Sorry for keeping the good people waiting. The speakers were delayed because of the virus, and therefore I have only had the speakers about a week. I thought I'd give them a proper listen before returning my findings on this thread. I need at least one more proper session before I can make any conclusions. Initial impressions are very promising and in some ways quite shocking in terms of sheer frequency response available from such small boxes....
I will leave it there... just for another few days... Stay tuned!
New living space - new listening space
Re: New living space - new listening space
Ok so I have had these for a couple of weeks now, and I think I have a good idea of how they sound.
Putting on the TV as the first source just to confirm they were working and set up correctly (left, and right) paired to the hub (via WISA standard 24/96 wireless) and remote. It all went smoothly and I got a signal from my Sky Q box via optical input. It was already obvious that there was more bass than with my usual 5.1 surround system!
Putting them on my old Atacama stands without spikes and just placed on some mats to save my hardwood floor I was ready for a quick evening listening session. I just placed them where my old speakers were placed, no measuring or tweaking.
Immediately I was hit by a huge sound with lots of detail in a pretty wide soundstage. They are relatively compact and as such do the disappearing act somewhat better than the Focals. I was a happy camper going to bed knowing I still had more better (which is always better, as we know) to look forward to once they were placed with measurements etc.
This should prove to be a misjudgment… The following day I measured out the room and placed them equidistant to walls and with the same distance between speakers as to the listening position. This required me to sit at the end of the (3 seater) couch as opposed to the center of the couch. I pressed play and was met with a confused soundstage that sounded harsh and fatiuqing. I was a bit distraught, to say the least: I found it impossible that the sound could change so much in such a short time. Then it occurred to me to move the speakers back where they were the previous evening. The sound immediately returned to the pleasant sound I had experienced the previous day! I put it down to the proximity to the back wall and the uneven reflections created by not sitting in the centre of my couch... Further experiments have since proven the speakers to be quite sensitive to placement. This could be down to my strange living room with relatively little damping from soft furniture and carpets, and also the fact that I listen along the long side of the room as well as a weird lack of symmetry in the chimney breast placement by the architect of this house... I proceeded to experiment with placement and found that the speakers (in my room) should be no closer together than the distance from the speaker to the listener. I have about 220 cm to each speaker and they are 230 apart. This creates a soundstage where the speakers disappear and the stereo image is wide without losing central content.
The nature of the DSP processing in the speakers make it possible to load different tunings using a USB flash drive. I started out listening to the default tuning. It is a 2.5 way that utilises the backfiring bass woofer enabling the speakers to reach 25hz flat! I am not able to test this claim but suffice to say the bass is dry and deep! So deep that recordings can sound unfamiliar as bass drum impact is suddenly felt where I never felt it before! Buchardt recommended that I tried their nearfield on-axis tuning as it produces even deeper bass (22Hz flat) at the expense of SPL. I loaded it onto an old USB (2.0) drive formatted to FAT32 and followed the instructions on how to install the file into the speakers. Super easy!
This has become my favourite tuning so far and I used this tuning to evaluate the speakers over the next week.
Cueing up my go to test tracks I sat down to have the first proper listen. “You Look Good To Me” is a firm demo favourite at forum meet-ups (yeah, remember them?) and I could hear from the outset that this was a highly resolving speaker system. I was expecting some sort of digital artifact or analytical edge to the system, but this was not the case at all. It sounded very similar to my old system except with greater detail and smooth, flowing toe-tapping presentation I felt was lacking a bit with my Focal/Cary combo.
Next up was another forum fav: “Just A Little Lovin’” by Shelby Lynne. The vocal sounded incredibly real and I was able to hear more detail in the electric piano and guitar than I heard before. It was surprising to hear the speakers sounding so big. No tiny bookshelf sound but a meaty, full sound stage without any hint of tinniness. I always listen to the drum kit on this track and have a good sense of how it should sound. With the A500 the kit sounds amazingly sonorous with a proper body to each part of the kit that belies the diminutive stature of the speakers. This is a feature the A500s have shown consistently over the past week.
