Elac Uni-Fi 2.0 Review (bookshelf speaker)

[amirm]

This is universally true? Then we should never see any rolloff in the response at very low frequency, for any modern amplifier, correct?

True although measurements may have a high-pass filter. My template for amp frequency response starts at DC but sometimes I have to override that to AC > 10 Hz as DC offset can screw up the AP front-end sometimes.

 

[xarkkon]

This is definitive evidence that the sound Amir hears at that point is in fact the high level of harmonic distortion at 600 Hz.

yeah, the video makes the case and probably would be even more obvious if amir's recording was off more professional equipment

personally, i've always viewed @joentell 's youtube videos with a pinch of salt. perhaps him being open about his financial links to the manufacturers resulted in that. thankfully, his reliance on measurements on his videos gave me some comfort that he wasn't ENTIRELY spitting things out of his rear end for profit.

despite my general reservations, i thought his contributions here have been very helpful and personally hope he can do more with other threads in the same vein.

yes, i can see why amir got concerned about him potentially trying to push a pro-manufacturer narrative given (i) joentell's youtube channel and manufacturer connections + (ii) initial video saying there wasn't any issue + (iii) initial view that joentell wasn't doing the test in the same way amir wanted. if this was being done by any other long-time forummer, I think most wouldn't have bat an eyelid and it's worth trying to find out more where REALLY joentell is coming from.

based on what i've seen, my benefit-of-the-doubt stance is that he's trying to be helpful and he HAS been helpful to the discussion. hoping he stays to contribute on others too.

BACK TO TOPIC (kind of): Can I just say, I always get confused by ELAC having 2 sets of names for each line... like UB52 is just a Unifi bookshelf? Why have 2 names for 1 product?! Perhaps I'm a little slow and it took me forever to figure that out... heh.

 

[Alice of Old Vincennes]

It is generally true that a more powerful amp is less likely to clip transients than a less powerful amp. Unfortunately, this only serves to obfuscate the question concerning the veracity of the notion advocated here ...



... where it is apparent that Steve Dallas was alluding not to the general behavior of amplifiers in the context of clipping transients, but rather to a nebulous property of a specific speaker, by which the specific speaker in question seemingly benefits from an amplifier having the ability to deliver more current than the speaker is drawing. If it is merely the well-known phenomenon to which you allude, this would leave unanswered the obvious question of why this amplifier capability is more important for this speaker than for others.

I do remember the cartoon. Were you the screen writer?

 

[Dennis Murphy]

Not trying to derail, just a quick response to the above quote. It has been a while since I read the case, but if memory serves, it was about malice, and a majority in the SC concluded that Bose failed to provide actual proof of malice. Your response seems to suggest it was about something else.

Actually, it might not hurt to take a breather from this thread for a post or two. I'm getting a little dizzy. The case was kind of interesting and a testimonial to the tremendous impact Consumer Reports reviews had on sales of audio equipment at the time The magazine's favorable reviews of AR products helped that company grab one third of the loudspeaker market and probably more of the turntable market.

Bose was ticked off because CR complained that the 901 tended to make instruments wander "about the room," which Bose claimed consumers would interpret as meaning violins and pianos and tenors were bouncing back and forth from front to rear. Further, their sleuths discovered that the original draft of the review had said instruments tended to wander "along the wall," and that CR editors changed that phrase to "about the room," and had done so with malice. The District Court ruled in favor of Bose, and the Appellate Court reversed on the basis that Bose hadn't shown that CR had acted with "actual malice" in making the change. The Supreme Court affirmed the Appellate ruling. In later years, CR started to publish controversial loudspeaker reviews based on a global "accuracy score." That ticked off the Harman engineers and CR no longer uses that system, or as far as I can tell even does conventional loudspeaker reviews any longer. There are probably just too many models out there.

We now return you to alleged screeches at 600 Hz.

