ELAC Adante speaker series

I have a pair of As61 driven by WYRED 4 Sound ST1000 amp and wow excellent detail and soundstage

 

I bought a pair of Elac Adante AF61 in November last year. Out of yheir gigantic card board boxes I was very impressed with the cosmetic appearance, fit and finish-these are heavy speakers. Once hooked up to my PS Audio BHK250 amplifier, in combination with a Mystere CA21 tube preamp and a PS Audio Perfectwave MK2 Dac as source, I started listening and comparing them to my beloved Dynaudio Confidence 5 speakers. The Elac Adante AF61 had better bass presence than the C5, and also a better high frequency extension, however, the mids did not sound as natural as the Dynaudios. At times the voices of female artists sounded rather flat, high pitched and liveless. The Dynaudio Confidence 5 is an excellent timeless speaker, with one ofthe most natural and accurate mid range presentations you will hear from any speaker, so that comparison seemed a bit unfair with my brand new pair of Adantes. I wanted to give them a fair chance to burn in- and that they truly do and need. As I am writing this it is the middle of February and they had over 150 hours of break in time. Today, they sound a lit more relaxed, less stringend than they did out of the box with a beautiful developed mid range presentation opening up. Overall they sound simply stunning, with excellent bottom and high frequency extensions, resulting in a wide and deep holographic presentation. Were at first the lack of mid range presence made for a noticable disconnection between frequencies, there is now a seamless cohesive presentation, that reveals every little detail. I bought these speakers out of curiosity over what Andrew Jones could do with a higher budget speaker, especially since there are no longer any brick and mortar stores around in my area, that would have given me an opportunity to hear them. My plan was, to sell them if they are not better than the Confidence 5. Now I am wondering if I should sell the Dynaudios or just keep them both. They are similar in construction- both are non ported with invisible bass drivers within the housing, both have silk dome tweeters. The Adantes stand taller than the C5. I still prefer the mid range presentation of the Dynaudio Confidence 5 -due to their silk mid dome, voices, especially choirs, sound so believable and real, however the Adantes are absolutely fantastic for their price and they simply sound bigger than the C5, especially with classic and orchestral music, organ pipes sound so full and rich-the lower notes will make your walls shake- the Dynaudios do go down low, but not as low as the Adante AF61. Heck, I don’t know whether I should just keep them both, but it hurts to know, that whenever I listen to the Adantes, I am not using the Dynaudio Confidence 5, and vise versa. Fazit: if you are in the market for new floor standers in the $ 5k price range, do yourself a favor and get a pair. At this price point they are better than anything new in that price range from the usual suspects-B&W, Dynaudio, etc..

 

ELAC sez "An internally vented box, with another box in front housing a passive radiator—means that acoustically, the front box becomes a second-order acoustic low pass filter, eliminating the requirement for two orders of electrical network, further reducing driver distortion." So a kind of bandpass, rather novel these days.

 

Price dropped to $1499 at Music Direct. Any ideas why the big discount?

https://www.musicdirect.com/elac-adante-as-61-bookshelf-speakers

 

The floor standers dropped from $5k to $3k. The center channel went from $2k to $1k. A friend of mine bought 4 pairs of the floor standers and the center for 9.1 home theater with this drop.

It seems to be for more than musicdirect so it is probably a manufacturer decision. My guess is they are going to come out with a version 2 of these soon. The other possibility is they are discontinuing it for low interest but I thought they were pretty popular and had good press.

 

This series didn't gather anywhere near as much steam as I expected. However, consider that the original price point is fraught with some fierce competition, especially from the factory-direct brands.

It seems trivial, but one reoson I decided to forego trying a pair is their cheesy faux carbon-fiber binding posts. That and the Guttenberg review was not very favorable (and he's usually too generous if anything). I got the impression it's one of those reviews where you're expected to read between the lines. In other words, it's a decent speaker but not the all-around giant-killer he expected.

 

Hmm, when I listened to them, I was really amazed at the quality of sound. Details were great, felt involving. I was thinking of getting a pair at this new price, but then realized my apartment was too small for them and they probably put out too much bass.

 

The consensus on them seems to be that they are very hard to drive, a lil bright and they have very limited low bass for such large boxes..

 

I picked up bookshelves/standmounts from MusicDirect and I have been listening to them for several days. My PrimaLuna Prologue 4 (which works great with most bookshelves) just didn't have enough power to drive them. Currently I have the Elacs hooked to a PS Audio Stellar Gain Cell/ a couple of Emotiva Stealth PA-1 monoblocks and supported by an SVS SB-1000. They sound very good with the Emotiva amps.

I would not characterize them as too bright - they are less bright than my Klipsch Rp-600ms in any event. Bass output is not a big deal for me since I will always run with a sub. However, they are a bit picky on amps. The manual says they need something like 50-160 watts/channel for power which describes the Emotiva amps.

The main thing about these bookshelves is that they are over 40lbs and kind of bulky. I'm used to smaller bookshelves. They are a bit large for my current stands.

So I broke down and ordered the centerchannel speaker and the custom Elac stands for the Adante. They were all on sale so I got an excellent deal. I'm really not sure if I should have gone for the floor standers or not. I was not planning on buying speakers right now but I felt I could not pass up the sale on premium speakers like the Elacs. I think the sound quality is excellent so maybe I shouldn't second guess myself. I wonder if the few negative reviews are due to speaker/amp "mismatches".

 

They are being discontinued.

 

They certainly have a lot of potential...and I actually still like them especially at the new $1500 price point...the Floorstanders priced at $3k have a lot of competition. It seems like you have the power to get them going good, and you should have a lot of fun with them...

 

Huge discount on Music Direct. Same price as the Tannoy XT 8F new. Stereophile gave the Elacs a good review. But said it was weak for his big room. Which sounds a lot like mine. Looking for floorstanders that can do the job without a sub. 8-18 foot sloped ceiling. “Open plan living” as Bryan Ferry sang. In every dream home, a heartache. Man, he had no idea.

 

I want solid 3-d sound with thump, punch and pucker. And real in the room sound for acoustic music. They don’t seem to be making them anymore. Unless you’re a billionaire. Maybe I should find some Duntechs?