I have been feeding them a steady stream of classical music. Vivaldi’s “In Furore giustissimae irae” is particularly favourite and I love the Bondi/Ciofi version with its absolute break-neck speed and amazing dynamics. It is not an easy task for any system to reproduce faithfully. The voice is produced with an excellent amount of body and delicacy in the largo section. Pretty darn amazing!
Ok, time to line up a bit of rock! Neil Young “Out on The Weekend” reveals new acoustic guitar strumming I never heard before and the kick drum deep and dry. I thought it would be fun to try Radiohead “Ok Computer” as it has lots of layers and subtle production tricks. This proved to be a great display of sheer layer and detail from the little Buchardts. I discovered lots of detail in “Paranoid Android” I never heard before! “No Surprises” reveals an ocean of a sound stage to literally bathe in, with each instrument locked in space - delicious!
Now after a week or two, as with any piece of new equipment, the unfortunate but inevitable (insert Meryl Streep meme) DOUBT sets in. Yes, you know it! We all get it: “Hey what was that I heard there? That’s not normal!” and “Is that some sort of digital (brrr) artifact from wireless signals interference I hear there?” you can fill in the blanks for your own playback system (insert turntable-crowd-sweating-memes)... So I went up to my studio and grabbed two 5 metre microphone cables and hooked up the speakers to my Ayre preamp fed by my Chord Hugo DAC. Now I could switch on the fly from Roon between direct (ALSA) streaming from the wireless hub and my Hugo DAC (ALSA) going through Ayre pre to analog inputs on the speakers. I matched up the levels and put on “Just A Little Lovin’” again....
No difference! I would invite anyone to come to my house and get a chance to blind test! If you can consistently guess which is wireless and which is “analog” I’ll buy a beer and a pizza! Of course there shouldn’t be any difference, as all the signal processing is handled inside each speaker. Dual CS4398 DAC chips and quad-core DSP processors deliver the signal to the 3 amplifiers in each speaker and as such an analog source will need to be converted to digital before the DSP processors take over, potentially making the analog a worse choice of source due to “double conversion”...
So to conclude: Is it a product for the audiophile? Will it satisfy the die hard turntable spinners, cartridge tweakers and DIY phonostage/DAC builders? The tube rollers, cable and component swappers? No probably not, as it is essentially an all in one product, where 80 to 90 percent of the signal is handled inside the speakers and as such “locked away” from the perpetual upgrade merry-go-round. This can be an advantage from a few perspectives: 1. It frees up money for upgrading the turntable source and record funds. 2. It frees up space in the living room. 3. The DSP enables greater room optimisation. 4. Ease of use. 5. Low level listening (optimised bass response - this is a great feature when the family is asleep!)
So is the sonic compromise one I can live with? YES! I simply get to listen to more music and to be honest the sonic compromise that I suspected is not there. Does it sound more digital/processed? Not to me. I can hear better definition and separation. These speakers have delicate, sweet mids like electrostatics but with better sound stage and the slam to play rock and depth for electronic music all rolled into one. That’s good enough for me!
Putting on the TV as the first source just to confirm they were working and set up correctly (left, and right) paired to the hub (via WISA standard 24/96 wireless) and remote. It all went smoothly and I got a signal from my Sky Q box via optical input. It was already obvious that there was more bass than with my usual 5.1 surround system!
Putting them on my old Atacama stands without spikes and just placed on some mats to save my hardwood floor I was ready for a quick evening listening session. I just placed them where my old speakers were placed, no measuring or tweaking.
Immediately I was hit by a huge sound with lots of detail in a pretty wide soundstage. They are relatively compact and as such do the disappearing act somewhat better than the Focals. I was a happy camper going to bed knowing I still had more better (which is always better, as we know) to look forward to once they were placed with measurements etc.
