ELAC Debut 2 B5.2 and B6.2

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Audioholic
I'm in the market for a good set of bookshelf or standmounts, and as I've been perusing, I'd pretty much made up my mind to try a set of KEF LS50 Metas. But then I see ALOT of references to these ELAC Debut 2's and how great they are. Anyone actually have a pair of either the 5.2s or 6.2s? The KEF speakers are pretty much at the outside of what I'm willing to spend on speakers, so its not like they bust the budget, but I have always been a fan of product that punches outside its weight class and I find myself curious.

I should say that these speakers will be teamed up with a small amp and an active sub. The only source will be a good turntable. MAYBE once in a blue moon some streaming audio over bluetooth.
 
zieglj01

zieglj01

Audioholic Spartan
I'm in the market for a good set of bookshelf or standmounts, and as I've been perusing, I'd pretty much made up my mind to try a set of KEF LS50 Metas. But then I see ALOT of references to these ELAC Debut 2's and how great they are. Anyone actually have a pair of either the 5.2s or 6.2s? The KEF speakers are pretty much at the outside of what I'm willing to spend on speakers, so its not like they bust the budget, but I have always been a fan of product that punches outside its weight class and I find myself curious.

I should say that these speakers will be teamed up with a small amp and an active sub. The only source will be a good turntable. MAYBE once in a blue moon some streaming audio over bluetooth.
Easy returns with Crutchfield and Amazon ... pick a pair of the Elac and test them ... maybe start with the 6.2 first ... but also be mindful of the Elac DBR62 speakers

 
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Audioholic
What's the amp? Why just KEF and Elac?
Amp I haven't decided on yet. The problem with where I'm at is that I'm starting from scratch, so I really do not know what works with what anymore. Its been too many years out of the fold. Its going to be something small. I don't need wall shaking power, nor do I have the room for a large integrated unit. Its only job will be to run two speakers, and I'll be going with an active sub, so I don't even need sub output. My room is small, 12x14, and I have no use for anything that streams to multiple rooms.

As for the KEFs, I just chose them as a starting point. They're highly regarded on almost every review site I've been on, fit my budget and seemed as good a point to start as any. The ELACs simply piqued my curiosity.

But if there are other standmounts or bookshelf speakers I should be looking at, please feel free to make a recommend. I'm all ears and a blank slate.

Rod
 
lovinthehd

lovinthehd

Audioholic Jedi
Smaller speakers tend to be less sensitive and with small amp and no info about distance from speakers or levels of playback, just made me curious. A small room helps out I think in terms of power, but your listening levels still come into play as well as your particular distance from the speakers. Something like this can help figure out needs http://myhometheater.homestead.com/splcalculator.html

Why would no bass management be a good thing? An active sub doesn't negate the need for bass management let alone a pre-out.

Just asking questions to determine suggestions....

What's the budgeting for speakers and amp? What sub do you have?

ps For the Elacs, I've seen more positive comments on the DBR62 than the others you mentioned.
 
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Audioholic
Smaller speakers tend to be less sensitive and with small amp and no info about distance from speakers or levels of playback, just made me curious. A small room helps out I think in terms of power, but your listening levels still come into play as well as your particular distance from the speakers. Something like this can help figure out needs http://myhometheater.homestead.com/splcalculator.html

Why would no bass management be a good thing? An active sub doesn't negate the need for bass management let alone a pre-out.

Just asking questions to determine suggestions....

What's the budgeting for speakers and amp? What sub do you have?

ps For the Elacs, I've seen more positive comments on the DBR62 than the others you mentioned.
Thanks for the calculator. I was thinking a 50x2 or 75x2 would be plenty of power at the 10 foot distance from the speaker and my small room. The calculator seems to echo that sentiment.

As for sub management, I've only had two active subs, a PSB and a Paradigm. Both had crossovers, sub level, and phasing built in to the unit. In my naivete, I assumed all active subs had such things, so I didn't even think about needing any other sub management. Perhaps I was wrong to assume? And I haven't settled on a sub yet, beyond an 8 or 10 inch. Anything bigger than that, I feel would be asking the shelf speakers to reach down too low.

I have no firm budget, but I was thinking a total of 5K Cdn bucks for the entire system. $1000 is allocated to the table. If I have to go over budget by a grand or 1500, its not a problem. But it would have to buy me something worth the money.

Rod
 
lovinthehd

lovinthehd

Audioholic Jedi
Thanks for the calculator. I was thinking a 50x2 or 75x2 would be plenty of power at the 10 foot distance from the speaker and my small room. The calculator seems to echo that sentiment.

