AA MONITOR on left, ELAC B5 on right. Between the aluminum trim rings (I don’t know if they are Al or plastic with Al finish. Either way, they look nice) and the brushed aluminum (my name for it) vinyl, the ELAC is designed to be a pretty classy looking speaker! The AA’s are clearly utilitarian (though solid) looking speakers in comparison.
Unfortunately both of my ELAC’s revealed poor tolerances/assembly where the trim rings (which is actually one piece) was proud of the baffle between the drivers, but recessed above the tweeter and below the mid/woofer, as shown below. It is slight, but in today’s CAD/CAM/CNC manufacturing world, and with stable materials like mdf, plastic, and aluminum, there is no reasonable explanation. These speakers were ordered from Amazon on October 23, 2015 so were among the earlier production runs, but definitely not pre-production samples.
Did I somehow get a fluke pair? If you have B5’s, let us know how your’s look. It would be good to know that ELAC fixed this!
The ELAC B5 has received a tremendous amount of press generating plenty of buzz on the audio forums. On the heels of the Andrew Jones budget Pioneers, which arguably represented one of the best values in low-budget speakers. With a 1” soft dome tweeter mounted in a waveguide, a 5-1/4” mid/woofer, and a rear firing port; the ELAC B5 cost $229.99 including shipping from Amazon. It measures 12-3/4”x7-7/8”x8-3/4” (HxWxD) and weighs 11.5 pounds.
http://elac.us/speakers/
The AA MONITOR is essentially a Dayton Audio kit which has benefited from a crossover redesign by Dennis Murphy (this is a new and improved mod, not the old one posted on the Murphyblaster website). The kit (BR-1) runs $180 from Parts Express and uses a 6.5" mid-woof and 1-1/8" silk dome tweeter with a rear port. Dennis Murphy builds the crossover (with new parts), and assembles the speakers. Murphy’s offerings have been great bargains because he is not trying to capture typical profit margins or grow a business. The cost before shipping is $195, Fedex shipping to GA was $25 for a total of $220 (but shipping cost will vary depending on you location). 14-1/4" x 8-5/8" x 11" and about 22 pounds each.
http://philharmonicaudio.com/aa.html
Listening session.
Norah Jones - Don't Know Why (Come Away with Me)
Norah's voice is a favorite proving ground for sound reproduction. She has lots of nuances such as subtly lilting and bending notes with a soft vibrato. The ability to produce these details is a good litmus test for speakers.
The B5 did a very good job of imaging, locating her voice more precisely than the AA Monitor.
Norah’s voice is more relaxed and open on the AA Monitors. With the B5’s, her voice sounded narrower with a hint of strain. I also noticed that the B5’s high frequencies fell-off below the highest harmonics/breath of her voice.
Ed Palermo - Take Your Clothes Off When You Dance (Album of the same title)
There is a lot going on in most Big Band Jazz ensembles! I play Baritone Sax in a big band, so know these sounds.
This piece has a drum-set lead-in which revealed the most dramatic difference between these two speakers. The AA’s sounded pretty good, but on the B5’s, the snare (springs against the drum skin) was muted, while the drum hit sounded strong. You could tell it was a snare, but it sounded too much like the snare lever was not engaged. After listening through the rest of my audition CD, I would guess the “bass” note of the drum was over-emphasized while the comparative suppression of higher frequencies kept the snare from being balanced.
The Alto Sax solo sounded as if it was father back in a hall with worse acoustics on the B5.
The Trombone solo sounded as if the player had his hand partially over the bell. Certainly nothing like a full cup mute, but definitely a little veiled. On the AA’s and my better speakers this is a properly bold and even brash solo!
This song really sank any hopes I had that the B5 would be an exceptional product. The above comments are about individual sounds, but more telling was the overall impression of the performance. A Big Band is a powerful ensemble; full of energy. This song opens with high dynamics and a quick hard-driving pace with accented attacks on every note and the B5 just did not carry that excitement into my room. Compared to the AA Monitor, I can only find the word “dull” to describe the sound. To double check things, I bumped the volume on the B5’s up 1dB so they were clearly louder than the AA’s and, while this helped them, the AA’s still carried more excitement!
Pink Floyd – Time (Dark Side of the Moon)
I like this piece because in the first few minutes it presents a variety of sounds.
The first seconds of the piece is white noise. Usually, this doesn’t get my attention because any differences are minor and it is pretty quick before the clock mechanisms start to gain attention. However, with these two speakers, I heard a distinct difference. The B5’s were stronger in bass and sounded more distant. I really had not noticed white noise having a “distance” before, but there it was! I think the distance/presence issue goes back to the B5 tweeters not having as much extension.
