Elac Debut Reference DBR-62 Speaker Review

[Walter]

The Elac DBR-62 appears to have increased $100 everywhere..... ouch. I suspect that was in response to the Polk R200 pricing, and closer to the BW pricing for the same market. The old price of $600 seemed so good I was looking to buy a set. But now to me at $700 it's past my line in the sand for what I'm willing to spend. That puts me back down to the JBL stage A130 for my next speakers.

They are still $599 on Amazon, but almost out of stock.

 

[Willem]

500 euros inclusive of tax here in the Netherlands.

 

[cbracer]

They are still $599 on Amazon, but almost out of stock.

Amazon is where I first noticed it, shows 699.98 for the white. Walnut is still $599 but all the other major places like crutchfeild and Elac all show $699 for any style. So if you are good with Walnut get them now.

 

[Walter]

Amazon is where I first noticed it, shows 699.98 for the white. Walnut is still $599 but all the other major places like crutchfeild and Elac all show $699 for any style. So if you are good with Walnut get them now.

Yes, they'll go fast. When I posted earlier, there was still one pair left in white plus the two black ones.

 

[kism]

Well, I had to shuffle some money around, but I managed to get one of the black ones. I was trying to wait until next month, so I could buy the Loxjie a30 amp at the same time. Y'all's messages scared me into acting now. I did notice they had gone up everywhere except Amazon, but I wasn't sure I needed to buy so quickly until I came here. The FOMO was too strong.

 

[Upped]

You don't use attenuation?

Sorry for late response. But nope I don't just e30 in dac mode and set my loxjie to 34 and just adjust volume on pc as needed.

 

[mario_rouge]

Sorry for late response. But nope I don't just e30 in dac mode and set my loxjie to 34 and just adjust volume on pc as needed.

i have a problem with my new da9 with dbr62. the sound is very strange, too much bass is heard which completely covers the middle sounds, the voices are really very backward. The soundscape is very poorly balanced.

 

[HiFidFan]

i have a problem with my new da9 with dbr62. the sound is very strange, too much bass is heard which completely covers the middle sounds, the voices are really very backward. The soundscape is very poorly balanced.

How would a DAC affect speakers in such ways? Is the DAC broken?

 

[Beershaun]

It appears that DAC has some sort of sound adjustment mode that changes the frequency response.
https://cruxaudio.com/collections/yulong-audio/products/yulong-da9-balanced-dac-amp

Maybe try setting it to the Flat sound mode?

 

[kism]

So I got these speakers and the loxjie a30 amp for my first home setup. i have everything hooked up to my pc via USB and my smart tv through optical. I’ve been running the loxjie in direct mode with no EQ for about 3 days now. I love the sound of these speakers. They are a huge improvement from my TVs built-in speakers, and on par with quite a few of my headphones, of course with a larger soundstage. i bought these items mostly based on reviews here, but also from listening/reading other sites as well.

I have 2 issues I’m trying to work with, and I have done some research and experimentation on my end. However, I am also going to ask for help here. The first and least important one is the incredible bass output of these speakers. I heard going in that they could throw some serious low-end. I live in an apartment, so I wanted something that I could use without a sub. These definitely fill that purpose. It’s hard being a night owl though, because I want to crank these up for movies, music, and video games, but I can actually Feel the vibrations in my body even at moderate volumes. It makes me feel anxious like I’m going to end up bothering a neighbor, though I haven’t heard any complaints yet. I have resorted to putting the loxjie in tone mode and putting the bass down to -10 even though it still rumbles, I can turn it up a little bit more.

my other and more important issue is with most movies and some tv shows specifically. The volume for dialog is whisper quiet, so I turn it up and it sounds great. I’m hearing little background noises I’ve never noticed before. Then, it’ll go to a different scene with music in the background and it becomes so loud my walls are shaking. I watched 2 comedy movies, not even action or suspense, and had to have the loxjie’s controller in my hand the whole time to turn it up and down and up and down over and over. I did a lot of research on this so far, and I know that some of this can be from the sound engineers and how they mixed the different audio tracks, but there is no option on my tv, the loxjie, or my pc to compress the dynamic range or balance the volume levels except through messing with some settings specifically on vlc media player.

