Hey Lula, I never speak out of ignorance. I have not heard the Buchardts, therefore I cannot comment on them. Shawn is a very good reviewer and I respect his opinions. The DI monitors are killer speakers and do something different then other speakers because of Eric's break through design. If you love speed and a sense of aliveness, pure tonality, great transparency, and very extended bass for a stand mount speaker you will love the DI monitors. |
I auditioned the Buchardt S300 two years ago, and I've had the Tekton Impact Monitors for about a month. I have not heard the S400. It's been a long time since I heard the S300, so I can't give you a lot of detail, but the general impression was that they were quite good for the price. The Impact Monitors are twice the price, so they should sound better, but they're really, in my humble opinion, in a completely different league. For all of the reasons that teajay lists above, and more, I am thrilled with these speakers. My speaker search is over, for the forseeable future. If you have the room for the Tektons, I'd say that it's well worth giving them a try. That being said, people seem to be over the moon with the S400, so that speaker may well deserve an audition as well, particularly if space is an issue. Both Mads Buchardt and Eric Alexander and his assistant Karma were a pleasure to do business with. Good luck in your search! |
Thomas and Stereo stated in his review that the S300 and S400 shouldn't even be in the same series as they are so different, the S400 should be W400 for waveguide. I'm sure the op has researched but this would be something a bit different, a rather directional but not "shouty" sound. Also, the rest of the review had a great chart with responses from audiophile friends. Now the trick would be figuring out where he Tekton would fit into that. |
Here's the stereophile vertical response measurement of the Impact Monitor: https://www.stereophile.com/images/718TekIMfig5.jpg Tekton's are way more height sensitive than a normal monitor speaker due to the lobing effect of so many tweeters. You really can’t be more than 5 degrees above or below the tweeter array or you will be outside the sweet spot. Whereas the Buchardt S400 is going to be the complete opposite. With the waveguide it will be much less sensitive to speaker height and will radiate sound in a more uniform fashion on the vertical plane. Here’s the Revel M106’s vertical dispersion which has a similar style of waveguide to the Buchardt S400. You can see it’s much less sensitive to vertical placement. https://www.stereophile.com/images/914Revelfig5.jpg |