 

[MrPeabody]

yeah, the video makes the case and probably would be even more obvious if amir's recording was off more professional equipment

personally, i've always viewed @joentell 's youtube videos with a pinch of salt. perhaps him being open about his financial links to the manufacturers resulted in that. thankfully, his reliance on measurements on his videos gave me some comfort that he wasn't ENTIRELY spitting things out of his rear end for profit.

despite my general reservations, i thought his contributions here have been very helpful and personally hope he can do more with other threads in the same vein.

yes, i can see why amir got concerned about him potentially trying to push a pro-manufacturer narrative given (i) joentell's youtube channel and manufacturer connections + (ii) initial video saying there wasn't any issue + (iii) initial view that joentell wasn't doing the test in the same way amir wanted. if this was being done by any other long-time forummer, I think most wouldn't have bat an eyelid and it's worth trying to find out more where REALLY joentell is coming from.

based on what i've seen, my benefit-of-the-doubt stance is that he's trying to be helpful and he HAS been helpful to the discussion. hoping he stays to contribute on others too.

BACK TO TOPIC (kind of): Can I just say, I always get confused by ELAC having 2 sets of names for each line... like UB52 is just a Unifi bookshelf? Why have 2 names for 1 product?! Perhaps I'm a little slow and it took me forever to figure that out... heh.

I think you have expressed a fair and balanced take on what happened. There was an awful lot going on all at the same time. In an ideal world that doesn't exist and won't while I'm alive, independent tests of loudspeakers would be the norm and would be conducted on a statistically significant sample of the product. If only this were feasible and if the manufacturers were willing to pay for it. An area that I find especially troublesome is the lack of information on the quality control of most of the stuff tested not only by Amir, but by anyone. In general we never have any knowledge of the unit-to-unit variation in the quantitative attributes of a product. It seems to me that we all ignore this concern and are content with single-sample testing because we know that we are fortunate to have even this.

 

[Alice of Old Vincennes]

Actually, it might not hurt to take a breather from this thread for a post or two. I'm getting a little dizzy. The case was kind of interesting and a testimonial to the tremendous impact Consumer Reports reviews had on sales of audio equipment at the time The magazine's favorable reviews of AR products helped that company grab one third of the loudspeaker market and probably more of the turntable market.

Bose was ticked off because CR complained that the 901 tended to make instruments wander "about the room," which Bose claimed consumers would interpret as meaning violins and pianos and tenors were bouncing back and forth from front to rear. Further, their sleuths discovered that the original draft of the review had said instruments tended to wander "along the wall," and that CR editors changed that phrase to "about the room," and had done so with malice. The District Court ruled in favor of Bose, and the Appel late Court reversed on the basis that Bose hadn't shown that CR had acted with "actual malice" in making the change. The Supreme Court affirmed the Appellate ruling. In later years, CR started to publish controversial loudspeaker reviews based on a global "accuracy score." That ticked off the Harman engineers and CR no longer uses that system, or as far as I can tell even does conventional loudspeaker reviews any longer. There are probably just too many models out there.

We now return you to alleged screeches at 600 Hz.

I lost faith in CR decades ago. They cannot possibly expertly review and recommend everything. They often leave out brands completely in reviews without rhyme or reason. They became Japanese car fanboys decades ago. Their reviews of paint are a joke. I would never buy an appliance based on CR recommendation. And on and on.

 

[MrPeabody]

Actually, it might not hurt to take a breather from this thread for a post or two. I'm getting a little dizzy. The case was kind of interesting and a testimonial to the tremendous impact Consumer Reports reviews had on sales of audio equipment at the time The magazine's favorable reviews of AR products helped that company grab one third of the loudspeaker market and probably more of the turntable market.

Bose was ticked off because CR complained that the 901 tended to make instruments wander "about the room," which Bose claimed consumers would interpret as meaning violins and pianos and tenors were bouncing back and forth from front to rear. Further, their sleuths discovered that the original draft of the review had said instruments tended to wander "along the wall," and that CR editors changed that phrase to "about the room," and had done so with malice. The District Court ruled in favor of Bose, and the Appel late Court reversed on the basis that Bose hadn't shown that CR had acted with "actual malice" in making the change. The Supreme Court affirmed the Appellate ruling. In later years, CR started to publish controversial loudspeaker reviews based on a global "accuracy score." That ticked off the Harman engineers and CR no longer uses that system, or as far as I can tell even does conventional loudspeaker reviews any longer. There are probably just too many models out there.

We now return you to alleged screeches at 600 Hz.