I do have some stands and foam to put underneath the speakers coming tomorrow. They’re not in the best positions right now. Probably toed in a bit too much, but they’re in the only spots I can place them for now. I’m hoping the new placement will help them sound better, but I’m still unsure where to go as far as trying to fix these issues. The only other thing I’ve done so far is input some of the eq profiles from this thread into equalizer/peace on my pc with direct mode on the loxjie, but I couldn’t tell a noticeable difference with the eq on or off, so I just gave up on that for now.

in case you can’t tell, these are my first hifi speakers ever. I’m doing my best to learn on my own. I went through this whole learning process with headphones, amps, DACs, and such last year. I really appreciate anyone who reads all this and decides to try and help me out here.

 

[marcello252]

So I got these speakers and the loxjie a30 amp for my first home setup.

HI,
Try using rubber feet to decouple the speaker from the stand or the bookshelf.

In case, you could try to close the front vent with some sponge and see what happens, even if this could compromise the general performance.

 

[Beershaun]

HI,
Try using rubber feet to decouple the speaker from the stand or the bookshelf.

In case, you could try to close the front vent with some sponge and see what happens, even if this could compromise the general performance.

Also a foam pad could help as well. Although it doesn't look very nice.

 

[Eldus]

So I got these speakers and the loxjie a30 amp for my first home setup. i have everything hooked up to my pc via USB and my smart tv through optical. I’ve been running the loxjie in direct mode with no EQ for about 3 days now. I love the sound of these speakers. They are a huge improvement from my TVs built-in speakers, and on par with quite a few of my headphones, of course with a larger soundstage. i bought these items mostly based on reviews here, but also from listening/reading other sites as well.

I have 2 issues I’m trying to work with, and I have done some research and experimentation on my end. However, I am also going to ask for help here. The first and least important one is the incredible bass output of these speakers. I heard going in that they could throw some serious low-end. I live in an apartment, so I wanted something that I could use without a sub. These definitely fill that purpose. It’s hard being a night owl though, because I want to crank these up for movies, music, and video games, but I can actually Feel the vibrations in my body even at moderate volumes. It makes me feel anxious like I’m going to end up bothering a neighbor, though I haven’t heard any complaints yet. I have resorted to putting the loxjie in tone mode and putting the bass down to -10 even though it still rumbles, I can turn it up a little bit more.

my other and more important issue is with most movies and some tv shows specifically. The volume for dialog is whisper quiet, so I turn it up and it sounds great. I’m hearing little background noises I’ve never noticed before. Then, it’ll go to a different scene with music in the background and it becomes so loud my walls are shaking. I watched 2 comedy movies, not even action or suspense, and had to have the loxjie’s controller in my hand the whole time to turn it up and down and up and down over and over. I did a lot of research on this so far, and I know that some of this can be from the sound engineers and how they mixed the different audio tracks, but there is no option on my tv, the loxjie, or my pc to compress the dynamic range or balance the volume levels except through messing with some settings specifically on vlc media player.

I do have some stands and foam to put underneath the speakers coming tomorrow. They’re not in the best positions right now. Probably toed in a bit too much, but they’re in the only spots I can place them for now. I’m hoping the new placement will help them sound better, but I’m still unsure where to go as far as trying to fix these issues. The only other thing I’ve done so far is input some of the eq profiles from this thread into equalizer/peace on my pc with direct mode on the loxjie, but I couldn’t tell a noticeable difference with the eq on or off, so I just gave up on that for now.

in case you can’t tell, these are my first hifi speakers ever. I’m doing my best to learn on my own. I went through this whole learning process with headphones, amps, DACs, and such last year. I really appreciate anyone who reads all this and decides to try and help me out here.

If you have them close to a wall the bass response will be elevated. Also I find in my room having them toed in at 20 degree angles gives good results for me.

 

[PeterMac]

I have another situation with bass. I put them to really small room (2,5m x 4,5m) on desk near wall and bass is weak compare to what was in other much bigger room when they stand on table in middle the room. Probablly the bass wave wears off itself. Good that these speakers have powerfull bass. When I put KEF Q100 there bass was really weak even when I add +10dB on Loxjie. On DBR-62 I have bass on 0dB and its still fine.

 

[Triliza]

So I got these speakers and the loxjie a30 amp for my first home setup. i have everything hooked up to my pc via USB and my smart tv through optical. I’ve been running the loxjie in direct mode with no EQ for about 3 days now. I love the sound of these speakers. They are a huge improvement from my TVs built-in speakers, and on par with quite a few of my headphones, of course with a larger soundstage. i bought these items mostly based on reviews here, but also from listening/reading other sites as well.

I have 2 issues I’m trying to work with, and I have done some research and experimentation on my end. However, I am also going to ask for help here. The first and least important one is the incredible bass output of these speakers. I heard going in that they could throw some serious low-end. I live in an apartment, so I wanted something that I could use without a sub. These definitely fill that purpose. It’s hard being a night owl though, because I want to crank these up for movies, music, and video games, but I can actually Feel the vibrations in my body even at moderate volumes. It makes me feel anxious like I’m going to end up bothering a neighbor, though I haven’t heard any complaints yet. I have resorted to putting the loxjie in tone mode and putting the bass down to -10 even though it still rumbles, I can turn it up a little bit more.

my other and more important issue is with most movies and some tv shows specifically. The volume for dialog is whisper quiet, so I turn it up and it sounds great. I’m hearing little background noises I’ve never noticed before. Then, it’ll go to a different scene with music in the background and it becomes so loud my walls are shaking. I watched 2 comedy movies, not even action or suspense, and had to have the loxjie’s controller in my hand the whole time to turn it up and down and up and down over and over. I did a lot of research on this so far, and I know that some of this can be from the sound engineers and how they mixed the different audio tracks, but there is no option on my tv, the loxjie, or my pc to compress the dynamic range or balance the volume levels except through messing with some settings specifically on vlc media player.

I do have some stands and foam to put underneath the speakers coming tomorrow. They’re not in the best positions right now. Probably toed in a bit too much, but they’re in the only spots I can place them for now. I’m hoping the new placement will help them sound better, but I’m still unsure where to go as far as trying to fix these issues. The only other thing I’ve done so far is input some of the eq profiles from this thread into equalizer/peace on my pc with direct mode on the loxjie, but I couldn’t tell a noticeable difference with the eq on or off, so I just gave up on that for now.

in case you can’t tell, these are my first hifi speakers ever. I’m doing my best to learn on my own. I went through this whole learning process with headphones, amps, DACs, and such last year. I really appreciate anyone who reads all this and decides to try and help me out here.

I am thinking to give a try at this speaker at some point. Nice to hear that there is plenty of bass there, well, too much for your case, and probably will be the same for my room too. About the dialog problem, there is a option for normalization on mpc-hc (it's still maintained by a dev and get minor updates now and then), you can find it under Options->Audio Switcher, maybe it will help, I have never use it, give it a try.

 

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Anyone have any experience with the Uni-Fi (UBR62) version? It cost more it has to be better, right?

 

[Beershaun]

Anyone have any experience with the Uni-Fi (UBR62) version? It cost more it has to be better, right?

Erin's audio corner did a spinorama on it. https://www.erinsaudiocorner.com/loudspeakers/elac_ubr62/
It doesn't measure demonstrably better. It's frequency response seems to actually be less linear and more jagged. It has slightly better vertical directivity due to the coaxial design but that's it.

So I don't think it's worth double the price IMHO.

 

[akarma]

In what color do they look better? White or black?

 

[Oeldling]

This is a review and detailed measurements of the Elac Debut Reference DBR-62 bookshelf speaker. It was kindly purchased new and drop shipped to me for testing. The DBR-62 costs US $600 a pair from multiple sources/dealers.

The DBR-62 comes in black and walnut finish or the distressed Oak and white which is what I received:

View attachment 55712​

I really like the baffle, the slot port and woofer. The grill on the tweeter is a bit out of place in my mind but not overly so. Overall, it is a very modern take on speaker design which I like. It comes with a gray patterned grill which can hide the drivers if you like.

So far my reviews of other Andrew Jones speakers has not resulted in any star performers. Some have actually been disappointing. Will the DBR-62 be an exception? Let's find out.

Measurements that you are about to see were performed using the Klippel Near-field Scanner (NFS). This is a robotic measurement system that analyzes the speaker all around and is able (using advanced mathematics and dual scan) to subtract room reflections (so where I measure it doesn't matter). It also measures the speaker at close distance ("near-field") which sharply reduces the impact of room noise. Both of these factors enable testing in ordinary rooms yet results that can be more accurate than anechoic chamber. In a nutshell, the measurements show the actual sound coming out of the speaker independent of the room.

All measurements are reference to tweeter axis with the grill removed. Frequency resolution is 2.7 Hz. Over 700 measurement points were used to assure high precision in higher frequencies, resulting in well under 1% error. I am also using averaging to lower noise in bass frequencies. I also doubled the drive voltage (for spinorama) to overcome low frequency noise in my setting.

All measurements are with no grill and on tweeter axis.

Spinorama Audio Measurements
Acoustic measurements can be grouped in a way that can be perceptually analyzed to determine how good a speaker can be used. This so called spinorama shows us just about everything we need to know about the speaker with respect to tonality and some flaws:

View attachment 55713

On-axis response is quite flat for a budget bookshelf speaker. Yes, there are a few peaks here and there including a resonance around 610 Hz which you can also see in the waterfall display:

View attachment 55714

Predicted in-room response is quite good as well, indicating off-axis performance that is close to on-axis:

View attachment 55715

I note EQ but in later listening, I don't think that is necessary.

Here is the response for the most powerful and audible reflections in a typical room:

View attachment 55718

Minimum impedance is 5 ohm which is above most bookshelf speakers which drop below 4 ohm:

View attachment 55716

However, note the area I have circled. Impedance is high at about 8 ohms but the phase angle is quite acute at nearly 50 degrees. This means the speaker will ask for current when the output voltage is very low. So you better have a beefy amplifier to drive this speaker.

Edit: Distortion measurement

View attachment 55737
Eye-candy Speaker Measurements
Horizontal directivity shows that most of the response enjoys a very wide, nearly 80 degree angle:
View attachment 55719

This means toe-in angle is quite forgiving. And there is wide sweet (listening) spot.

Vertical angle is much worse and is typical of two-way speakers of this design:

View attachment 55720

Which backs my recommendation to absorb those reflections if it doesn't make your room too dead.

I zoomed in the 3-D soundfield at the resonance frequency for fun:


View attachment 55721

On the right is our woofer/port. On the left is the back of the speaker. So it looks like the back is resonating and causing interference pattern with the front wave.

Speaker Listening Tests
Ah, what joy! Just put the ELAC DBR-62 on the stand and with no fiddling/adjusting, etc. it sounded superb! Absolutely superb. Balanced sound with tons of detail. Bass output was impressive. Despite use of a single speaker in my testing, it could fill my massive space with plenty of powerful low energy. Mind you, there was 1000 watts on tap to drive it but still, the speaker showed little sign of stress. At extremely high levels (ear bleeding) I could hear some resonances but back off a bit and you were invited to incredible performance.

I went through some 20 to 30 reference tracks and every one, without exception sounded amazing! With some speakers I have to hunt to find a good sounding track or two. Not with the Elac DBR-62.

Note that the only EQ I used was for the 200 bass mode in my room. There is enough bass out of this speaker to energize that mode so be sure to have some means of EQ for your bass frequencies. Above that, none is needed but you are welcome to try some to taste (broad, low-Q EQ).

Conclusions
The ELAC DBR-62 objectively and subjectively meets and exceeds my expectations. It is "Andrew Jones" as I expected but had been missing up to now. It is "high-end" sound on a budget with little to apologize for. I was sad to stop listening to it to type this review! It is that good.

Message to Andrew: please stop messing with coaxial drivers and such. Optimized 2-way system like this outperforms them all. They design won't sound sexy on paper but boy does it sound good in person. And no fussiness with placement in room either.

So save up if you have to but don't settle for anything less than this. I am happy to give my strongest recommendation for ELAC DBR-62.

------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.

Two things make me happy: audio products that are well engineered and money. Today I got my dose of the former so no donation is necessary. But if you feel like it, you can do so using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/

Almost sounds like elac have spons The rew but i know Thats not The case, The numbers speak for them selfes , The jet tweeter is exteme to reproduce details is this pair of speaker even better?

 

[PeterMac]

In what color do they look better? White or black?

Depends of your taste , both looks nice, but I think this gray grills fit little nicer to white spekaer version.