As for sub management, I've only had two active subs, a PSB and a Paradigm. Both had crossovers, sub level, and phasing built in to the unit. In my naivete, I assumed all active subs had such things, so I didn't even think about needing any other sub management. Perhaps I was wrong to assume? And I haven't settled on a sub yet, beyond an 8 or 10 inch. Anything bigger than that, I feel would be asking the shelf speakers to reach down too low.

I have no firm budget, but I was thinking a total of 5K Cdn bucks for the entire system. $1000 is allocated to the table. If I have to go over budget by a grand or 1500, its not a problem. But it would have to buy me something worth the money.

Rod
Could be enough power, depends on the particular speaker and your listening levels, desire for overhead, that sort of thing. I generally wouldn't bother with only 50 or 75 watts, generally go for at least double that if not more.

Subs these days mostly have only a low pass filter only, not an actual crossover, altho some do, maybe your older models would be more likely to have this feature....these days bass management is often expected external to the sub. A full range phase control is nice, but mostly subs come with a 0/180 polarity flip. I wouldn't go with an 8 inch sub, they're more bass modules than a true sub. Depends what your extension goals are, as well as spl. How is a bigger sub asking shelf speakers to reach too low? It's the opposite more....and even tower speakers often benefit from subs unless they are truly excellent full range speakers (which tend to cost much more than being discussed here).

As to availability/value in Canada I'm not so up on that as am in US, but we do have several Canadian members to be more specific that way....
 
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Audioholic
How is a bigger sub asking shelf speakers to reach too low? It's the opposite more....and even tower speakers often benefit from subs unless they are truly excellent full range speakers (which tend to cost much more than being discussed here).
That assumption was from my days of car audio. 6.5" car audio drivers are only capable of accurate sound reproduction in a certain freq. range. So we used 8's or 10's combined 12's and 15's with high and low pass filters to confine the speaker to the freq. range that it was capable of reproducing accurately. I've always assumed the same of home audio and made my speaker selections accordingly.
 
lovinthehd

lovinthehd

Audioholic Jedi
That assumption was from my days of car audio. 6.5" car audio drivers are only capable of accurate sound reproduction in a certain freq. range. So we used 8's or 10's combined 12's and 15's with high and low pass filters to confine the speaker to the freq. range that it was capable of reproducing accurately. I've always assumed the same of home audio and made my speaker selections accordingly.
Without regard to room volume/dimensions? Limits of the mains?

Larger subs generally have an advantage in a home environment. I use 18s.
 
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Audioholic
Without regard to room volume/dimensions? Limits of the mains?

Larger subs generally have an advantage in a home environment. I use 18s.
Car audio is a different beast. Perhaps at the high end of competition systems, you paid attention to the size of the car. I wouldn't know, I never got into it that far. I stopped at the lower end of high end car audio. Most vehicles have roughly the same size of interiors, at least within a few cubic feet of one another. Ditto listening distances. So that never entered into the equation. Speaker placement was relatively fixed, depending on the vehicle. Phasing and imaging you dealt with using parametric EQs (these days, higher end head units have that all built in) And you didn't really have "mains" in car audio, at least not in the way home audio thinks of them. So you chose a set of tweeters and mids, usually they came paired with crossovers. 4 door vehicles you used two sets. You used the manufacturers freq. response graphs as a starting point to determine which frequencies you were going to send to the tweeters, mids, high bass, mid bass and low bass drivers. Every car audio speaker has a sweet freq response range that it likes to live in, given the enclosure you were forced to deal with (usually the inside of a car door) And you put the drivers wherever you had the room for them, counting on the parametric and/or head unit to fix imaging issues that would crop up from say, having a tweeter in the A-pillar, a 6.5" mid driver in the mid door area, an 8" driver under the seat, a couple 12s behind the rear seat and a 15" stuffed whereever you had room.

So I always treated my home systems similar. Your question has made me do some digging and I see my assumption was wrong, with 6.5" drivers in good home speakers able to accurately reproduce music way down low, some say as low as 30Hz (I have a hard time believing that number) with a good bookshelf speaker.

