Andrew Jones and Chris Walker now with ELAC

[felipe]

I found some thing interesting about AJ new Elac towers. At first, the specs indicated that they were rated at 87db sensitivity, 250hz/3000hz xover points. Now, the rated sensitivity is at 85db and 100hz/3000hz. Wonder why the change??

 

[MrRedwoodGuy]

Hi MrRedwoodGuy. I believe you will be pleased with the Pioneer bookies . I owned them in the past and I was not dissapointed...especially for the price you pay. I since then got the tower version of these along with the center channel.

I'd watch out of the sub tho...heard some had QC issues with those (humming noise and such).

Hey thanks. They will be here tomorrow (saturday). I can't wait to hear them. I bought on Amazon, so I am not worried about QC. They take returns effortlessly. I bought the sub because I like the idea of the same designer doing both. I don't need massive bass. Just a nice extension from the speaker will be fine.

 

[MrRedwoodGuy]

My speakers arrived a few hours ago. I love the simplicity of the whole affair. The carton is not a monster to wrestle into the house. The speakers are out and connected in two minutes. They are quite elegant. In not a fan of black speakers, but if they must be black these are nice. The rounded shape is what you get in speakers costing two grand, not $125!

My subwoofer won't be here till Monday, so this is just the two speakers now. Driving them with a Yamaha M4.

Eve Cassidy and Chuck Brown - "The Other Side". Chuck and Eva's vocals trade back and forth, and both have the right tone. The piano sounds wonderful and lively. There's a slight deficit on the deepest bass lines, as expected, but in the upper bass there is nice pop. The sub should fill this in nicely. There's a nice tightness and coherence to the sound. Happy camper so far.

Now, I wonder what the sound might be like with two pairs?

Sent from my SM-T330NU using Tapatalk

 

[Topken]

So far the Debut line has been getting great reviews such as this one for example

http://www.cnet.com/products/elac-debut-f5/

 

[felipe]

Thanks for the link to the review Topken. I found it interesting that as far as timbre-matching, the Debut system wasn't really "seemless". I figured that with using the same drivers would yield that. Hmmm....

 

[afterlife2]

Cnet Review Of The Towers: http://www.cnet.com/products/elac-debut-f5/

 

[afterlife2]

Cnet B6 Review: http://www.cnet.com/products/elac-debut-b6/

 

[NumberTwo]

Received B5's Monday, taken a few days to listen. So far very impressed handles anything with aplomb from Beethoven's 9th to the Clash. Comparing to Rogers Export Monitors (1970's Brit) and they hold their own. For a small bookshelf I have not heard any better. Waiting on the next evolution from Elac America as I will need to replace the export monitors at some point, needs a little more warmth which I'm sure will come down the road.

 

[KEW]

From the B6 review:

When you wrap your knuckles on the cabinet it sounds hollow. We'd prefer a more solid feeling cabinet, but we really can't "knock" the Debut B6 for that -- no other speaker in its price class feels more solidly built, and we heard no adverse affects from the lively cabinet.

Seriously Guttenberg?
What about the Pioneer BS-21's you reviewed 4 years ago ???
Oh, that is right, they are in a lower price class!
Jeesh!

I'm remembering why I quit reading cnet reviews!

 

[NumberTwo]

Previously been using FLAC sources through an ARCAM rDAC, 96/24 and 44.1/16. Vinyl is great, playing Division Bell 20th Aniv. sounds amazing.

 

[Adam]

I'll be getting a pair of F5s to audition, and I'm really looking forward to it. I'll definitely post a review here once I've had a chance to try them out.

 

[zieglj01]

I'll be getting a pair of F5s to audition, and I'm really looking forward to it. I'll definitely post a review here once I've had a chance to try them out.

That is some news - I will have to check back in for this.

 

[KEW]

I was going to review ELAC B5's against AA Monitors. The ELACs were very disappointing, I was starting to convince myself that I liked the BS-22's better! After messing with them, I discovered that one of the speakers is wired out of phase internally.
Reversing the leads helped, but I'm thinking the woofer is not wired in phase with the tweeter on the defective speaker.

EDIT! - The enemy is me! Brain-fart of some sort - I had the speaker wires reversed and somehow overlooked it when I double-checked the connections.

