Live Review Wireless Speakers – Buchardt – System Audio – Devialet – KAD

Intro

We wanted to start this year nicely. And we estimate that we have succeeded with that in the form of a Live Stream with wireless speakers. Four top-notch speakers that show and prove that wireless audio performs excellently nowadays. Partly thanks to advanced wifi techniques and / or Wisa. In this livestream we have listened to the KAD K7 floorstander, Devialet Phantom I 108, Buchardt A500 and the System Audio 5.2 Silverback.

You can watch the live stream of January 9, 2022 in its entirety on our YouTube channel. We have also put the video in this article for your convenience. Just like the lossless samples. In short: we try to paint a complete picture of these systems.

The setup

We always build the stage / set and tune the systems the Friday before the stream. This is to grant ourselves the time to position the speakers properly and to make sure everything works before we go live. There is no time for that on Sunday.

The installation of these active systems turned out to be surprisingly easy. We did not encounter any problems with any of the systems. Remarkable, because with passive systems it really varies a lot.

Ernest from KAD Audio placed the speaker himself. His system is built around a D’appolito configuration. He opts for more toe-in to get a wider sweet spot. Note that tweeter height with a D’appolito system is crucial. We sat on the high side, but fortunately far enough from the speaker that it didn’t really bother us. The KAD K7 comes with a Primare i15 that also has Wisa integrated.

Devialet is a coaxial system – in the front is the tweeter with the midrange around it – with two woofers on the sides. This speaker is also quite easy to place. We immediately hear a large stereo image and no woolly bass at all. Partly thanks to the enormous power of the Phantom, they can quite easily be placed further from the wall without losing power. The Phantom works via Wifi. We installed an additional access point to keep things easy and stable.

We can put the Buchardt and System Audio in the same place, which is nice. The Buchardt especially has a different character in the bass area because it is a closed system. By the way, both work with the same hub (Platin). Both speakers have the tweeter at ear level after placement.

Music and extra ears!

We have Yung and Marnie Baumer as musicians this time. Yung plays the piano and Marnie Baumer provides the vocals. The genre …. something completely different… musical! Right: Broadway musical! You can find all the tracks from the stream here:

Download the lossless recordings of Yung and Marnie

We also have Martijn in the chair this time. “The man in the green shirt”… Martijn ten Napel has been writing about classical music for a while now and can often be found on the chat at livestreams. We thought it was high time to have him with us “live” for once. And we honestly thought it was a very valuable addition. Yung was busy with the piano, your author is on the chat a lot to answer questions…. in short: a few extra, concentrated ears is good.

Let’s get to the four participants!