E50-S

Not an upgrade over the E50 but a fork in the road: the S stands for sensitivity. The cabinet is a centimetre wider to take a bigger woofer — a custom 7.5-inch Satori in TeXtreme, the woven carbon fabric Oxeon makes in Sweden — in place of the E50's 6.5-inch Purifi, and the crossover is third-order Butterworth with no resistors in it at all. The trade is explicit and Buchardt states it plainly: less bass (38 Hz against 29) in exchange for four more decibels, which is what turns a speaker that demanded a powerful amplifier into one that will work off a 15-watt tube amp. The midrange comes forward, the treble tuning stays. They also decided not to publish measurements for this one, having published them for the E50 — their words are that it is tuned by ear, carries a deeper BBC dip, and is the less frequency-linear of the two on purpose. €4,300 a pair, shipping and duties included.