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Buchardt S400 Speaker Review

hardisj

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I finally completed my own spins of this speaker and am sharing the data below. For those comparing with Amir's data one thing to note is that Amir used the tweeter as his reference angle. I used the midpoint between tweeter and woofer (per the manufacturer's direction) for the reference angle.

Buchardt S400 Horizontal FR.png


Buchardt S400 Horizontal FR Normalized.png


Buchardt S400 Horizontal Spectrogram_Full.png



Buchardt S400 Horizontal Spectrogram_zoom.png


Buchardt S400 Vertical FR.png



Buchardt S400 Vertical FR Normalized.png




Buchardt S400 Vertical Spectrogram_Full.png



Buchardt S400 Vertical Spectrogram_zoom.png


Buchardt S400 SPIN.png


Buchardt S400 Early Reflections Breakout.png


Buchardt S400 Predicted vs Target.png
 
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hardisj

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Forgot to include this comparison with the grille off (how all measurements were taken) vs with the grille on. Note: "Grille" is 2 separate pieces; both pieces were used to cover tweeter and midwoofer. As you can see, you probably want to keep the grille off. Personally, I think it looks better with the grille off anyway.

Buchardt S400 Grille On vs Grille Off.png
 
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Chromatischism

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Thank you, Erin!

The floor bounce is clearly visible here - I think if we tried to soak that up with some thick rugs the speaker would sound slightly brighter and less laid back in the 2-3 kHz region. In other words, the floor bounce with its 2.4 kHz droop would contribute less to the overall sound and the in-room response would look more like a straight line. This makes it easy to "tune" the sound to your liking.

I guess people with carpeted floors are already hearing this.

It would also be great if we could figure out what the heck that 500-525 Hz resonance is and the following dip. Is this a sample variation?

The measurements confirm what I hear from my pair: unlike a lot of other speakers, the higher frequencies don't seem to "roll off", but instead are "shelved", like the HF shelf switch on many active studio monitor speakers. This leads to them sounding so neutral rather than developing a humpback off-axis.

Definitely leave the covers off. They look a lot better naked :D
 

q3cpma

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Forgot to include this comparison with the grille off (how all measurements were taken) vs with the grille on. Note: "Grille" is 2 separate pieces; both pieces were used to cover tweeter and midwoofer. As you can see, you probably want to keep the grille off. Personally, I think it looks better with the grille off anyway.

View attachment 67595
Wow, rarely seen an effect that massive. Can't find any photo of the grills, do you have one?
 

ezra_s

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Wow, rarely seen an effect that massive. Can't find any photo of the grills, do you have one?

The grills have quite a thick ring, maybe thats why?
 

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Dennis Murphy

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The grills have quite a thick ring, maybe thats why?

The on-axis diffraction effects are exacerbated by the circular shape of the grill frame. Every distance is the same from the acoustic center, so depending on frequency you will get very large reinforcements and cancellations from the reflections. If you measured at different angles off axis, those peaks and dips should move to different frequencies and tend to cancel each other out. That's why Toole maintains grill diffraction effects aren't really audible, and I've confirmed that to my satisfaction with some blind grill-on, grill- off tests with my BMR.
 

hardisj

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The on-axis diffraction effects are exacerbated by the circular shape of the grill frame. Every distance is the same from the acoustic center, so depending on frequency you will get very large reinforcements and cancellations from the reflections. If you measured at different angles off axis, those peaks and dips should move to different frequencies and tend to cancel each other out. That's why Toole maintains grill diffraction effects aren't really audible, and I've confirmed that to my satisfaction with some blind grill-on, grill- off tests with my BMR.


I did measure at 90 degrees but didn't post the results.
 

DDF

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That's why Toole maintains grill diffraction effects aren't really audible, and I've confirmed that to my satisfaction with some blind grill-on, grill- off tests with my BMR.

I found the same and it really becomes apparent during the voicing stage. For example (you know this of course): its usually not a great idea to go for laser flat on axis because edge diffraction bumps and dips usually move around even just a bit off axis. The classic oopsy is fully equalizing a 2-way woofer's on axis peak/dip from edge diffraction. Good example of the difference attached. Distance from the baffle moves this around a bit as well
 

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hardisj

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And I assume the peaks and dips were at different places? I have a long post on AVS with measurements of my BMR at various angles with the grill on, and those confirmed Toole's thinking.

This is the far-field data which hasn't been post-processed. So use it only for comparison purposes. But, from this, you can see the 90° grille on vs off are more opposite than they are alike above about 4kHz. Below 4kHz they follow the same trends. At 90° the comb filtering has more severe dips/peaks (fluctuating 12-14dB from ~ 4-9kHz).

Buchardt S400 Grille On vs Grille Off @ 90deg.png


Buchardt S400 Grille On vs Grille Off @ 0 & 90deg.png
 

goldenears

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amirm, what are the reference tracks you use to test speakers?

