Buchardt · Bookshelf

S400 MK3

Product description
The third generation of the speaker that made Buchardt's name, and a clean-sheet redesign: the only part carried over from the MK2 is the binding posts. The cabinet grows 18% in volume, the passive radiator that defined the first two generations is gone in favour of a rear port with foam plugs, and the woofer is now a 7.5-inch SB Acoustics Satori Egyptian Papyrus — a driver normally seen in high-end DIY builds — with 65.5% more displacement headroom than before. The tweeter is a new 26 mm aluminium dome sitting in the waveguide Buchardt developed for the original S400 back in 2016, using a Klippel Near Field Scanner, which at the time made it the first commercially sold hi-fi speaker designed that way. Crossover at 2.2 kHz on Jantzen Cross-caps and air-core coils only. €2,300 a pair with shipping, tax and import included; Buchardt sells direct and quotes no US price. The 87 dB figure here is the anechoic one — the page also prints 90 dB in-room.

Performance — where it sits in the catalog

BassTrebleSensitivityEasy loadCone area
Bass reachTreble reachSensitivityEasy loadCone area
S40033 Hz20 kHz87 dB4 Ω289 cm²
Median45 Hz25 kHz87 dB6 Ω219 cm²
How to read this chart

Each axis spans the range the 452 bookshelves in the catalog actually cover, so equal distance means equal difference — and for cone area and the two frequencies, which are read as ratios, equal distance means equal ratio. The dashed inner ring is where the scale starts, not zero. Ranked within a class because a bookshelf measured against floorstanders is feeble on every axis for the single reason that it is a bookshelf. Cone area is summed from the drive units — no maker publishes it. Bass and treble reach are quoted to different tolerances and only 56% of the catalog says which, so read those two axes as approximate. The grey outline is the median of this speaker's own class, the 380 passive bookshelves — same type, same side of the active/passive line, which matters because the two halves are not the same product: the median active bookshelf carries 155 cm² of cone against the passive median's 219. Median rather than mean, because a handful of very large cabinets would drag a mean above most of the class it claims to describe.

Units
TypeBookshelf
HiFi ladder position#289 of 452 bookshelf
PowerPassive
Height392 mm
Width198 mm
Depth280 mm
Footprint554 cm²
Space taken21.7 L
Weight8.5 kg
EnclosureBass reflex, rear port
Drivers1× 26 mm tweeter (aluminium dome), 1× 190 mm mid-bass (paper cone)
Crossover frequency2200 Hz
Frequency response33–20000 Hz
Sensitivity87 dB
Impedance4 Ω
Where to buyCheck availability ↗
Manufacturerbuchardtaudio.com ↗
Product pageOpen product page ↗

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