▶ Buchardt A500

This is the official thread for the Buchardt A500

This thread is for discussion and reviews.

  • Type: Bookshelf
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:red_circle: Buchardt Link

[Reviews]

Z Reviews…

For those who love the Buchardt S300 and S400 passive speakers, Buchardt is now taking pre-orders on their new A500 active speakers and accompanying sound hub, scheduled for release this summer…

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interesting looking speakers. bloody expensive!

also, is that a sub or what on the backside?

It’s actually a driver on the back…

“WHY DRIVERS ON THE BACK OF THE SPEAKER?

During our research for the A500 and A700, we have tried a lot of different configurations, to obtain the performance we wanted. In the end, we ended up placing some drivers on the backside of the speakers. This has two purposes, from which only one of them is obvious. The obvious reason is that we want to have as much cone area as possible to be able to extent the bass-reproduction as much as possible with as little distortion as possible. The second reason is, that we use the rear drivers with a specially developed algorithm to perfectly align them with the remaining front-firing drivers, without causing any spatial problems to the acoustic dispersion. This allows us to use rear wall reflection to extend our sound image even further than traditional loudspeakers. The result from this is a larger and more precise sound image than you can achieve with traditional front-firing speakers.”

More details here:

https://www.buchardtaudio.com/a500-detailed-description

Zeos does a very informative episode on the passive version of these speakers. They seem awesome.

Seems like my prediction is coming to light, little by little.
More and more these type of active speakers with DSP and room correction will be coming to market. D-amps getting cheaper and smaller. Made this few years ago.
Easy integration without amps and so on. Maybe with wireless features.

For the speakers.
Maybe could have gone without the screws being visible? Getting little Amphion vibes from the look. For a pair? Price might not be that bad, lot of tech also.

I think it will be you’re right, but I can see in the future :crystal_ball: the cable Luddite’s and vinyl massive having close affiliations lol.

Interested but on the expensive side… I’m dying to here the Swan M3A / M5A and wonder how they would stack up. Swan will be 50% of the price of the Buchs.

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Can’t wait for the M5A reviews. Interested to see if these beat LS50W’s…

bumpage… did anyone here pre-order the a500’s? They are schedule for delivery next month and I’m anxious to hear reviews/opinions/feedback.

Mads also finally released the A700 active floor standard info/pricing as well. Boy they are pretty but also a pretty penny.

Would not order something that pricey without home testing / pre-hearing it in store. :slight_smile:
Anyways, waiting for feedback and hoping they are coming to local stores.

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I sometimes just i hate people going too much in detail. That now means you.
Let me re-type.
“hoping they are coming to local stores. So there is no need to pay and test the product and pay extra for the actual return”.

Yes. I did know they send them for testing. Just don’t want to pay for testing / returning.
We have multiple of high-end products in this country so it just waiting game until few pop-up. Then it’s just road trip away.
Bad and cranky mood… sorry.

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I probably won’t have a dealer near me with these so I’ve been considering the same program.

I didn’t read your replies as being cranky at all, but I know the feeling! These are difficult days.

:+1:Keep on keepin’ on, brother!!

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I’m thinking about saving up for the A500 or A700. Looks like the currency conversion puts the A700 about $3k more than the A500. Pros and cons? Main reasoning is I would like more of a setup and forget system. I enjoy my Wharfedales and Rythmiks, but the constant tweaking to integrate them perfectly is annoying. And I really don’t want to go down the measurement mic road. Tax refund don’t fail me now!

This is so true. It ain’t a problem at first but after the honeymoon or maybe even after few years, you really start notice things. Things are not as you would like them to be.

Even with good B&W speakers and SVS Ultra sub, it was ok and some might say very good and over the top lowend bass but still… they were not fully integrated. It was not perfect, more like good.

Specially after (quadruplet budget rise) everything really is fully integrated and perfectly balanced.
Now you really can look back and remember. Things were not good back then but now, they are.
Some measuring and tweaking was needed at first but now haven’t touched anything in months, sub level maybe from amp for movies.

I’ve heard from multiple reviewers that they have that typical class d sound and are not very good with tone and timbre.
I hope buchardt will not only focus on active speakers in the future.

Seems like all the reviews I have seen enjoy them.

for normal people and normal audiophiles they are everything you could want, but people who value timbre and realistic respresentation of tone should look for something different afaik

Gotcha, appreciate the viewpoint.