AVS Forum banner

Buchardt S400’s

41K views 251 replies 43 participants last post by  Soulburner 
#1 ·
There’s a lot of positive buzz, particularly on YouTube regarding these speakers. They are reputed to image very well and have excellent bass response. The demand had been so overwhelming, the company is sold out and no more will be available until June, when last I checked. Does anyone owns these and care to post impressions?
 
#2 ·
Agreed. The price seems decent, too, especially with the discount for pre-ordering and being patient.

I realize most discussion will be about the S400, but should the thread be renamed Buchardt Audio Thread?
 
#4 ·
I own the Mackie MR624s which have a similar "logarithmic" waveguide. The claim is that the computer modeling reduces or eliminates those kinds of problems. Personally, I have no way to verify.
 
#5 ·
I've owned these speakers for the last month or so and could give you some info about them. I'm not a seasoned audiophile, but been running Kef Q300's on a NAD 150 watt integrated with a high end dac, thick cables, sand filled stands, acoustic treatment on the walls, and proper positioning. I care about how my setup sounds, and yes, these speakers really do live up to the hype. The deep waveguide doesn't give it a horn sound like an older klipsch, but it does give them a certain energy others speakers don't seem to have. What they were trying for was for the tweeter to have the same dispersion and off-axis response as the woofer and they seem to have pulled it off very well. These things have a massive soundstage and they recommend pointing them straight forward, but I found the center image to be lacking for watching movies, so I gave them a very slight toe in and it brought everything together perfectly. The thing that surprised me most was how well they sound when I'm in another room and have them turned up. Not only do they fill an entire room with music, but they can fill the next room over as well.
These speakers do like a decent amount of power and can play very loud. The amount of sound that comes from these little speakers is quite impressive. The treble is very neutral and lets you shovel some current to the speakers and not cause fatigue, and the bass is nothing short of amazing. I'm currently in the process of sending back the new svs subwoofer I bought because the crossover only goes down to 50hz and these speakers hit well below that and I couldn't get them to blend properly. I literally had a moment when I thought I had the sub and speakers blended perfectly and the low bass sounding great when I reached back and saw the subwoofer wasn't even on. I've found the distance from a back wall is very important with these speakers having a 5x8" passive radiator on the back. I spent many hours of critical listening getting them the right distance from the wall and found 12" to be the perfect distance.
Word of caution to anyone buying these. The break-in period on these speakers is a very real thing. Easily 100 hour minimum before they truly came together, with a few hours at high volume with bass heavy music to get the woofer and passive radiator flexing. These speakers are 4 ohm, which I think is a good thing considering how they like a lot of power. I tried them on an 80 watt integrated amp and was not very impressed at higher volumes. I'd recommend giving them a minimum of 120 watts to be able to hear them for what they are and I'm already saving up for a PS Audio setup that'll give them 300 watts because my 150 watt NAD integrated taps out before the speakers do.
Anyways, just saw this thread and figured I'd throw my opinion out there for anyone interested. Overall I am very happy with my purchase and cannot thing of anything else for the money I would rather have.
 

Attachments

#19 ·
I have to say that Im one of the few that doesnt like measurements as indication to sound. I have done alot of work to get my system very flat with little ringing and it just sounds blah....rew just showed me what I dont like.
 
#20 ·
Right, but that's in-room. I don't like flat in-room sound, either, and that is true of the majority of listeners. When evaluating speakers, it's the anechoic measurements that need to show flat, smooth response.
 
#26 ·
Have a bone to pick.

Buchardt will charge your card now even if stock isn't expected for months. Wasn't anticipating having a large CC bill this month :mad:

Did you put your order in during the time of the pre-order discount? If you did, then that's the trade off. You're paying up front and waiting in exchange for a discount.


Now if you ordered when their pre-order discount deal was already over, then that's definitely not cool on their part.
 
#59 ·
So I ordered in March with a E200 discount for the "preorder" delay until June. Chose to wait again until September for an additional E200 discount off the cost. About $600CDN off the price.

I'm going to use the cash towards an upgrade in my amplification.

I'm curious to what amplification are you guys giving these? They're hungry for juice that my ****ty old Denon just can't give them.

