Audio Doctor update, our Elac AS 61 just arrived!
So lets answer a few of these points:
Seanheis1, this review was kind of a snippet more of a preview, if you read the review, Steve, listened to the speakers in the CNET office with whatever gear was there, he had a few choices, but who knows the quality of the cables, and the source quality which was used, as well as the setup in the room, if I remember the review it didn't go into that much detail. Steve really liked them but found that there were a few things he prefered in the B&W. B&W is generally sold with Rotel, so perhaps the two products were voiced together?
Your comment as some of these are allready showing up used. That is another easy answer, the speakers are frigging huge, they also have way deeper bass then the frequency cut off of 41hz, they positively shake the room. So the combination of very deep bass and way bigger size is going to mean that many people are going to mistakenly think these are going to work in rooms and places that they won't.
When we looked at ordering the Elacs, the speakers especially the stand mounted AS 61 didn't look that big based on the dimensions, but in person they are like the Kef Ref 1 huge for what is called a "stand mount."
Right now we don't know what they will sound like. but with so much hype about them and liking Andrew Jones's designs, we signed on without ever hearing them.
The other reason was to be able to offer our clients one of the best selection of monitors in the New York Tri State/NJ area.
We now have the KEF LS 50, LS 50W, ATC SCM 11 and SCM 19, The Elac Adante S61, the KEF Ref 1, and the Paradigm Persona B, hows that for some cool monitors.
We will update you guys after we have burned in our AS 61s.
Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ |
Hey Contuzzi, you just went down a whole heap in our book with some of your comments about us, and you like the Personas and Anthem gear and so we felt a kind of kin ship to you.
We vet our products very carefully and only after testing them vs the competition and our other products as well as finding out which systems work together synergisitcally do we pass judegment on just how good the product actually is.
Even without spending any real time with them listening to music seriously, we have been breaking them in with surround sound setup, the speakers do some things remarkably well, but we haven't passed any judgement other than they are a big set of speakers and they have prodigious bass and they do have a big soundstage.
Funny they don't seem bright at all in our room with Wireworld Silver Eclipse speaker cables and they have been hooked up to an Anthem AVM 60 and a Parsound A23 amplifier.
Just because a reviewer likes something doesn't mean it is the ultimate truth nor if the reviewer doesn't like something same thing as well.
I have been to three major reviewers homes and only one had a system we would say knocked my socks off. One of the reviewers systems was $400k and it wasn't that impressive. One reviewer had a miss mosh of cables, no power conditioning, and his room sounded aweful.
So you have to take a snippet review like Steve's with a grain of salt especially when he was testing the speakers in the CNET offices and not his home setup.
The English review was a total rave so what does that say about the speakers.
Once we have suitably broken in our demo pair will we give you guys an accurate assement of their sound.
Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ
|
d2girls,
The Personas are way better than the Adante AS 61's.
As I said earlier the Adante shows tremendous promise and so far is doing certain things very well, the amount and tightness of the bass is very impressive, so is the big soundstage.
From our limited so far music demos vs home theater demos, it is quite apparent that the Adantes will require careful system matching and probably more expensive equipment than what many people with a $2,500.00 speaker budget might be thinking about.
Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ |
Post update,
Just played some Tidal on the AVM 60/MCA 50 combo and wasn't loving the sound. I could hear a hollowness in the midrange and could hear the upper octave emphasis that is probably what Steve was talking about.
I will say that I have never loved the DTS play fi and the lack of MQA also not loving the original MCA 50 either, but as we said in the earlier posts this is our process.
We test with a lot of different gear and combos. The Parasound amplifier is richer. We are thinking a warmer voiced integrated amplifier like the Micromega M100, or a Rega, or the Unision Reserach tube hyrbid may be the ticket.
Also tube amplifiers may be the combo that works.
For people who have the AS 61 what are the combos of electronics, sources and cables are you using? How many hours of playing time was required before the speakers broke in?
Pros so far: Big soundstage, great bass, good clarity.
Cons so far: Slight hollowness in the midrange, slight tendency to coldness in the treble.
Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ |
Hificrazed,
Do you work for Elac? You have 17 posts all about the Adantes and a very recent join date?
Does that make you feel better Contuzzi, we work with many products, unless we can come up with a combo that acutally works with the Adantes we will resign the line.