This should prove to be a misjudgment… The following day I measured out the room and placed them equidistant to walls and with the same distance between speakers as to the listening position. This required me to sit at the end of the (3 seater) couch as opposed to the center of the couch. I pressed play and was met with a confused soundstage that sounded harsh and fatiuqing. I was a bit distraught, to say the least: I found it impossible that the sound could change so much in such a short time. Then it occurred to me to move the speakers back where they were the previous evening. The sound immediately returned to the pleasant sound I had experienced the previous day! I put it down to the proximity to the back wall and the uneven reflections created by not sitting in the centre of my couch... Further experiments have since proven the speakers to be quite sensitive to placement. This could be down to my strange living room with relatively little damping from soft furniture and carpets, and also the fact that I listen along the long side of the room as well as a weird lack of symmetry in the chimney breast placement by the architect of this house... I proceeded to experiment with placement and found that the speakers (in my room) should be no closer together than the distance from the speaker to the listener. I have about 220 cm to each speaker and they are 230 apart. This creates a soundstage where the speakers disappear and the stereo image is wide without losing central content.
The nature of the DSP processing in the speakers make it possible to load different tunings using a USB flash drive. I started out listening to the default tuning. It is a 2.5 way that utilises the backfiring bass woofer enabling the speakers to reach 25hz flat! I am not able to test this claim but suffice to say the bass is dry and deep! So deep that recordings can sound unfamiliar as bass drum impact is suddenly felt where I never felt it before! Buchardt recommended that I tried their nearfield on-axis tuning as it produces even deeper bass (22Hz flat) at the expense of SPL. I loaded it onto an old USB (2.0) drive formatted to FAT32 and followed the instructions on how to install the file into the speakers. Super easy!
This has become my favourite tuning so far and I used this tuning to evaluate the speakers over the next week.
Cueing up my go to test tracks I sat down to have the first proper listen. “You Look Good To Me” is a firm demo favourite at forum meet-ups (yeah, remember them?) and I could hear from the outset that this was a highly resolving speaker system. I was expecting some sort of digital artifact or analytical edge to the system, but this was not the case at all. It sounded very similar to my old system except with greater detail and smooth, flowing toe-tapping presentation I felt was lacking a bit with my Focal/Cary combo.
Next up was another forum fav: “Just A Little Lovin’” by Shelby Lynne. The vocal sounded incredibly real and I was able to hear more detail in the electric piano and guitar than I heard before. It was surprising to hear the speakers sounding so big. No tiny bookshelf sound but a meaty, full sound stage without any hint of tinniness. I always listen to the drum kit on this track and have a good sense of how it should sound. With the A500 the kit sounds amazingly sonorous with a proper body to each part of the kit that belies the diminutive stature of the speakers. This is a feature the A500s have shown consistently over the past week.
I have been feeding them a steady stream of classical music. Vivaldi’s “In Furore giustissimae irae” is particularly favourite and I love the Bondi/Ciofi version with its absolute break-neck speed and amazing dynamics. It is not an easy task for any system to reproduce faithfully. The voice is produced with an excellent amount of body and delicacy in the largo section. Pretty darn amazing!
Ok, time to line up a bit of rock! Neil Young “Out on The Weekend” reveals new acoustic guitar strumming I never heard before and the kick drum deep and dry. I thought it would be fun to try Radiohead “Ok Computer” as it has lots of layers and subtle production tricks. This proved to be a great display of sheer layer and detail from the little Buchardts. I discovered lots of detail in “Paranoid Android” I never heard before! “No Surprises” reveals an ocean of a sound stage to literally bathe in, with each instrument locked in space - delicious!
Now after a week or two, as with any piece of new equipment, the unfortunate but inevitable (insert Meryl Streep meme) DOUBT sets in. Yes, you know it! We all get it: “Hey what was that I heard there? That’s not normal!” and “Is that some sort of digital (brrr) artifact from wireless signals interference I hear there?” you can fill in the blanks for your own playback system (insert turntable-crowd-sweating-memes)... So I went up to my studio and grabbed two 5 metre microphone cables and hooked up the speakers to my Ayre preamp fed by my Chord Hugo DAC. Now I could switch on the fly from Roon between direct (ALSA) streaming from the wireless hub and my Hugo DAC (ALSA) going through Ayre pre to analog inputs on the speakers. I matched up the levels and put on “Just A Little Lovin’” again....
