MK2 Active Speaker Upgrade

MK2 Upgrade Kit

For A500, A500SE, A700, A700LE & Anniversary 10

The MK2 Upgrade Kit gives your Buchardt speakers a significant technological upgrade, bringing them up to the latest generation of our amplifier, DSP, connectivity, and room-correction platform.

The kit consists of replacement electronics modules designed for straightforward installation using standard tools. It also includes our RFA19 tweeter, except for upgrades to the A10 and A700 Limited Edition, which already use this tweeter.

A completely new amplifier platform

At the heart of the MK2 upgrade is a new, advanced digital Class-D amplifier platform based on technology from the Dutch company Axign.

The fully digital amplifier uses a MOSFET-based output stage rated at 4 × 250 watts RMS — a total of 1,000 watts per speaker.

Unlike the previous generation, the new architecture integrates the DAC directly into the amplifier stage rather than relying on separate DAC components. This simplifies the signal path, reduces system complexity, and allows the amplifier and digital signal processing to work together more directly.

The new digital topology also delivers significantly improved efficiency, generating less heat for a given output level while achieving lower total harmonic distortion (THD).

To support the increased power and provide greater stability under demanding loads, the amplifier modules are paired with bigger power supply with increased capacity and improved load stability.

Expanded connectivity

The MK2 platform adds wired digital Coaxial input and output, allowing you to create a fully digital wired connection between your speakers. A 6-meter coaxial link cable is included with the upgrade.

WiSA HT wireless connectivity remains available for users with a compatible WiSA transmitter.

The XLR analogue input has also been upgraded with a high-performance ESS analogue-to-digital converter (ADC), ensuring accurate and high-quality conversion of incoming analogue signals before they enter the digital signal chain.

A major DSP upgrade

The MK2 DSP platform is one of the biggest improvements of the new generation. It now operates at 96 kHz / 32-bit in 64bit double precision calculations in Mastertuning designs. The new DSP also give you a wide variatiy of adjustments and features directly in the speakers now. This means you can do the following features which works over all inputs of the speakers : 

- Room correction using an iPhone or the Zen microphone (bought seperatly). 
- User-adjustable PEQ filters
- Adjustable ISO 226:2003 compensation / Low Level Enhancement (LLE)
- High-pass filters
- Delay adjustments
- Standby settings
- Fast wakeup on/off 
- Over the air Mastertuning selection
- System Updates

All of these functions are accessible through the Buchardt App using the speakers' new onboard Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) interface. This Bluetooth is not for music playback.

Room correction can be selected as on/off sepeatly for each input if needed. 

Wireless Mastertuning management

The new MK2 platform also makes managing Mastertunings significantly easier.

Mastertunings can now be loaded and managed wirelessly through the Buchardt App, eliminating the need to connect the speakers via USB for normal Mastertuning changes. USB loading is still supported for those who prefer it.

We have also developed new Mastertunings specifically for the MK2 hardware. The number of predefined tunings may differ from previous generations, but the substantially expanded DSP functionality means you can now modify, and fine-tune many variations yourself directly within the app.

This makes the MK2 platform far more flexible than the previous generation and gives you much greater control over how your speakers perform in your room.

Every MK2 Upgrade Kit comes with a new 2-year warranty. 

In short, the MK2 upgrade should not be seen simply as the next generation of electronics for our active speakers. Instead, it is a higher-end electronics platform, where we have allowed the cost of individual components to increase significantly in order to achieve a genuinely better-sounding and more flexible product.

This naturally makes the MK2 platform more expensive to produce than our current electronics, but it also represents a substantial step up in both performance and functionality.

Improved sound

The new Mastertunings available for all upgrade kits use our latest developments and refinements of our DSP filters. Combined with the improved hardware, this provides a general improvement in sound quality across all kits.With the significantly higher power output and stronger power supply, the biggest sonic improvement is heard during dynamic demands and at high SPLs. It is very clearly audible that the speakers now have a huge amount of headroom. The sound is simply cleaner and less compressed under load.   

For the kits that include the RFA19 tweeter, the uplift in sound quality is even more significant, as this new tweeter performs better than the old tweeters we used in the past. It has been tried and tested on both the A10 and the A700LE for a few years now, and the feedback from customers has been fantastic. You can expect significantly better soundstage performance and detail retrieval in the treble and midrange while retaining similar tonality and without the introduction of any kind of harshness to the sound.