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Buchardt S400 Speaker Review

hardisj

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I don't think the FR data is as bad as it's being made to seem. Compare it to the Elac DBR62 which Amir seemed to really adore the sound of (and I quite like it as well):
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...-debut-reference-dbr-62-speaker-review.12232/

1587781090431.png



vs Buchardt S400 (again so you don't have to flip between pages):

1587781126410.png



Objectively speaking, the Buchardt seems to perform better as a whole. Moreso if you look past the high-Q resonance ~520hz.
The crossover integration seems to be better than in the Elac as well. The Buchardt has a higher Q dip while the Elac has a broader Q dip over multiple octaves.

We know Amir likes his bass. I believe he's kind of admitted as much (that's fine; I do, too, but we have to understand our reference). I can't help but wonder if, at least a portion of, his discontentment with the Buchardt is due to the flat bass while the Elac has a lifted bass response like the Revel M16 he also likes:

1587782075317.png





You can also compare against the Revel M16 he mentioned and you'll see the Buchardt again seems to have better linearity. The M16 rolls off above 10khz (possibly a bit lower, as it looks like there's a slight resonance @ 10kHz). That helps the crossover region look better as well. You'll also note the M16 has a +2dB bump with a Q of about 6 - 7 which, I would expect, would be more noticeable than the 520hz Q = 15 +3.5dB bump of the Buchardt.

Again, not trying to be argumentative. Just offering a different perspective on the data at hand.


Also, looking at the DI the dip @ 600hz; could that have anything to do with the PR on the back of the enclosure? Is there some cancellation there?
 
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ROOSKIE

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I think he's referring to the "ALU Passive 145mm" on the bass driver (which does have a voice coil). Maybe it's just to say "for use in a box with a PR not a port" ? Dunno... unless there's a form of active aluminum I'm not aware of. ;)
It is just some sticker or screen to print that was placed there to claim the territory. These are SB acoustics drivers that are white labeled and relabeled for Burchardt. They likely just wanted it to look good in the product shots for promo material.
SB acoustics drivers are great and elsewhere on this site the Burchardt folks are talking about using them and how they are right next to the SB Acoustics folks in Denmark.
That conversation also brought up these pair of DIY kit speakers. I am really curious about them and how they measure. Not sure I want to pull the trigger though... https://www.madisoundspeakerstore.com/speaker-kits/satori-ara-2-way-speaker-kit-pair/
Uses the Satori line and a nice looking pre build enclosure, very easy DIY set.
 

wwenze

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ooooo I've been waiting for this

Is it just me or is the 100Hz lasting quite a while in the CSD plot. Oh wait, it's the scale. In that case the 500Hz actually decays quite quickly.

I dunno about the preference rating and how much the resonance is killing it, but the bass extension is excellent and so is directivity and flat FR. Our room probably have more resonances that adding one or two doesn't matter too much. The price to pay is a weird vertical directivity chart.
 
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simple6

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I don't think the FR data is as bad as it's being made to seem. Compare it to the Elac DBR62 which Amir seemed to really adore the sound of (and I quite like it as well):
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...-debut-reference-dbr-62-speaker-review.12232/

View attachment 60257


vs Buchardt S400 (again so you don't have to flip between pages):

View attachment 60258


Objectively speaking, the Buchardt seems to perform better as a whole. Moreso if you look past the high-Q resonance ~520hz.
The crossover integration seems to be better than in the Elac as well. The Buchardt has a higher Q dip while the Elac has a broader Q dip over multiple octaves.

We know Amir likes his bass. I believe he's kind of admitted as much (that's fine; I do, too, but we have to understand our reference). I can't help but wonder if, at least a portion of, his discontentment with the Buchardt is due to the flat bass while the Elac has a lifted bass response like the Revel M16 he also likes:

View attachment 60260




You can also compare against the Revel M16 he mentioned and you'll see the Buchardt again seems to have better linearity. The M16 rolls off above 10khz (possibly a bit lower, as it looks like there's a slight resonance @ 10kHz). That helps the crossover region look better as well. You'll also note the M16 has a +2dB bump with a Q of about 6 - 7 which, I would expect, would be more noticeable than the 520hz Q = 15 +3.5dB bump of the Buchardt.

Again, not trying to be argumentative. Just offering a different perspective on the data at hand.


Also, looking at the DI the dip @ 600hz; could that have anything to do with the PR on the back of the enclosure? Is there some cancellation there?

Going by the book and focusing primarily at the early reflections curve as a predictor of in-room response the elacs, to me, seem to have a smoother crossover. Not to mention the difference in the price, which make especially the ELACs great value for money. Something else worth noting in this comparison is that the Elacs and the M16 will accept “more naturally” a tilted target curve to boost the lower frequencies for those that EQ below the transition frequency only.

On another topic, I suspect the manufacturer is aware of the limitations of the cabinet driving some Amir’s conclusions, and that is why their signature edition has stiffer cabinet??

they do look stunning though and this has a price too :)
 

Ron Texas

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Hmmm, the Klippel slays all. The preference score isn't bad, but not stellar either. Depending on your taste there is the KEF R3 or JBL HDI-1600 for this price, the Revel M16 for half, or the Elac DBR-62 if you don't mind the cheap vinyl cover. Another great and highly relevant review.
 

ROOSKIE

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Hmmm, this leaves me with two speakers I really want to see tested. The ELAC B6.2 as it relates very closely in design and driver/crossover compliment to the DBR-62 but cost approx 1/2 and the Revel M106. That Performa3 M106 speaker really needs to be observed here. Revels best monitor under 2k. How does that compare with the Burchardt and the KEF R3?
I am thinking about buying a pair of the ELAC B6.2's specifically to test here. (Right now the M106 is out of budget due to affected income for myself and my GF that may last quite awhile & the M106 only comes in glossy finishes which I think look cheap and somewhat outdated. If I am spending nearly 2k I do want them to look good to my tastes. I would take the silver color in the M126be though.)
 
