive for me.
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The answer always is "we think there's a market for it".
 
Any news here? I ordered the e50. Seems to be a small delay as stated on their website. Hopefully they will ship in May.

Really looking forward to let them play here.
 
Balboa said:
Any news here? I ordered the e50. Seems to be a small delay as stated on their website. Hopefully they will ship in May.

Really looking forward to let them play here.
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And? How are they?
 
The E50's replaced my Aurum Cantus Volla speakers. Liked the Volla's a lot and had them for +/-15 years. The wooden box of the E50's is a real part of craftmanship. It has been said before, but placement of instruments and soundstage is realy good. And you can listen to them on low volumes too without making the sound small. They are smaller than de Volla's and at first I thought they would be to small to produce a better sound. But I was wrong...... The E50's are a real upgrade (luckely)
 
Erin reviews the speaker. So, another well made speaker with a "house sound." Some may like the house sound, some may not. I don't like the idea of intentionally scooping out the upper midrange personally. They are great looking and made with high quality parts, value for $ is subjective. Maybe they'd respond well to some EQ to smooth out that upper mid scoop? Other then that, measures well:

 
I rather not put an equalizer between the source and the amp. If you want flat sounding speakers, why pay $4000-$5000 for speakers with dips and bumps?
 
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