So perhaps I don't even need to worry about a sub. My days of wanting to shake the foundations are long gone. Now I want accurate reproduction of my source, tight bass, and no harshness or brightness anywhere in the freq range. I listen to almost every form of music, except hip hop and in almost equal measure. Perhaps a little more blues and 80s rock than the rest. I have limited space I'm willing to to give over and my speaker placement options are limited to either side of my 5 foot wide entertainment unit and a 15" x 15" x 18" corner beside my couch for a sub (if its even necessary).
 
lovinthehd

lovinthehd

Audioholic Jedi
Car audio is a different beast. Perhaps at the high end of competition systems, you paid attention to the size of the car. I wouldn't know, I never got into it that far. I stopped at the lower end of high end car audio. Most vehicles have roughly the same size of interiors, at least within a few cubic feet of one another. Ditto listening distances. So that never entered into the equation. Speaker placement was relatively fixed, depending on the vehicle. Phasing and imaging you dealt with using parametric EQs (these days, higher end head units have that all built in) And you didn't really have "mains" in car audio, at least not in the way home audio thinks of them. So you chose a set of tweeters and mids, usually they came paired with crossovers. 4 door vehicles you used two sets. You used the manufacturers freq. response graphs as a starting point to determine which frequencies you were going to send to the tweeters, mids, high bass, mid bass and low bass drivers. Every car audio speaker has a sweet freq response range that it likes to live in, given the enclosure you were forced to deal with (usually the inside of a car door) And you put the drivers wherever you had the room for them, counting on the parametric and/or head unit to fix imaging issues that would crop up from say, having a tweeter in the A-pillar, a 6.5" mid driver in the mid door area, an 8" driver under the seat, a couple 12s behind the rear seat and a 15" stuffed whereever you had room.

So I always treated my home systems similar. Your question has made me do some digging and I see my assumption was wrong, with 6.5" drivers in good home speakers able to accurately reproduce music way down low, some say as low as 30Hz (I have a hard time believing that number) with a good bookshelf speaker.

So perhaps I don't even need to worry about a sub. My days of wanting to shake the foundations are long gone. Now I want accurate reproduction of my source, tight bass, and no harshness or brightness anywhere in the freq range. I listen to almost every form of music, except hip hop and in almost equal measure. Perhaps a little more blues and 80s rock than the rest. I have limited space I'm willing to to give over and my speaker placement options are limited to either side of my 5 foot wide entertainment unit and a 15" x 15" x 18" corner beside my couch for a sub (if its even necessary).
6.5" drivers still are on the small side for a home speaker, particularly a bookshelf with a single 6.5" driver, and just seeing an f3 of 30hz isn't particularly meaningful without information as to what spl it is capable of at that frequency. I'd guess with most bookshelf speakers in this size range your f3 is more like mid 40s or higher for the most part. Crossing over a sub is fairly simple with most avrs, but with many 2ch integrated amps, will have nothing in that respect, altho you can with some subs get some bass management options built into their amps....that Fosi linked may have a sub pre-out, but it has no adjustable crossover or high pass filter for your speakers that I can see perusing the manual....seems to be a full range pre-out only.
 
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Audioholic
6.5" drivers still are on the small side for a home speaker, particularly a bookshelf with a single 6.5" driver, and just seeing an f3 of 30hz isn't particularly meaningful without information as to what spl it is capable of at that frequency. I'd guess with most bookshelf speakers in this size range your f3 is more like mid 40s or higher for the most part. Crossing over a sub is fairly simple with most avrs, but with many 2ch integrated amps, will have nothing in that respect, altho you can with some subs get some bass management options built into their amps....that Fosi linked may have a sub pre-out, but it has no adjustable crossover or high pass filter for your speakers that I can see perusing the manual....seems to be a full range pre-out only.
I think I'm going to start a new thread in the Audiophyte area. I've sat and looked at my room, and decided that with minimum disruption to my space, I can fit a pair of 8 or 10 inch wide floorstanders in here without clutter.
 
lovinthehd

lovinthehd

Audioholic Jedi
Interesting. Thats a pretty good deal, but I just broke out a tape measure and I'm going to come up an inch shy on space on either side. Also checked the Canuck side JBL website and those speakers don't appear to be available in Canada.
Yeah, US deal and otherwise the 580 (which I also have) may fit your needs. Then again having such tight space to fit them in is an issue in and of itself.....
 
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Audioholic
Yeah, US deal and otherwise the 580 (which I also have) may fit your needs. Then again having such tight space to fit them in is an issue in and of itself.....
Actually the Cdn JBL website appears to be out of stock on just about every thing lol I'll snoop some of the box stores sites. Is the A190 a similar speaker? From the pictures, it appears virtually identical.
 
lovinthehd

lovinthehd

Audioholic Jedi
Actually the Cdn JBL website appears to be out of stock on just about every thing lol I'll snoop some of the box stores sites. Is the A190 a similar speaker? From the pictures, it appears virtually identical.
Different, lesser series....haven't had any of those. Could have some similarities in overall design but pretty different drivers I think....
 
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