I can see the C Notes and the BT20A being a really good pair, glad to hear your enjoying it. Many of these little amps can certainly surprise a person!

Appreciate the kind words! Just trying to deliver good content with a bit of entertainment sprinkled in.

Thanks! Buchardt’s have been a lot of fun. The CSS Critons is another speaker I would like to build, I have not had them in house to test yet but from what I gather they will have a similar sound profile to Buchardt. Drowning in both subs would be welcomed as well haha.

Thanks for watching! The MKII’s definitely met my expectations which were pretty high after hearing about them for a year.

Noted, the LSiM has always been a good listen, many great qualities but one area they won’t match up is in the bass department, the S400 is tough to compete with there.

I like Arendal as well, my brother recently picked up a set of their towers.

This is open world wide. I appreciate Fosi’s recent direction as well, they have really been looking to improve.

Thanks, enjoy the Sourcepoint 8 I have heard good things on that one as well.

These were great speakers, I wish I still had them in.

Yes, we will not see these in IKEA! Great design on these though, when you add the stands the Scandinavian look comes out even more.

Glad you enjoy it!

Hey just an FYI I finished my notes on the CSS Torii finale today so I plan to film it soon.

Catch you next time, in this case it was the rules of the road to give away two fun amps. I will see what I can do for the next giveaway!

That should be a good combo! As for speaker cables check out Blue Jeans Cables on Amazon, simple, well built and priced really fairly. The Canare 4s11 cable should be all you need.

Thanks!

Yeah, just haven’t had the opportunity so I can’t offer much on this comparison yet.

Couple things to consider, the Buchardt amp is cheaper, especially if you get the discount from a speaker purchase. The audiolab is a fantastic amp but does not have any dsp so you would need to add a mini dsp on top of the purchase price. Basically consider your needs, things like if you have a troublesome room that needs a lot of correction.

Thanks!

Having only used it around a month I can say no issues to date, the dsp functions all worked as expected as well. Possibly some firmware issues were being worked out prior, but that I wouldn’t be able to answer.

@@MattCoykendall1 I’m not sure if I should purchase the Audiolab 9000a or the Buchardt i150 to use with my S400 Mk2 speakers. What should I choose ?

I think a lot of the lower efficiency we see here is a by product of improving the lower frequency response as well. A trade off that I am ok with as these were still reasonable to drive. Thankfully clean wattage is quite easy to come by these days as well, times are good.

@@MattCoykendall1 Good point ... But I do have to wonder how they went about improving the low frequencies via the crossover. That is usually done with cabinet tuning and ports. It is possible to improve the _comparative_ lows by sacrificing highs... it is common that a reduction in the upper midrange is heard as an increase in bass. That would require some serious messing around with notch filters and lpads ... but I suppose it could be done. The thing I've noticed of late is a steady increase in crossover parts counts. One set of 2 way speakers I was asked to work on had upwards of a dozen components in the crossover. By the time I was done I had it down to 5, in a series crossover that really helped that speaker come to life. The one you're showing us in the video has 18. The impression I get is that whoever is doing this design work isn't really up on their electronics skills, is using computer modelling and making the mistake of adding stuff until it works, instead of honing their skills to find the simplest solution. It's kind of like building with legos... just keep adding new bricks until you get what you want, even if it is twice as big as you planned. Back in the good old days it was common to find a coil and maybe a couple of caps ... but those days are long gone. Yes wattage is cheap ... but wasted energy is not.

Great minds think alike right? The SB Acoustics are great drivers.

@@MattCoykendall1 Right, they are quite good, indeed! The 6" paper cone 4 ohm driver that I use (and I think is the one in the S300?) is *extremely* well behaved up at the top of its range. It has a very mild breakup mode that is quite narrow and only ~4dB - it is better than almost any other driver I have seen.

All good, catch you next time.