At this point don't know if these issues are edemic with the product and that is how it is voiced or it is a setup issue?
We were affraid the Adantes would beat the ATC SCM 19 at $4k but the ATC's so far are way better.
For a $2,500.00 set of speakers the Adantes are very good, the question is what will be the right combonation of gear that will make them sing?
My gut is telling me you need either cables or components with a fatter upper midrange, and a slightly rolled off top end.
I am willing to bet Prima Luna gear and the Adantes will make a terrific match.
Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ |
A couple of points just because a loudspeaker uses a particular material doesn't mean it is going to sound a particular way.
We had the Vivid line all aluminum drivers and they never sounded hollow at all. Same with the Kef Blades and the Kef Reference and R series.
There is a difference to what we would term hollow and being a bit forward. The Paradigm Prestige are a bit forward they are also incredibly exciting and visceral loudspeakers when driven correctly.
The hollowness that we hear with the Elacs is probably more due to cabinet construction then anything else, yes the cabinets are well braced but I don't think there is any stuffing inside the speakers, and that may be the culprit.
The Elac Adante will require an amplifier which is the inverse of the speaker, meaning slightly fat in the upper midrange and a tad rolled off in the upper treble.
The Kef R 300 sound fantastic and are less bright then the LS 50 because they have a lot more bass and are a true three way speaker.
We have never noticed any lack of coherency with the R 300 perhaps the stands were too tall.
We sell a lot more Kef R 500 which are just terrific due to the fact that the R 300 plus stands is approaching the more full range R 500.
In terms of Adante vs Legacy Calibres, no contest, the Legacy's are extraordinary, with unbelievable build quality, and every part is extremely expensive including the crossover components. Driver quality is off the charts. The Legacy is smoother, with better defined bass, and a glowing rich midrange. They are more like a $10k plus monitor in the league with the TAD ME 1 for half the price. They are that good!
The Adante is going to be a good speaker once people find out exactly the right components to use with it. The issue is going to be too many people are going to think sure it is an Andrew Jones design and therefore is will be killer and use the speaker with any old gear, this is not the case with Adante.
The Adante is a lot of speaker for the money, it will require a lot of time and investment in generally way better equipment then what is traditionally used in a $2,500.00 monitor.
Most likely a tube amplifier is what is going to work with Adante, or a very warm solid state amplifier and a laid back source.
We are still working with our demo pair and it has been busy lately so once we have had a bit more time with them we will report what combo is making magic with them.
An Arcam amp with the Class G amps are going to work well, Naim should also work, as well as Prima Luna and Rogue.
Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ
|
We don't believe that any speaker will automatically sound good no matter what is matched with.
That is like saying any high performance car engine will work in any car, take a Ferrari F40 engine and put in a Pinto did you accheive the Ferrari's performance?
The reason a Ferrari perfoms like a Ferrari is that it is designed as a system. If you take any part away from it and it you will not get the performance the system as intended to deliver.
There are really two types of speakers, high resolution designs and low resolution designs.
The two camps can be summed up as Ribbon, Beryillium, Diamond drivers = High Resolution.
Soft domes tweeters, paper cones, bextrine and certain polypropolyne lower resoloution.
This is where system matching comes in: Higher resolution speakers require complete elimantion of hash, and must be mated with smoother sounding electronics.
VS
Lower Resolution speakers which require brighter sounding electronics, cables etc.
Hope that helps.
It is interesting to see how opinions vary, many people who heard the Adante at CES were blown away by them with Audio Alchemy electronics, and the Hifi News review I don't remember what they used with the speakers but they were blown away by the Adantes vs other people's opinions which are widly differing.
We have not yet passed judgement on just how good the Adante's actually are. So far they are intriguing speakers that do certain things well, with our ultimate buy judgement not yet given.
Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ |
Another thing Contuzzi, when we went shopping for reference electronics for the Kef Blades, and Personas, we listened to many different combinations of electronics before finding electronics which made the speakers come alive.
On the Kef Blades we tried Parasound JC 1 which were medeocre at best, the Electrcompaniet AW 400 which were better, then the Chord mono blocks which were far better than the other amps, we tried Hegel, Thrax, Conrad Johnson.
