SVS Prime vs Elac Debut vs Elac Unifi

[Irishman]

I'm exploring the possibility of a modest upgrade in my home theater. I currently have a 5.1 system using (and happy with) the Pioneer Andrew Jones towers and center for the fronts, bookshelves for the backs, with a Monoprice 12" sub. I'm looking at something from the SVS Prime line or the Elac Debut or Unifi lines (obviously I'm considering the Elac because they are also designed by Andrew Jones) I'm curious to know which of the options I'm considering would give me a similarly flat response to the Pioneers, plus maybe some improvements in imaging or faster transients?

I'm currently beginning to read online reviews, but I value the experience of the community here, and I figure someone has heard all of the lines I'm curious about.

Any insight?

 

[agarwalro]

I'm looking at something from the SVS Prime line or the Elac Debut or Unifi lines (obviously I'm considering the Elac because they are also designed by Andrew Jones) I'm curious to know which of the options I'm considering would give me a similarly flat response to the Pioneers, plus maybe some improvements in imaging or faster transients?

Neither of those will give you an appreciable jump in audio quality.

What else do you have in the setup? AV receiver, sources, display, etc.

What's yours budget?

 

[zieglj01]

look at Philharmonic AA -- they are better than what you have
http://www.philharmonicaudio.com/aa.html

http://www.philharmonicaudio.com/aa.html#cc

If budget is tight for a sub --

HSU sub Vtf-1
http://www.hsuresearch.com/products/vtf-1mk3.html

Emotiva BasX S12 sub
http://emotiva.com/product/airmotiv-s12/

 

[KEW]

I felt that the A. Jones Pioneers were a great option for their price point, but was disappointed when I listened to both Debut and Unifi.
I thought the AAs offered better sound quality despite the added cost of the Unifi's!

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

I'm exploring the possibility of a modest upgrade...SVS Prime line or the Elac Debut or Unifi lines...

Save your money and plan for something more significant down the road.

Dream a little.

 

[yepimonfire]

Upgrading the sub first is a good idea. Even a modest upgrade such as the budget priced hsu and svs subs will provide better performance.

The Elac are honestly more of a side grade than an upgrade to the pioneers.

If imaging, accuracy, and extremely fast transient response is most important to you, I would strongly recommend The new Klipsch Reference Premier series. Unlike their
Fatiguingly bright predecessors, they measure quite accurate, and the 90x90 hybrid tractrix horn both projects a massive, highly focused sound stage, both on and off axis due to the well controlled dispersion, and provides good dynamic range and lighting fast transient response.

You could easily demo them at Best Buy and see if they offer what you’re looking for. Unless your room is huge, with a sub, you wouldn’t need towers and could save some money for the sub. Based on your choices in the OP, I’m assuming you’re looking at spending about $800-$1000. A pair of open box RP-150ms on eBay can be had for about $280 shipped, the RP 250c center for $230. In the interest of staying in budget, a pair of R-14ms for the surrounds would pair nicely, and can be had for about $120 on eBay. That leaves about $400 for the sub. Save a bit longer and you could get a VTF 2 or a PB 1000. If you’re not wanting to stick to a budget sub, you could also look at a Dayton Sub 1500 (if you can deal with the big size). It offers much better extension and a ton more output. I get 23hz -3dB in room, and can achieve 105dB from 23hz-40hz and 110dB from 50hz-100hz in my 20’x12’ room at a distance of 3m.




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[everettT]

Upgrading the sub first is a good idea. Even a modest upgrade such as the budget priced hsu and svs subs will provide better performance.

The Elac are honestly more of a side grade than an upgrade to the pioneers.

If imaging, accuracy, and extremely fast transient response is most important to you, I would strongly recommend The new Klipsch Reference Premier series. Unlike their
Fatiguingly bright predecessors, they measure quite accurate, and the 90x90 hybrid tractrix horn both projects a massive, highly focused sound stage, both on and off axis due to the well controlled dispersion, and provides good dynamic range and lighting fast transient response.

