To recap, the only thing incroyable about Buchardt's plain-spoken propaganda is its 33Hz-3dB spec. Having played deliberately bass-heavy extended stuff at stout volumes whilst watching the mid/woofer sans grill close up and personal to check on its behaviour, I can vouch that it's not a speck of the imagination. Obviously, the bigger your space, the more amplifier backup you want as eventually, you'd be at cross purposes relative to listening distance, sound loss over distance, general cubic volume and attainable output.


In your average 3 x 4 or 4 x 5m room however, a sub should be redundant for most people and purposes. In a bigger room using a proper amp, you'd need a serious 20Hz capable sub like our $5'000 Zu Submission to make much meaningful difference on reach. Despite big-boy antics, this ported alignment did not behave bloated or otherwise grotesque. With amps of properly low output impedance, bass damping was spot on. This also didn't set off the room like some rear-vented boxes will do in sorry fashion. There very clearly was significant design DNA aboard this seemingly ordinary box. Intelligence inside would be the sticker on it.


No bling. No frills. No unobtainium. No curves. No facets. No chrome decal. No Beryllium. No diamond. No Kevlar. No carbon fibre. No AMT. No dimpled stainless port. No brand name. No cachet. No nothing that might set it apart from the competition which crams the compact 2-way sector like canned sardines. That's why the intro called this Buchardt from properly named Danish owner Mads a nobody. Having listened to it now, my extro must add no pretense and no bullshit. Like Clint Eastwood's iconic man of no name, the s300Mk2 is the enigmatic strong silent type with the deathly aim. If it's truly mature unpretentious performance you want—that's code for linear, honest and unmarred by cheap tricks—the s300MkII is the overachiever its people claim.


It's like a mid-size Skoda. Owned by the group who build the VW and Audi cars, Skoda is their runt of the litter. But beneath the lacquered facade and various trim levels and featurization excess, that brand shares hardware platforms, engines and parts with the Volkswagen mothership. The smart money not worried over drive-up curb appeal understands the math behind the game. And a lot of that factors here as well. On perception we'd simply go down another tier or two below Skoda; to Soda or Sod perhaps. It's once we take it for our first long drive that things get really interesting.


Buchardt's Model s200 at the Warsaw show 2016

One expects that this recipe's success comes from crafty xover chops. It's clearly not boutique parts or a fancy box. Then it must be the sheer quality of its SB Acoustics drivers. To enhance the design's selectivity of resolving power would probably hinge on far costlier cabinet construction and build materials such as exploited by previously reviewed über monitors from Mark & Daniel (Maximus Monitor MkII) and EnigmAcoustics (Mythology M1), at four and ten times the cost respectively. And it might need one of their twin-tweeter arrays.


On bandwidth meanwhile, only the Maximus from Shanghai would have anything useful on the Buchardt which already cracks the 40Hz barrier of small monitors when used in a standard room. It's brilliant value then, for punters who shop beyond the glossy brochures and mainstream brands on the High Street. It could also be a top pick for the small studio recordist/mixologist who needs linearity and broad bandwidth on a realistic budget and wants to master on something a consumer would actually use for playback.


Either way, it's a happy find which maximizes our performance dollar by applying it very strategically to sonically determinant things, not fashion fluff for appearance's sake. That makes it a loudspeaker for normal people - a Volkslautsprecher if it were German but I have no idea how proper Danes would put it. Hamlet's question on whether to believe or not is thus answered. And like other Danish precedents from speakers to furniture, there's something straightforward and honest about the S300MkII. Those often aren't the brief demo convincer qualities where televisions are set to maximum brightness and contrast. To fully appreciate the S300MkII's more seasoned maturity will require a bit more maturity on the listener's part as well. Don't look for short-wearing razzle dazzle but go for the long-distance virtues of a bottom-up sound that prioritizes tonal fullness and dynamic certainty over pixilated detail and neon treble flicker. The Buchardt is mellower and far more natural and real for it.


Sometimes really good things come in unassuming packages. This is one of those. Mate these boxes to a Clones Audio 25iRH remote-controlled gainclone integrated and one sticks to a consistent theme and approach, of three good things that go together well. Or pick a Wyred4Sound mINT to add an onboard DAC plus headfi; or a Goldmund Job INT. Either way, you'd have yourself a high-value simple system that won't make apologies on quality sound. In times of economic hardship for many, such honest value discoveries are far more gratifying than stumbling upon yet another trophy proposition for the one-percenters. Accounting for hifi's crazy pricing, today's review should hopefully be relevant to a larger audience than that.
 

Buchardt Audio website