I was thinking a NAD 758/777, but then realized those things are 3 years old now, is a new line coming?

Same with the Anthems, their receivers are a few years old too.

Then I started wondering about separates. is there any good separates I can get into at a reduced cost that will make these babies sing? What's the forum consensus?

Would love to hear from others receiving theirs in June!
 
#66 ·
So I ordered in March with a E200 discount for the "preorder" delay until June. Chose to wait again until September for an additional E200 discount off the cost. About $600CDN off the price.



I'm going to use the cash towards an upgrade in my amplification.



I'm curious to what amplification are you guys giving these? They're hungry for juice that my ****ty old Denon just can't give them.



I was thinking a NAD 758/777, but then realized those things are 3 years old now, is a new line coming?



Same with the Anthems, their receivers are a few years old too.



Then I started wondering about separates. is there any good separates I can get into at a reduced cost that will make these babies sing? What's the forum consensus?



Would love to hear from others receiving theirs in June!


The amps I used for these were:

Schiit Vidar
Schiit Aegir
Crown XLS1002

They all sounded really good. The Aegir was a surprise since it’s only 40wpc into 4 Ohms. I liked the two Schiit amps best, personally.

This was strictly for two channel music. I didn’t use them for movies.

I may hook them up to my Denon x4400 and see how they sound while I still have them.
 
#61 ·
Which makes you wonder why they said the tweeter they used was better than for this use than the SB Acoustics Satori TW29BN. You would think with that tweeter they could have crossed the tweeter over much lower and flattened the DI rise in the 2k region
Good point; I was thinking the same thing.

In general, it's a curious response with that waveguide. I would expect that to be more typical of speaker w/o a waveguide and a largish mid-woof.

The reviews I've seen have all been very positive, so maybe it's one of those things that are more objectionable to the eye on graph than to the ear in room. I'll be real interested in hearing your impressions, Soulburner, when you get them.
 
#68 ·
#78 · (Edited)
#80 ·
Yes, sure will. Just an FYI you do have to be careful with these on stands. I’m noticing they nudge themselves out of position and have almost fallen off the stands several times from their bass/output. I’ve had many bookshelf speakers on these stands, including the S2 and the Buchardt S300, and have never had this problem. If you’ve seen the Zeos review on YouTube he had the same problem.
 
#82 ·
I’ve probably got 20 hours on my S400s now, and I’m really starting to love these speakers. In the room I have them in, which is fairly lively, they have a really nice tone...perhaps just a tick on the warm side of neutral. Most of the reviews I’ve seen state how big they sound for their size, and that is exactly true. It’s remarkable how dynamic they are for something so small. I’d highly recommend you try them without your subwoofers for awhile.

I don’t think they are the last word on picking up minute detail - without doing a direct A/B with the standard S2, I do think the S2 reproduces subtle breaths, lip smacking, crowd noises, etc., better...which I think makes sense and is probably predictable. But, I’m happily willing to sacrifice that for the dynamics, soundstage, bass and just overall engaging sound the S400 has. I think it’s probably the best I could do in the room I have, and with the requirements I had (within a reasonable $$$ of course)...we’ll see if that changes when the S2-EX is up and running in a couple of weeks (delivery is 8/6).

Last note, compared to the S300...it’s not even close. Mine will be up for sale soon. I’d recommend anyone doing the S300 vs. S400 debate, save up the extra $400-500 and go S400.




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
  • Like
Reactions: BufordTJustice
#84 ·
It wasn't clear from the website if you can buy an individual speaker. Anyone purchased this as a set of 3,5, or 7?
 
#86 ·
Mads is great, so if you email him or message him on Facebook I’m sure you can work something out with him to get the quantity you need.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
  • Like
Reactions: highmr
#88 ·
I don’t think it would be a major issue especially in surround sound use with room correction but, measurements aside, I find aluminum and textile based tweeters to have different tonal qualities and I’m sure you know room correction cannot make different speakers sound the same regardless of their differences so getting as close as possible to begin with is still ideal. But what’s “ideal” anyway?! I’m just being anal[emoji13]


I would just make sure there is a good return policy and/or you can sell it without losing too much money if you don’t like the match
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top