You could easily demo them at Best Buy and see if they offer what you’re looking for. Unless your room is huge, with a sub, you wouldn’t need towers and could save some money for the sub. Based on your choices in the OP, I’m assuming you’re looking at spending about $800-$1000. A pair of open box RP-150ms on eBay can be had for about $280 shipped, the RP 250c center for $230. In the interest of staying in budget, a pair of R-14ms for the surrounds would pair nicely, and can be had for about $120 on eBay. That leaves about $400 for the sub. Save a bit longer and you could get a VTF 2 or a PB 1000. If you’re not wanting to stick to a budget sub, you could also look at a Dayton Sub 1500 (if you can deal with the big size). It offers much better extension and a ton more output. I get 23hz -3dB in room, and can achieve 105dB from 23hz-40hz and 110dB from 50hz-100hz in my 20’x12’ room at a distance of 3m.




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That second paragraph seems like a well written Klipsch sponsored ad. Speakers are highly subjective and demoing in best buy doesn't provide much in the way of in room performance. I'd suggest if the OP wants "upgrades" , upgrade then. Lateral moves are just that. Starting with the front 3 , and sub is what's critical. No need to match surrounds as keeping the current ones will work fine. So budget the fronts and sub.

 

[KEW]

You could easily demo them at Best Buy and see if they offer what you’re looking for.

Hearing them in BestBuy is better than nothing, but I would recommend buying and listening to them in your room; because your room will change the sound substantially. BB has a 14 day return policy.

 

[zieglj01]

At Best Buy all one can perceive is potential -- home audition is the key.

 

[Irishman]

Upgrading the sub first is a good idea. Even a modest upgrade such as the budget priced hsu and svs subs will provide better performance.

The Elac are honestly more of a side grade than an upgrade to the pioneers.

If imaging, accuracy, and extremely fast transient response is most important to you, I would strongly recommend The new Klipsch Reference Premier series. Unlike their
Fatiguingly bright predecessors, they measure quite accurate, and the 90x90 hybrid tractrix horn both projects a massive, highly focused sound stage, both on and off axis due to the well controlled dispersion, and provides good dynamic range and lighting fast transient response.

You could easily demo them at Best Buy and see if they offer what you’re looking for. Unless your room is huge, with a sub, you wouldn’t need towers and could save some money for the sub. Based on your choices in the OP, I’m assuming you’re looking at spending about $800-$1000. A pair of open box RP-150ms on eBay can be had for about $280 shipped, the RP 250c center for $230. In the interest of staying in budget, a pair of R-14ms for the surrounds would pair nicely, and can be had for about $120 on eBay. That leaves about $400 for the sub. Save a bit longer and you could get a VTF 2 or a PB 1000. If you’re not wanting to stick to a budget sub, you could also look at a Dayton Sub 1500 (if you can deal with the big size). It offers much better extension and a ton more output. I get 23hz -3dB in room, and can achieve 105dB from 23hz-40hz and 110dB from 50hz-100hz in my 20’x12’ room at a distance of 3m.




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So, speaking of Klipsch, some years ago I fell in love with their Icon W series, but wasn't able to pull the trigger on them before they seemed to disappear from everywhere! They were a great, non-fatiguing loudspeaker which also had a couple of sexy finishes.

Do the new Reference Premier have a similar sound to the W series?

 

[yepimonfire]

That second paragraph seems like a well written Klipsch sponsored ad. Speakers are highly subjective and demoing in best buy doesn't provide much in the way of in room performance. I'd suggest if the OP wants "upgrades" , upgrade then. Lateral moves are just that. Starting with the front 3 , and sub is what's critical. No need to match surrounds as keeping the current ones will work fine. So budget the fronts and sub.

Ha, not trying to make it into an ad, I’m just extremely pleased with their performance. The Reference premier and reference speakers are an exception to “in room” colorations in my experience. They sounded the same to me in Best Buy, the same in my bedroom, the same in my old living room, the same in my current living room, and the same after putting up acoustic treatments (minus the reverb), likely due to the focused pattern of the horn. There’s very little off axis response change below 14khz, so reflected sound should be tonally similar to direct sound, measurements confirm this.