I recall that the thing that surprised me most about this back when it happened (1984?) was the revelation that Bose was still making the 901. It had been more than ten years since I had seen one or heard of anyone buying one. Turns out the 901 remained in production until just a few years ago, well into the present century. I can't help but wonder if the main market was some far-off corner of the world, maybe the same part of the world where they were being made, wherever that was. I had long been a fan of CR and not a fan of Bose, but I thought that Bose had a legitimate gripe notwithstanding the lack of proof of malice, which I expect is a very difficult thing to prove short of having some internal memo that someone had leaked. Any wandering of the instruments that was real most likely occurred in connection with wandering of the listener. Poor localization is to be expected, but poor localization does not equate to wandering. There were more valid reasons than this for CR to pan the 901, if CR had the wherewithal to discover them.

 

[Alice of Old Vincennes]

I don't know how many times I've talked to laymen discussing speakers. Not a serious discussion mind you. I hear Bose speakers mentioned most often. Advertising blitzkrieg worked. Same thing with water softeners. Hey Culligan over priced man. I can purchase a softer for 20% price that matches performance. Just not from big box stores. Go to wholesale distributors who sell to pros. Same thing with appliances from big boxes. Repairs under warranty take too long. Forget about out of warranty repairs. Go to locally owned appliance store with repairmen on staff. If you buy from them you will discover loyalty in bad times. If you haven't noticed, normally priced appliances are in critical short supply nationwide due to covid. I needed all kitchen appliances on a flip. As a test, I went to Lowe's. February 15 maybe. I went to local boys and purchased without covid markup. Trust me, if I wasn't a long term customer that GE side by side for $1100 would not have been available. Same thing with paint. I will never buy that junk from Lowe's, Home Depot or Menard's. I can beat price at local PPG store everytime. I can peel off big box paint with my finger nails. Sorry for the rant. Cooped up too long.

 

[Dennis Murphy]

I recall that the thing that surprised me most about this back when it happened (1984?) was the revelation that Bose was still making the 901. It had been more than ten years since I had seen one or heard of anyone buying one. Turns out the 901 remained in production until just a few years ago, well into the present century. I can't help but wonder if the main market was some far-off corner of the world, maybe the same part of the world where they were being made, wherever that was. I had long been a fan of CR and not a fan of Bose, but I thought that Bose had a legitimate gripe notwithstanding the lack of proof of malice, which I expect is a very difficult thing to prove short of having some internal memo that someone had leaked. Any wandering of the instruments that was real most likely occurred in connection with wandering of the listener. Poor localization is to be expected, but poor localization does not equate to wandering. There were more valid reasons than this for CR to pan the 901, if CR had the wherewithal to discover them.

The case wandered through the courts for many years. The original review was in 1970. I remember reading it when it was published and basically agreeing with it based on my own auditions. Their main criticism was a somewhat hollow midrange. I'm still pretty much a Consumer Reports fan, al though I never agreed with most of their loudspeaker ratings. Obviously car buffs and the like will find fault with their ratings, which are aimed at mass market buyers and weight reliability very heavily. I'm biased though--the founder of the magazine was a close family friend and showed up 3 or 4 times a year driving whichever base model Ford, Chevy, or Plymouth was under test at the time. I have a collection of issues going back to WW II. If you ever want to know the 0-60 mph time for a 1951 Studebaker Champion 6, just let me know.

 

[xarkkon]

I think you have expressed a fair and balanced take on what happened. There was an awful lot going on all at the same time. In an ideal world that doesn't exist and won't while I'm alive, independent tests of loudspeakers would be the norm and would be conducted on a statistically significant sample of the product. If only this were feasible and if the manufacturers were willing to pay for it. An area that I find especially troublesome is the lack of information on the quality control of most of the stuff tested not only by Amir, but by anyone. In general we never have any knowledge of the unit-to-unit variation in the quantitative attributes of a product. It seems to me that we all ignore this concern and are content with single-sample testing because we know that we are fortunate to have even this.

indeed. it is a real problem that plagues every industry. cars, TVs, pens, computers, phones, there's basically no way to vet QC standards apart from incredibly unreliable word of mouth unfortunately.... or if the products start exploding ala Samsung

 

[Thomas_A]

OK, guys, slept in this morning and seems like you all have been busy.