No difference! I would invite anyone to come to my house and get a chance to blind test! If you can consistently guess which is wireless and which is “analog” I’ll buy a beer and a pizza! Of course there shouldn’t be any difference, as all the signal processing is handled inside each speaker. Dual CS4398 DAC chips and quad-core DSP processors deliver the signal to the 3 amplifiers in each speaker and as such an analog source will need to be converted to digital before the DSP processors take over, potentially making the analog a worse choice of source due to “double conversion”...
So to conclude: Is it a product for the audiophile? Will it satisfy the die hard turntable spinners, cartridge tweakers and DIY phonostage/DAC builders? The tube rollers, cable and component swappers? No probably not, as it is essentially an all in one product, where 80 to 90 percent of the signal is handled inside the speakers and as such “locked away” from the perpetual upgrade merry-go-round. This can be an advantage from a few perspectives: 1. It frees up money for upgrading the turntable source and record funds. 2. It frees up space in the living room. 3. The DSP enables greater room optimisation. 4. Ease of use. 5. Low level listening (optimised bass response - this is a great feature when the family is asleep!)
So is the sonic compromise one I can live with? YES! I simply get to listen to more music and to be honest the sonic compromise that I suspected is not there. Does it sound more digital/processed? Not to me. I can hear better definition and separation. These speakers have delicate, sweet mids like electrostatics but with better sound stage and the slam to play rock and depth for electronic music all rolled into one. That’s good enough for me!
Re: New living space - new listening space
Now THIS is the kind of content I'm here for! Brilliant write-up, Claus, and let's just say my interest is truly piqued.
You've already addressed some of the questions I might have had, but here's the main one: does the mid-range sound "life-like"? Do you get that drug-like feeling of being transported to a venue with real musicians in real space? When you strip away all the hifi credentials, that's the thing I'm always left striving for.
I'm becoming increasingly convinced that this kind of solution offers a lot, and that there is an elegance to engineering around known problems of speakers in small spaces. As you know, I have only compromised listening spaces myself, I don't have the luxury of a really good-sounding room, and while I'd love to aspire to a massive pair of utterly transparent transducers, I know that as size and frequency range increases that often problems only grow. Using DSP to circumvent some of the problems seems like it could/should be an excellent answer, but the proof as always is in the pudding. It sounds like you're in a very happy place, the enthusiasm is clear. Any component upgrade that demands you listen to more music is a good component upgrade.
I can't wait to hear them.
You've already addressed some of the questions I might have had, but here's the main one: does the mid-range sound "life-like"? Do you get that drug-like feeling of being transported to a venue with real musicians in real space? When you strip away all the hifi credentials, that's the thing I'm always left striving for.
I'm becoming increasingly convinced that this kind of solution offers a lot, and that there is an elegance to engineering around known problems of speakers in small spaces. As you know, I have only compromised listening spaces myself, I don't have the luxury of a really good-sounding room, and while I'd love to aspire to a massive pair of utterly transparent transducers, I know that as size and frequency range increases that often problems only grow. Using DSP to circumvent some of the problems seems like it could/should be an excellent answer, but the proof as always is in the pudding. It sounds like you're in a very happy place, the enthusiasm is clear. Any component upgrade that demands you listen to more music is a good component upgrade.
I can't wait to hear them.
Nerdcave: ...is no more! 
Sitting Room: Wadia 581SE - Rega Planar 3/AT VM95ML & SH - Bluesound Node II - Copland CSA 100 - Audioplan Kontrast 3
Kitchen: WiiM Pro - Wadia 151 - B&W 685s2
Sitting Room: Wadia 581SE - Rega Planar 3/AT VM95ML & SH - Bluesound Node II - Copland CSA 100 - Audioplan Kontrast 3
Kitchen: WiiM Pro - Wadia 151 - B&W 685s2
Re: New living space - new listening space
Great writeup Claus!