At 8s, for the clockwork (preceding the alarms), the speakers were tied, with both showing good detail.
At 19s, when the alarms/chimes fire off, the AA’s had a clear advantage. It simply has more high frequency extension which translates into more realistic and present sounds for bells and chimes.
At 54s, chords are presented using sustained bass and guitar for the lower notes of the chord with light electric piano playing higher notes to fill out the chords. The B5’s placed more emphasis on the mid bass, which gave a good strong character to those notes; however, the AA’s provided deeper bass, resulting in a more solid/grounded nature to those notes, and better shared the stage with the electric piano.
Again, the B5’s were dull. I noted for the vocals that the attacks at the start of hard constants were much softer on the B5’s and at 6 minutes into it, the snare was subject to the same effect as in the previous Ed Palermo piece. Overall, crispness was lost and the sound was dull.
Yes - Heart of the Sunrise (Fragile - Master Series)
The intro to this song is hard driving with bass and drums carrying the song. As with the Ed Palermo piece the energy was mostly lost on the B5’s.
At 3:25, the air in Jon Anderson’s voice was missing from the B5’s.
At 4:10, there is a soft section which is mostly a duet between Squire’s bass and Anderson’s vocals. I though the B5 might have an advantage here because it presents strong mid-bass. While this mid-bass was indeed strong, the B5 did not reproduce the metal string edginess which is Squires signature sound (and a major reason I have this song on my audition CD).
At the end of this song, there is an abrupt snippet of “We Have Heaven” (recording on the same album). While I have never understood the musical decision to include this, it made clear that the AA’s were better at resolving multiple voices.
Steely Dan - I Got the News (Aja)
At this point, things are starting to get redundant. My notes say the B5’s were “closed, thin, and veiled”. The vocals were more distant and lacking high frequencies (which translated as openness). The snare and cymbals sounded dull.
Chet Atkins – Sunrise (Stay Tuned)
At 57s, the triangle gets lost with the B5’s making it very clear that the ELAC tweeter just lacked extension.
I can say that the bass throughout this song sounded rich and lush on the B5’s, but it is at the expense of the overall balance with the guitar work.
Emilie-Claire Barlow – C’est Si Bon (the very thought of you)
Again, most of what I might say would be redundant. At this point, I am looking for something new or a very clear demonstration of a difference.
At 2s the alto sax lead-in has a grace note. The AA’s solidify it, but it is more of a ghost note on the B5. The difference is pretty strong.
I don’t know if it has to do with transient response or if this information is carried in the higher frequencies. Either way – the advantage goes to AA Monitors.
Lyle Lovett - She's No Lady (Pontiac)
I consider Lyle Lovett the male equivalent of Norah Jones. His voice has so much richness, often carrying a playfulness in its nuanced details. I was a bit surprised at how much of the character of his voice was lost on the B5’s.
At 1:36, there is a piano trill that presents the same loss of detail as noted with the sax grace notes in the Emilie-Claire Barlow piece above. The B5 has a hard time with quick notes. The percussive attacks are muted. I’d guess this ties back to the loss of excitement except on softer pieces.
Conclusion.
In a word, I found the ELAC B5 “disappointing”. Maybe it was all of the professional reviews that were not just positive, but full of superlatives and my expectations were too high, but I found the ELAC’s to fall behind the AA’s in about every situation and found very little to recommend the ELAC’s on!
Most notably, the ELAC’s lagged in presence and excitement
Don’t misunderstand, the ELAC’s are not horrible speakers, but while I found the WaveCrest HVL-1’s to occasionally sound better than the AA’s (to my ears), this essentially never happened with the ELAC’s.
I went into this comparison expecting (and hoping for) greatness from the ELAC B5’s. I expected them to be match or better or at least be fair competition for the AA Monitors. Perhaps to lag in one area and excel in another, but I never expected them to fall short across the board as they have to my ear. In my opinion, the hype behind these speakers is not warranted.
Competition.
In the same price range, I compared the AA Monitor to the WaveCrest HVL-1(link below, post #3). The AA’s were more accurate and clearly a better speaker (by any normal standards) and better value; however, unlike the B5's, I could find specific places in music where the HVL-1 sounded better than the AA's.
http://forums.audioholics.com/forums/threads/new-2015-affordable-accuracy-speakers-by-dennis-murphy.95661/#post-1092558