The system which sounded the best was the T+A gear which combined the speed of the Chord and detail with a slightly warmer richer more tube like midrange.
What is evident is that all of our reference speaker systems the Polymer Research a $68k speaker, the Kef Blades a $32k speaker, the Paradigm 9H a $35k set of speakers didn't sound magical on far less expensive electronics, it was only when matched with really good gear, cables and source components did we hear a sound that was really compelling.
So back to the car analogy purchase a Ferrari or Porsche and say it comes time for new tires and you don't want to spend the money on really good tires you won't get the performance the car can offer with cheaper tires.
The higher the performance evelope the better everything else must be in order to deliver it.
Your 9H on the Anthem separates is a far cry from the 9H on the T+A gear.
Now if your thinking just because something is expensive doesn't mean you are guaranteed performance either, it is a matching game and we have heard expensive gear that wasn't worth the price.
Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ |
Rzemkoski still trying to understand your comment, about the difference between the Wilsons and the Adantes.
Are you saying that the $5k Adantes were nearly as good as the $30k Sashas? Or that in direct comparison the difference in price vs the difference in performance were trivial?
We are a big fan of the Adantes, as we are a dealer for them so of course we like them. They are ideosyncratic speakers, the point that we have made in previous posts is that the Adante sound reminds us of the Wilson presentation, punchy and visceral, with a big soundstage.
As noted the speakers require careful matching to bring out what they do.
We would think that the Sasha would present even better low level details with greater subtitly.
Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ
|
Rezem, Your verdict was excellent and appreciated. If you remember we were the dealer that started the Elac and Naim thread which got torpedoded by some certain posters who hail the world resolves around a certain speaker company who makes speakers with first order slopes and were threatned by an open discussion. We personally feel that the industry is making an exciting new turn in somewhat affordable products that produce some remarkable performance and can hint at the best products available. We like the Elac Adantes and present them to people looking for a very visceral, dynamic sounding and exciting speaker. A new addition is the Quad Line to our store, and the Z series and the S series are mind blowing affordable loudspeakers. The Quad line has two series the S series which starts at a $700 and $1,000 monitor, with 2 floorstanders at $1,800 and $2,100.00 https://www.stereophile.com/content/quad-s-2-loudspeakerThe Quad speakers feature totally proprietary ribbon tweeters and wooven carbon fiber drivers in nicely damped cabinets. The more expensive Z series uses a bigger ribbon and more sophisticated drivers, again with an upgraded cabinet, startiing a $2k for a monitor and $4.2 and $5k for their floorstanders. http://www.quad-hifi.co.uk/upload/files/HFC_416_InDepth_QUAD_Reprint-LOW(1).pdfAll we can say is WOW! The Quads are silky sounding, yet with great detail and a huge soundstage. The Quads are more delicate and airy sounding than the Elacs but lack the Elacs sense of excitement and deep viceral bass. The Quad ribbon tweeter is stunning, it creates tremendous detail yet sounds much richer and less harsh then any true ribbon tweeter we have ever experienced. The point we are making are both the Elac and Quad lines are challenging much more expensive speakers and yes we sell speakers up to $70k. Dave and Troy Audio Doctor NJ |
Steven many dealers wait until there is a release update from the manufacturer or from their dealer rep.
At this point no one from Elac or their reps have forwarded anything about the new Argo line to us and I am sure that means other dealers, they are still probably putting the finishing touches on the production process and the product.
We will also be ordering a set of these speakers as well.
The Argo seems to be one of the best of the new active speakers we are also ordering the new Dali Caliston Active speakers as well.
So that will give us three highly rated actives the Kef ls 50, the Elac Argo and the Dali Calisto for our clients to choose from.
Exciting times for those music lovers looking for a more simple solution to getting great music in their homes and who want something better than the world of Sonos and other simillar types of products.
Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ |
Op we sell both brands and recently setup a Parasound P5 with an A23 power ampliifer for a YC based record company, the two brands really do work very well together and the new Hint 6 is a terrific piece in terms of getting an excellent dac with a preamp and phono stage.
At the price the new Parasound Hint 6 with the AS 61 makes an excellent package.
If you have any specific questions please feel free to PM us
Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ |
Arned it could be a number of issues.
It could be your cables room or source
Please give us a call.
Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ |
