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Elac Uni-Fi 2.0 Review (bookshelf speaker)

stevenswall

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What a shock to discover what I did with this speaker. Usually resonances color the sound. They don't become instruments on their own. But that is what happened here. And in a design from the talented Andrew Jones. Given how easy it was to detect the issue in multiple measurements, it should have been caught and fixed.

The control measures seem to fail sometimes. I had a pair of Elac Navis (Elac Argo before the naming issue) speakers when they first came out. One of them was fine. The other one didn't have a sealed box behind the tweeter/midrange and you could feel air coming out of the gap. Maybe that would also change the woofer behavior having a larger, extra unsealed box to work with.
 

ta240

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"Pending investigation" is already stated in the conclusion of the review by virtue of the following wording which includes "for now":

That is the equivalent of the fast talking disclaimer at the end of a radio ad for a payday loan or small print saying the drug they just advertised may kill you. I say either do the extra work that makes the results truly scientific or drop the science from the name. You have a large following and a large search engine presence that takes these results as factual. If the review is uncertain to the point of needing a 'for now' disclaimer then wait to publish it until the results are proven or disproven. But much like most things online anymore controversy brings clicks and clicks bring money.

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.

I agree. And I understand that there is no requirement for further investigation into issues with the test samples. But at times the site seems to be more audio assassin than audio science. To me, "Science" should imply at least a minimal effort to make sure the test sample is not damaged and yet it wasn't even mentioned in the 'review' that it came from a non-factory source in non-factory packaging and may have sustained damage at some point in its life prior to the test.

There is a lot of pride from the people here taken in the effect this site appears to have on the products that are coming to market and their turn towards better numbers performance. If it has an impact on the designers and manufactures then it clearly has an effect on the shoppers.
I've seen it brushed off before as not a reality that it would affect those shopping but the designers are listening because it does impact their sales. Search for "Elac Uni-fi 2.0 review" and this thread is in the top 4-5 results; there is no possible way that won't have a noticeable impact on sales. This is a speaker that just yesterday I started considering buying and this review did give me pause. This may be a hobby and entertainment for some but it is being taken seriously by quite a few people. The old line of with great power comes great responsibility does come into play here.
 
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DuncanTodd

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yet it wasn't even mentioned in the 'review' that it came from a non-factory source in non-factory packaging and may have sustained damage at some point in its life prior to the test.
As most products reviewed here, it was mentioned it was sent by a member. Some others comes from manufacturers and some dropshipped from Amazon. The packaging may have not been mentioned but knowing tests are done on single speakers, it was pretty easy to assume only one speaker was shipped to cut on shipping costs and likely not in original packaging as those usually contain both speakers.
The gung ho approach some take is a concern, but that's another side of human nature.
Sadly, there is so little trust left in many of us in most review sites, youtubers or questionable awards, that a place not dependent or driven by some sort of financial gain is very rare to find.
 
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BN1

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I read/listen to review sites in order to learn about the audio (and video) technology, determine which products to buy, and be entertained. Objective measurements mean a lot to me in order to satisfy the first two goals and colorful shirts make the last goal amusing. After 40+ yrs in design and manufacturing, I certainly understand that sometimes a bad product can get past all the computer models, lab tests, and QC; even before you involve shipping/handling the product. I also suppose that the same can be said about reviews, sometimes a mistake is made and even an objective reviewer can make an error in judgement. In both or either case, the consumers should benefit.
 

lizhuoyin

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I am new to the site and audiophile in general. But I have engineering background and I appreciate Amir's approaches here. I am not shopping based on headlines. Actually I enjoy reading these posts which give me know-hows quickly. IMHO, Amir should be responsible to himself and himself only, no matter if you like or not.
 

981CS

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That is the equivalent of the fast talking disclaimer at the end of a radio ad for a payday loan or small print saying the drug they just advertised may kill you. I say either do the extra work that makes the results truly scientific or drop the science from the name. You have a large following and a large search engine presence that takes these results as factual. If the review is uncertain to the point of needing a 'for now' disclaimer then wait to publish it until the results are proven or disproven. But much like most things online anymore controversy brings clicks and clicks bring money.

Yeah, I'm not sure what was up with the nonchalant effort on this review, but quite honestly it's not the first time I've seen it here.

If you preach "science" then take the time to do it properly using scientific methods in your process. I get that people are busy and have a life outside of a forum, but this place is now much larger/more impactful than what it once was. If reviews suffer from quality, then people will leave or it will give them the ammunition to speak negatively about it.

Really glad the designer (Mr. Jones) vented a bit of frustration though because this whole thing is swiss cheese.
 

Rock Rabbit

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There are some theories of a damaged unit, but it tested well at FR and only a possible resonance issue detected on THD at 585 Hz.
The longest dimension of the box is 22.75" and if you take a lower sound speed inside a stuffed box you get that resonance frequency! (585 Hz near D5).
That's the reason the resonance is not shown in FR, that's all...forget the unreasonable "damaged speaker" supposition, use your head see the data and specs
P.S.: a dancing box in the vocal range is a flaw , it doesn't matter the designer
P.S.2: and that's how the resonance is detectable in the port too
 
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danielkt

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Just curious how manufactur do some quality assurance for every single speaker after production. Do they use equipment like amir to measure everything (or maybe more advance?). Or just using "trained ear"

I have pioneer bs22 lr that I think sound differently one to another
 

981CS

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Just curious how manufactur do some quality assurance for every single speaker after production. Do they use equipment like amir to measure everything (or maybe more advance?). Or just using "trained ear"

I have pioneer bs22 lr that I think sound differently one to another


The positive/negative binding posts were reversed on the new sealed set of BS-22's that I bought for my son a couple of years ago (on one of them, the other speaker was correct). Not internally, but the screw-on caps on the banana plugs themselves. I noticed the phase issues right away when listening to them but for someone without that experience...who knows.

QC issues happen so anything is possible...even with a $600 speaker.
 

Dennis Murphy

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Just curious how manufactur do some quality assurance for every single speaker after production. Do they use equipment like amir to measure everything (or maybe more advance?). Or just using "trained ear"

I have pioneer bs22 lr that I think sound differently one to another
That's due to poor quality control at the teeter factory. I've tested hundreds of these things and perhaps 15% of them had a severe dip in the mid treble, and many had very peaky response around 14 kHz. ( I'm not sure that persisted in later runs after I discontinued my modded version of the 22). My guess is that any QC checks were just a quick "does it play?" or perhaps an impedance measurement.
 
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whazzup

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Just curious how manufactur do some quality assurance for every single speaker after production. Do they use equipment like amir to measure everything (or maybe more advance?). Or just using "trained ear"

I have pioneer bs22 lr that I think sound differently one to another

Testing after assembly for Elac

Testing after assembly for Dali

Should be a pretty standard process.
 

uwotm8

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The positive/negative binding posts were reversed on the new sealed set of BS-22's that I bought for my son a couple of years ago (on one of them, the other speaker was correct). Not internally, but the screw-on caps on the banana plugs themselves. I noticed the phase issues right away when listening to them but for someone without that experience...who knows.

QC issues happen so anything is possible...even with a $600 speaker.
I believe the cheaper speaker is the less chances it got checked (deeper than just working/not working) you get. Also there can be applied a selective deep testing for every Nth unit. For relatively expensive speakers you can expect a driver pair matching etc. as well as every single unit test including FR measure.
 

luisma

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Paul S. Barton comes to mind for living designers.
And don't forget Paul Wilbur Klipsch, if he had to ask how Andrew Jones became known as a designer.... He is asking the wrong question
 

whazzup

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Both are "premium-line" speakers. And can even be assembled in EU/USA:p


I'm saying that from the videos, the final sound check looks so automated that it hardly seems feasible an assembly line in China would omit that process just to save some pennies (or that the brand doesn't allow the sound check software to be used) and then risk tons of returns. It makes more sense if a lot of expensive trained labor is involved at this final sound check stage and the China factory wanted to cut costs.
 
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thewas

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I'm saying that from the videos, the final sound check is so automated that it hardly seems feasible an assembly line in China would omit that process just to save some pennies and then risk tons of returns.
You need to manually place and connect the loudpeakers as well interpret the measurements which might be not an issue for some $2000+ loudspeakers produced in lower quantities but can be a time and cost factor at mass produced low budget loudspeakers.
 

whazzup

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You need to manually place and connect the loudpeakers as well interpret the measurements which might be not an issue for some $2000+ loudspeakers produced in lower quantities but can be a time and cost factor at mass produced low budget loudspeakers.

I don't see that.... Maybe I'm wrong, but it should not be hard to have the software auto-calculate the deviations from a target curve and sound an alarm if the product goes off by too much.
 

thewas

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I don't see that.... Maybe I'm wrong, but it should not be hard to have the software auto-calculate the deviations from a target curve and sound an alarm if the product goes off by too much.
As said the measurements is one thing, the manual placement and connecting the loudspeakers another, also just an automatic FR tolerance response check would most probably pass in the case of something causing a narrow resonance like an internal component being loose as speculated this case.
 

whazzup

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As said the measurements is one thing, the manual placement and connecting the loudspeakers another, also just an automatic FR tolerance response check would most probably pass in the case of something causing a narrow resonance like an internal component being loose as speculated this case.

I'm not disputing that things can fall through the cracks in automatic measurements. My post was in response to how the factory might be testing each speaker. All testing methods will have their error margins.
 
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