The only difference one might hear in BB is a minor reduction in low frequency extension. The cabinet is tuned to 63hz and anechoically rolls off starting there. With room gain I get about 47hz -3dB.

I think they are worth a giving a good 30 day try, OP asked for “better imaging and transients”, and I can’t think of a speaker in the same price range as his original ideas that can deliver that.

I wouldn’t buy from Best Buy though, you can find open box ones for half price on eBay, and they can easily be sold at the purchase price if OP decides not to keep them.


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[yepimonfire]

So, speaking of Klipsch, some years ago I fell in love with their Icon W series, but wasn't able to pull the trigger on them before they seemed to disappear from everywhere! They were a great, non-fatiguing loudspeaker which also had a couple of sexy finishes.

Do the new Reference Premier have a similar sound to the W series?

Better IMO. The icon horns had much better dispersion than the reference II tractrix horns, but did display some off axis anomalies and a peaky response, in addition, the ceramic coated aluminum woofers used in the premier series are extremely stiff, I believe this is one of the reasons there is an insignificant change in harmonic distortion between 80dB @1m and 105dB at 1m from 50hz on up. There is almost no breakup or flex even at high levels of excursion (within xmax of course).


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[Irishman]

Better IMO. The icon horns had much better dispersion than the reference II tractrix horns, but did display some off axis anomalies and a peaky response, in addition, the ceramic coated aluminum woofers used in the premier series are extremely stiff, I believe this is one of the reasons there is an insignificant change in harmonic distortion between 80dB @1m and 105dB at 1m from 50hz on up. There is almost no breakup or flex even at high levels of excursion (within xmax of course).


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Are you going by measurements only, or have you heard both series?

 

[KEW]

So, speaking of Klipsch, some years ago I fell in love with their Icon W series, but wasn't able to pull the trigger on them before they seemed to disappear from everywhere! They were a great, non-fatiguing loudspeaker which also had a couple of sexy finishes.

Do the new Reference Premier have a similar sound to the W series?

If you know that you like the Klipsch sound, and based on yepimonfire's post, I'd suggest you buy a pair of these and audition them in your home, and see how they compare. Amazon has an easy 30-day return policy.
Understand, of course that you will get better bass with a larger speaker, but these are more manageable (price and weight) and will let you decide if you like the mid high frequency sound of the reference premiere series.
I picked these speakers because of the price - they are well discounted due to being a recently discontinued model.

https://www.amazon.com/Klipsch-RB-51-Black-Bookshelf-Speakers/dp/B0040LG96O/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1506372448&sr=1-1-spons&keywords=klipsch+bookshelf+speakers&psc=1

 

[yepimonfire]

Are you going by measurements only, or have you heard both series?

I’ve heard both. The various iterations of the icon series seemed almost as if Klipsch was “experimenting” with different horn designs in order to achieve better dispersion and a flatter response, eventually settling on a modified 90x90 tractrix in the icon K series. The Reference premier series uses a very similar horn as the icon K series (which is the horn used in the new cheap reference) with a few modifications, such as the conical throat and molded silicone vs plastic. The design is so far removed from any traditional horn curvatures it’s difficult to pinpoint what it’s supposed to be, all I know is it works very well. Klipsch seems to have solved all of the problems inherent with horns, such as brightness, and beaming at high frequencies. The goofy looking flower shaped horn was not without problems. The premier series is a near perfection of the many designs Klipsch has used throughout the years, including trickling down of the same technology used in their cinema series, such as the K402 horn, which was designed for a flat response with constant coverage across the radiation pattern. If you go to the Klipsch website and download the data sheets for any of the cinema series utilizing the k402, you will notice the off axis dispersion and directivity in the above measurements closely resembles that of the k402.

In my opinion, the reference premier almost does everything an ideal speaker should do, a flat frequency response, quick transient response, hair trigger dynamic range, low THD at very high volumes, an absence of IM distortion, despite being a two way due to the horn loading, and controlled dispersion with excellent off axis frequency response. The only issues that stick out is a null at the crossover point above the speaker off axis vertically, but this is near impossible to avoid unless an extremely low xover is used or a coaxial design.


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[Irishman]

Thanks for that! Great info!