I saw the funniest youtube video the other day with some audiofools demonstrating what was claimed to be a $1,000,000 audio system. It was a whole bunch of ridiculous woo woo technology - and they were demonstrating this amazing system using some ridiculous accordion music from a reel to reel tape player!!

Hopefully you're not doing the same... :)

Video is at
 

Daverz

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demonstrating this amazing system using some ridiculous accordion music from a reel to reel tape player!!

Hopefully you're not doing the same... :)

Only the finest MQA recordings of The Happy Wanderers.

 

Kw6

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I hope you get to review the Audio note AN-E/LX. They are a bit more expensive but some say it's one of the top 10 musical speakers in the world regardless of price! I maybe ordering them but Stereophile measured one in 2006 and measurements were ok. Main gripe was woofer cross to high. Any owners here?
 

Kw6

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Very interesting and eye (ear?) opening review. Thanks once more Amir. I was expecting a more glowing review from these as they've become very popular lately. You see them all over the place on YouTube with very high recommendations. Of course all those reviews are purely subjective, which is what sets ASR apart from the crowd all too eager to give high passing grades in order to cash in.

I never rely on YouTube reviews. Unless they can show what they hear with measurements like what is done here!
 

hardisj

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copying/pasting from my site thread:

FINALLY!!!!! I have finally completed my review of the Buchardt S400. I have spent countless hours on this, as you probably know by me posting my progress of everything over the last couple months.

https://www.erinsaudiocorner.com/loudspeakers/buchardt_audio_s400_bookshelf/

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.

I plan to make a video review but that's gonna be a bit. I need a break. For now, this written review will have to do.

I hope you guys get as much out of this as I have put in to it. I need a friggin' break now...
 
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ezra_s

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copying/pasting from my site thread:

FINALLY!!!!! I have finally completed my review of the Buchardt S400. I have spent countless hours on this, as you probably know by me posting my progress of everything over the last couple months.

https://www.erinsaudiocorner.com/loudspeakers/buchardt_audio_s400_bookshelf/

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.

I plan to make a video review but that's gonna be a bit. I need a break. For now, this written review will have to do.

I hope you guys get as much out of this as I have put in to it. I need a friggin' break now...

Amazing job!! You certainly took your time. I always wondered about EQ to this speaker, you say it is simple but I see lots of ups and downs, so not sure what you did to EQ.

Can you share the EQ you did or is it just valid for your room?
 
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hardisj

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Amazing job!! You certainly took your time. I always wondered about EQ to this speaker, you say it is simple but I see lots of ups and downs, so I don't know what you did.

Can you share the EQ you did or is it just valid for your room?

Thanks.

The EQ was completed with Dirac Live and was used more for room correction than speaker correction. But I believe even a simple parametric EQ will resolve the bumped high end; you could try it with the fo = 9khz, gain = -2.5dB, Q = 1.5. That's just a guess from looking at the data... but I think that will get you in the ballpark for taming the top end.
 
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ezra_s

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Thanks.

The EQ was completed with Dirac Live and was used more for room correction than speaker correction. But I believe even a simple parametric EQ will resolve the bumped high end; you could try it with the fo = 9khz, gain = -2.5dB, Q = 1.5. That's just a guess from looking at the data... but I think that will get you in the ballpark for taming the top end.

Well, I followed your suggestion and also looking at the graph and my preferecens went like this:

1. 50hz +5db (Experimenting, ignore) Q 1.0 Will probably have to tame it a great bit-- used bass/treble setting to adjust in RME ADI-2 dac this one to leave more parametric points available.
2. 120hz +3.0db Q2.5
3. 400hz -4.0db Q3.3
4. 850hz +4.0db Q3.5
5. 3.6khz - not touched but available to adjust.
6. 9khz -2.5db Q1.5 (as per your suggestion, looking good)
7. I still have the treble setting available to adjust another band here if needed (RME ADI-2 DAC rules!)

First impression is highs sound as good not as pointing at loud volumes and lower end is quite punchy, in some songs perhaps too much. I am quite optimist when I do changes but I usually refine over time.... I'll leave this here for others to check or give suggestions, or who knows...may be even helpful for someone.

Edit2: When I got the sub, adjusted all EQ FLAT, aside from lowering default treble in my RME to -0.5. Sub is at about 100hz and volume adjusted to dissapear, the sound is just better than ever. So that's it for me. Happy now.
 
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Billy Budapest

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copying/pasting from my site thread:

FINALLY!!!!! I have finally completed my review of the Buchardt S400. I have spent countless hours on this, as you probably know by me posting my progress of everything over the last couple months.

https://www.erinsaudiocorner.com/loudspeakers/buchardt_audio_s400_bookshelf/

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.

I plan to make a video review but that's gonna be a bit. I need a break. For now, this written review will have to do.

I hope you guys get as much out of this as I have put in to it. I need a friggin' break now...
Great, comprehensive review/analysis.
 
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