This morning I thought I should record the problem. When I put the speaker back on the stand and fed it with the youtube video, it didn't seem to happen. So I went back to Roon and at first it was fine there as well. I thought maybe this is level sensitive and indeed it is. I had to crank it up fair amount for it to occur again. Either this then makes the problem worse, or I get sensitized to it as I can then hear it at lower levels as well. It is also possible that using the speaker makes it do this more.

When I tried to record it, I realized it is not the breathing that is causing the problem but the letter "H" when she utters "he goes away." The H picks up a metallic overtone. I have enclosed a crappy recording on my Samsung phone. I can hear it there but it is far more subtle than what I hear in person.

I tried to get closer to the speaker for better recording and it became harder to hear and capture it as well!

FYI, I stuck a towel in the port and it made no difference. The issue is not the port. The port simply is allowing the distortion to be magnified. Audibility is elsewhere.

As a side-note. I've heard similar "metallic" sounds in the range of 400-600 Hz in speakers with resonances in the cabinet. It is a hardening of the sound related to distortion. I made two cabinets, one standard, and one with a constrained layer/damping glue and where the distorted sound virtually disappeared. One song where resonances where heard quite easily was the below one. I am very sensitive to distortions in this voice range:

 

[tuga]

So we have a speaker so accurate it reproduces rubbish with aplomb?

I just watched Steve Guttenberg's video on the Elac Uni-Fi 2.0. He made a comment about the DBR62 as comparison and said the DBR62 had too much of a "laid back" sound and that he wanted more "detail, resolution" from the DBR62 and in contrast, the 2.0 has it. Now, with that in mind, let's look at the data...


DBR-62 from Amir's test:

and now the Uni-Fi 2.0 (again, from this thread):

TBH, I'm not sure what in the data is saying there would be a big difference in detail/resolution between the two. And THIS, my friends, is why subjective words suck... because, TO ME, "detail/resolution" indicate a high(er) frequency characteristic. But, looking at the two results back to back, there's not a huge difference in treble, when you look at the overall trend. In fact, they are more alike than they are dissimilar when you look at the overall trend (and ignore the peak/dip patterns; IOW, mentally smooth the data ). Notably, the minor shelf in response between 1-4kHz. Heck, even between 600-1kHz, they show the same general trend. So does Steve mean something other than treble when he says “detail”?

The real difference I am seeing in these two data sets is more from the smooth directivity in the 2.0 (as would be expected thanks to the concentric design) and the sensitivity. But, generally, the two tend to have a bit of a HF shelf down in response. Naturally, this leads me to questions about the "voicing" or "intended target curve" (depending on what method was used primarily for the design). The fact these two speakers are very similar in overall trend response seems too coincidental and makes me wonder if Elac is targeting a particular response. But, maybe this is just coincidence.

I wish Mr. Guttenberg was more distinct with his subjective feedback. Frequency ranges would help. This is the exact issue I have with subjective reviews. Stating a frequency range would go a long way toward a) proving you're not just making crap up and b) promoting the notion of using objective data to make correlations with subjective evaluations. But, this paragraphs is another OT rant in itself and we already have enough OT going on here so I'm gonna pass for the time being.

I am only disagreeing in principle and that is because you assume that a Spinorama is capable enough to fully characterise performance which it isn't.

I don't read reviews because of most reviewers inability to produce a meaningful objective-driven assessment.

 

[BYRTT]

This is universally true? Then we should never see any rolloff in the response at very low frequency, for any modern amplifier, correct?

Correct for the power amp part provided say it hasn't any high pass filter push or flip button feature that physical will couple a capacitor into the power amps input circuit, and also if power amp is feeded from whatever pre that has AC coupling at output you will see rolloff at very low frequency.

 

[JohnBooty]

Nice experiments, @joentell !

I'm disappointed when @amirm reviews a product with an "intriuging" issue like this that *could* be a design flaw or *could* be something broken on one particular unit, doesn't investigate further, and gives the product a damning review.

I recognize the tremendous effort and expense that goes into ASR and the time that goes into each individual speaker review. ASR is a source for objective data and is therefore generally a force for good in this hobby/industry.

But when there's an issue like this ELAC issue I believe Amir should avoid rendering a verdict. Scrap the review entirely, or perhaps even just see if others can reproduce the issue. Or, in this case, simply listen to the other speaker and try to reproduce the issue.