 

[Dennis Murphy]

I was going to review ELAC B5's against AA Monitors. The ELACs were very disappointing, I was starting to convince myself that I liked the BS-22's better! After messing with them, I discovered that one of the speakers is wired out of phase internally.
Reversing the leads helped, but I'm thinking the woofer is not wired in phase with the tweeter on the defective speaker.

This is kind of strange. I worked with over 100 of the Pioneer BS22's, which had serious quality control issues. But I never encountered one that was wired out of phase. Tweeters and woofers generally have different sized tabs for positive and negative inputs, and this should prevent any miswiring at the factory. So that leaves the input terminals on the back. If one of the speakers had reversed wiring, that would throw both the woofer and tweeter into reverse phase. The simplest way to check phase is to place the speakers face-to-face about 1" apart and to move the receiver's balance control slowly from left to right playing music with lots of bass content. If the sound in general, and the bass in particular, is loudest with the control in the center position, then the speakers are in phase with each other. If the sound is loudest with the control to the left or right, they they're out of phase.

 

[KEW]

This is kind of strange. I worked with over 100 of the Pioneer BS22's, which had serious quality control issues. But I never encountered one that was wired out of phase. Tweeters and woofers generally have different sized tabs for positive and negative inputs, and this should prevent any miswiring at the factory. So that leaves the input terminals on the back. If one of the speakers had reversed wiring, that would throw both the woofer and tweeter into reverse phase. The simplest way to check phase is to place the speakers face-to-face about 1" apart and to move the receiver's balance control slowly from left to right playing music with lots of bass content. If the sound in general, and the bass in particular, is loudest with the control in the center position, then the speakers are in phase with each other. If the sound is loudest with the control to the left or right, they they're out of phase.

The enemy is me! Brain-fart of some sort - I had the speaker wires reversed and somehow overlooked it when I double-checked the connections after determining they were out of phase.

I had the terminal plates off and saw that they were both connected the same going into the XO before I checked my connections a third time and saw the issue!

 

[noaudiophile]

I finished my review of the B5's over at noaudiophile.com. I thought they did pretty good, and are the only living room class speaker I've tested that can do it's job well without a subwoofer.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

I finished my review of the B5's over at noaudiophile.com. I thought they did pretty good, and are the only living room class speaker I've tested that can do it's job well without a subwoofer.

Ha, great review Andrew. I just looked up this thread to post link to your review which is here btw:
http://noaudiophile.com/ELAC_B5/

 

[KEW]

I finished my review of the B5's over at noaudiophile.com. I thought they did pretty good, and are the only living room class speaker I've tested that can do it's job well without a subwoofer.

Yes! Great review!

 

[Adam]

Agreed, nice review!

I got one of my F5s on Wednesday and got it set up (the other will arrive sometime, but I don't yet know when). I haven't done any "critical" listening, yet, but I did place it next to my front right NHT and swapped the speaker connection over to the F5. I fully expected a noticeable change in sound from that area, just because I didn't expect the NHT and F5 to be tonally matched. Honestly, it's hard for me to tell that I swapped anything. I didn't even rerun the Pioneer's setup - just swapped the speakers. Given how much I like my NHTs, I was impressed that the F5 blended right in. I do expect it to have better bass because the NHTs are bookshelves, but the F5 is set to "small" and sitting in front of my PC13-Ultra...so I haven't really checked that out. I'm waiting for a complete pair before I sit down and really listen to them.

I honestly expected to be underwhelmed by the "black vinyl" finish, but I'm actually very impressed. They did a fantastic job, IMO, and it looks great. In my mind, I was thinking of "black ash," which is not what these look like. They aren't polished like my NHTs, but that's not a bad thing with a speaker this large where dust and fingerprints can get all over them.

One other thing is that the height of the F5 is almost perfectly lined up with the height of my NHT 1.5 sitting on the matching NHT stand, and they are also just about the same width. While not everyone would find the F5s such a perfect match to their existing speakers, these physically fit into my system just great.

 

[KEW]

I honestly expected to be underwhelmed by the "black vinyl" finish, but I'm actually very impressed. They did a fantastic job, IMO, and it looks great. In my mind, I was thinking of "black ash," which is not what these look like.

To me, they look more like brushed aluminum (black, of course) than any type of woodgrain; and I agree, it is a good looking finish.