OP
amirm

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Is it just me or is the 100Hz lasting quite a while in the CSD plot.
There is a room mode there as I have not converted them to free-field for this review.
 

Dennis Murphy

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Like everyone else, I've been waiting for this one, particularly since my own reactions to the S400 seemed to differ substantially from owner reviews and professional reviews I've seen. Was it just me and my old school measurements, or were people just hearing what they thought they should hear . Aside from the hi-Q resonance, which I don't have enough resolution to see on my Praxis software, Amir's measurements and general reaction track mine. I haven't singled out the S400 by name in my other posts on various forums due to my (small) presence in the speaker industry. But now that these results are out, I have to say that the S400 did not only fall short given its price--it was also inferior to many speakers I've tested at the budget end of the market. The sound is certainly inoffensive, but it has a dark cast and a lack of lower treble detail that has to be due to the dip in the power response just above the crossover point, and perhaps to some coloration from the wave guide. it's another case of a failed wave guide implementation and tweeter selection. To put this in perspective, the pair of $80/pr DCM TP 160 monitors I had on hand for comparison had a much more open and detailed lower treble and measured better in the crossover region (although bass reach was of course more limited.) They were a little tipped up in the highs, but that took $$2 worth of resistors to fix. With the S400, I wouldn't know where to start.
 
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phoenixdogfan

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If you look at the tear down New Record Day did on Youtube, you'll see a complete absence of internal cabinet bracing. Kinda measures like that, doesn't it?
 

jonfitch

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Hmmm, this leaves me with two speakers I really want to see tested. The ELAC B6.2 as it relates very closely in design and driver/crossover compliment to the DBR-62 but cost approx 1/2 and the Revel M106. That Performa3 M106 speaker really needs to be observed here. Revels best monitor under 2k. How does that compare with the Burchardt and the KEF R3?
I am thinking about buying a pair of the ELAC B6.2's specifically to test here. (Right now the M106 is out of budget due to affected income for myself and my GF that may last quite awhile & the M106 only comes in glossy finishes which I think look cheap and somewhat outdated. If I am spending nearly 2k I do want them to look good to my tastes. I would take the silver color in the M126be though.)

The M105 actually has the best spinorama measurements of any Revel bookshelf I've seen beside the Gem2. The M106 has quite an obvious crossover dip due to the bigger woofer and the same high 2.3k crossover point.

The M126Be is good compromise. It still has a dip in the crossover region but is much, much smaller than the M106 due to the lower 1.7k crossover point while having much better bass than the M105.
 

bigjacko

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How much detail do you want? Hahah. I use the usual quasi-anechoic method and nearfield splicing, largely explained in this Jeff Bagby whitepaper(though I use REW instead). This course helped a lot too. There are flaws with this method, but it's good for a general overview. The biggest flaw is the lack of resolution for the lower half of frequencies, but it can still be pretty informative with some effort and combined with measurements at various distances.

Gear/setup: it's REW with a MiniDSP Umik-1 that's been calibrated by CSL for extra accuract. I put the speaker stand on a turntable/lazy Susan I labelled with various angles. It's important to make sure the rotation axis is aligned with the front baffle of the speaker.

I place the setup on my kitchen island, elevating the speaker about 6 feet. I then measure and repeat for each angle. For vertical, I flip the speaker on its side and repeat, making sure to keep the same reference axis. Flipping the speaker usually yields slight differences, I think reflections from the stand, but not too bad for averaged data.

I then gate the responses at 6.5ms, a little before the first reflection hits in my room. If I import all the measurements into vituixcad, it then automatically generates a spinorama, which i can export back into REW. I then splice the nearfield data as detailed in the Bagby paper for the bass and voilà.
Nice information, thanks for sharing. I was wondering how you could get directivity graph. I want to get directivity measurement on my speaker too but it seems pretty complicated and need to build some stuff for it.

I got another question. There are a lot of different measurements out there and they may not be the same. How do I know which one is correct? or maybe they are all correct but with different condition and slight error of hardwares? You got a different directivity graph compare to what amirm got, which one is more accurate? Thank you very much.
 

Juhazi

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I have never understood the hype with Buchardt speakers. Good yes, but nothing extraordinary. Large passive unit should give nice boost to bass when placed near the wall. But then, for sure it is a resonator with several modes in midbass!
 

pavuol

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This is a review and detailed measurements of the Buchardt S400 2-way stand-mount speaker. It was kindly sent to me by the company for testing. As best as I can tell, it is sold by the company direct and costs €1,800 which translates to US $1,950 as of this writing. https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
Just nitpicking, by the way this is written, it is not clear that the price is for a pair..

Thank you for relentless hard work!
 

stevenswall

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"no bracing and is only using half inch MDF?"

yikes. same build as the c-note....

Yet I swear some here pretend that it doesn't matter, as it becomes part of the whole sound, so if it's flat, it doesn't matter if the cabinet makes noise as long as it fills in a dip or cancels another frequency.
 

napilopez

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I have never understood the hype with Buchardt speakers. Good yes, but nothing extraordinary. Large passive unit should give nice boost to bass when placed near the wall. But then, for sure it is a resonator with several modes in midbass!

While it's always a risk to idolize a product, it doesn't surprise me:
  • They were a speaker from a relative newcomer
  • They come from a small company
  • The speakers have a sleek design
  • They got good impressions/reviews
  • The company posted more measurements than almost any hifi-oriented company,
  • These were mostly very good measurements, capturing the objective crowd too.
  • They're relatively small.
  • And at launch in the US, their sticker price was a bit cheaper than some alternatives too.
 
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