Zero fidelity just released his review https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pd7bIdN3-b4
And definitely looks like this is a future of Hifi. Wifi, active speakers and class D internal amps have come a long way.
Zero fidelity just released his review https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pd7bIdN3-b4
And definitely looks like this is a future of Hifi. Wifi, active speakers and class D internal amps have come a long way.
♪♫ sound sommelier ♪♫
Pi2AES LPSU > Holo Spring 3 KTE > Music Hall 7.1 > PrimaLuna EVO 300 Hybrid > ATC SCM40
Pi2AES LPSU > Holo Spring 3 KTE > Music Hall 7.1 > PrimaLuna EVO 300 Hybrid > ATC SCM40
Re: New living space - new listening space
That is one fantastic review Claus! A lesson to all on how to do a detailed review full of techie stuff suffused with humour and a sheer love for the music. And, really, that's what it's all about at the end of the day - THE MUSIC. So delighted you're happy 😊
Re: New living space - new listening space
That's a great read Claus.
I don't know about it not satisfying people - in theory at least, active with DSP should give you the best chance of getting best sound in a room, with the option to do room EQ etc. So many rooms are hampered by layout or height there is real gains to be got there. Its just that it seems that its hard to get both great processing and great amplification/speakers in the one package. And yet, its totally common over in the home cinema/dolby world.
I'd love to hear them sometime n the future when all this crap is over. I think we're all missing the odd meet up....
I don't know about it not satisfying people - in theory at least, active with DSP should give you the best chance of getting best sound in a room, with the option to do room EQ etc. So many rooms are hampered by layout or height there is real gains to be got there. Its just that it seems that its hard to get both great processing and great amplification/speakers in the one package. And yet, its totally common over in the home cinema/dolby world.
I'd love to hear them sometime n the future when all this crap is over. I think we're all missing the odd meet up....
Do or do not, there is no try
Re: New living space - new listening space
It is a great write up alright. 🙂
I would love to hear an active speakers which could impress me, so far I haven't heard one, but, there is always a BUT. 🙃
I would love to hear an active speakers which could impress me, so far I haven't heard one, but, there is always a BUT. 🙃
Re: New living space - new listening space
Brilliant write-up Claus, I enjoyed that. The DSP processing ability is interesting. Can it do room correction or is it merely altering the freq response of the speaker to one of a few selected 'profiles'?
"I may skip. I may even warp a little.... But I will never, ever crash. I am your friend for life. " -Vinyl.
Michell Gyrodec SE, Hana ML cart, Parasound JC3 Jr, Stax LR-700, Stax SRM-006ts Energiser, Quad Artera Play+ CDP
Michell Gyrodec SE, Hana ML cart, Parasound JC3 Jr, Stax LR-700, Stax SRM-006ts Energiser, Quad Artera Play+ CDP
Re: New living space - new listening space
Thanks for the kind words everyone.
I was listening to various Tidal opera offerings last night,
This one sounded magical... Highly recommended
Dave: The speakers do offer room measurement. It is done very easily with an app on iPhone.
I have yet to try it, but will report back in due course.👍😉
I was listening to various Tidal opera offerings last night,
This one sounded magical... Highly recommended
Dave: The speakers do offer room measurement. It is done very easily with an app on iPhone.
I have yet to try it, but will report back in due course.👍😉
Re: New living space - new listening space
Yes, Simon I think I do. I get a meaty mid range that is absolutely free from harshness which I think is hard to achieve in most smaller, less dampened rooms I have experienced.... The imaging is incredibly 3D and lifelike. Hope this makes sense. 😀Diapason wrote: ↑Wed Aug 26, 2020 10:29 am You've already addressed some of the questions I might have had, but here's the main one: does the mid-range sound "life-like"? Do you get that drug-like feeling of being transported to a venue with real musicians in real space? When you strip away all the hifi credentials, that's the thing I'm always left striving for.