Edit: To be crystal clear, I do not think it's Amir's responsibility to troubleshoot these issues or do extra work. It's not his responsibility to do any work whatsoever... let alone extra work! (I do not consider withholding a verdict to be "extra work.")

Amir, you're your own boss. It's not like you're a content mill slave for C|Net and somebody's pressuring you to crank out 15 blog posts a day. I realize you do have a deadline of sorts (people wanting their speakers back) but I don't think anybody wins when this sort of thing happens. ASR has influence in the industry and you have the power to hurt or help companies.

 

[ctrl]

on the Elac Uni-Fi 2.0. He made a comment about the DBR62 as comparison and said the DBR62 had too much of a "laid back" sound and that he wanted more "detail, resolution" from the DBR62 and in contrast, the 2.0 has it. Now, with that in mind, let's look at the data...

It is very easy to underestimate the effects of small changes, especially with the "averaged or weighted" aggregate curves such as ER, SP,....
In the animated gif you can easily see that the Uni-fi loudspeaker has a lower sound level in the ER bass range and a significantly higher ER sound level in the range 3.5-10kHz (if we take the ER sound level around 3kHz as a basis).

So I would not completely dismiss the statement out of hand.

I am only disagreeing in principle and that is because you assume that a Spinorama is capable enough to fully characterise performance which it isn't.

The Spinorama can be used very well for the rough tonal classification of a loudspeaker.
Also, when it comes to identifying the causes of sound impressions in loudspeakers, a look at the spinorama is often sufficient (emphasized bass, excessive treble reproduction,...).

Agree with you however when it comes to details in loudspeaker reproduction or fine tuning when developing a loudspeaker. There I need the horizontal and vertical frequency response measurements of the loudspeaker (and of the individual drivers) to be able to explain tonal details.
.

 

[More Dynamics Please]

@amirm acknowledged in his conclusion that this could either be a broken design or an issue specific to the individual sample and invited confirmation from Elac which now has the opportunity to clear this up as Kali did with the IN-8:

As far as I am concerned, this is a show-stopper, broken design. Don't know how else to put it. ... I guess it is possible this one speaker sample has an issue in which case I encourage Elac to try to replicate this problem and let us know what is going on.

 

[mhardy6647]

this only serves to obfuscate the question concerning the veracity of the notion advocated here ...

As a student of irony, may I just say "well put"?

BACK TO TOPIC (kind of): Can I just say, I always get confused by ELAC having 2 sets of names for each line... like UB52 is just a Unifi bookshelf? Why have 2 names for 1 product?! Perhaps I'm a little slow and it took me forever to figure that out... heh.

Well -- they certainly have some of the most abstruse & least informative product line names/numbers I've encountered. I say this as the owner of a pair of the distressingly uncleverly monikered ELAC Debut 2.0 b6.2. I do hope they didn't pay a marketing consultant to come up with that product name.

 

[Jmudrick]

@amirm acknowledged in his conclusion that this could either be a broken design or an issue specific to the individual sample and invited confirmation from Elac which now has the opportunity to clear this up as Kali did with the IN-8:

Almost a year later the IN-8 review still shows a headless panther. Not a good example of a model to follow in my book.

 

[mhardy6647]

I have a collection of issues going back to WW II. If you ever want to know the 0-60 mph time for a 1951 Studebaker Champion 6, just let me know.

I am left... speechless.

 

[BN1]

Nice experiments, @joentell !

I'm disappointed when @amirm reviews a product with an "intriuging" issue like this that *could* be a design flaw or *could* be something broken on one particular unit, doesn't investigate further, and gives the product a damning review.

I recognize the tremendous effort and expense that goes into ASR and the time that goes into each individual speaker review. ASR is a source for objective data and is therefore generally a force for good in this hobby/industry.

But when there's an issue like this ELAC issue I believe Amir should avoid rendering a verdict. Scrap the review entirely, or perhaps even just see if others can reproduce the issue. Or, in this case, simply listen to the other speaker and try to reproduce the issue.

Amir, you're your own boss. It's not like you're a content mill slave for C|Net and somebody's pressuring you to crank out 15 blog posts a day. I realize you do have a deadline of sorts (people wanting their speakers back) but I don't think anybody wins when this sort of thing happens. ASR has influence in the industry and you have the power to hurt or help companies.

Very well stated ! I considered numerous responses but, in hindsight, you said it all.