This is a review and detailed measurements of the ELAC Debut 2.0 B6.2 bookshelf speaker. It was kindly purchased by a member new and sent to me for testing. It costs US $245 from Amazon including free shipping.
The Debut 2.0 has a decent look:
It comes with an external grill that I did not use. But I did leave the tweeter screen in place for testing. It is likely a nod to retailers putting these in showrooms trying to keep fingers away from the delicate tweeter.
The finish is fine except I saw a fine white line above the speaker:
Back panel is as you expect:
The binding posts as is typical are too close to each other and recessed in this case, making them pretty difficult to turn.
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 an anechoic chamber. In a nutshell, the measurements show the actual sound coming out of the speaker independent of the room.
I used over 800 measurement point which was sufficient to compute the sound field of the speaker.
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:
Overall, this is a rather flat response so response is not going to be too far from neutral.
A sharp resonance sticks out prominently at 700 Hz which you will see later in a number of other measurements.
The woofer is getting directional before the tweeter takes over with its much wider beam width.
Going back to the resonance, I made near field measurements (almost at driver/port location) to see what they each are doing:
We see our 700 Hz resonance there as a peak in the woofer response so we know it is coming from that. We can also detect the crossover frequency at near 2 kHz.
There is a bump in tweeter response which seems intentional to give the speaker a bit more "zing."
The port (red) helps fill in the low-bass response.
Back to our "spinorama" here is how the important reflections look in a room:
We see a dip in energy around 2 kHz due to directivity error mentioned before. Worst offenders are floor and ceiling reflections so at least a carpet is advised.
Putting everything together, we can plot a hypothetical frequency response in a simulated room:
We see our dip in energy around 1 to 2 kHz again and then some increased amount after that.
Distortion response at two different output levels is shown here:
Response at 86 dB is very good. At 96 dB we have the woofer getting unhappy around 400 Hz and tweeter screaming as well but that distortion is at pretty high frequencies. In absolute levels we get this:
As noted, in this plot I like to see nothing but blank space above 500 Hz. We have some distortion here so not matching our ideals.
Directivity plots are are as follows:
I like the overall well behaved response although it is not super wide. We see the same with fancy color graded chart:
Vertical directivity is typical of 2-way speakers but while some speakers really fall apart off tweeter axis, here you have about +-20 degrees before response gets worse:
Here is our waterfall telling us what we already know with respect to 700 Hz resonance:
Finally, we have our impedance chart:
Impedance at 5 ohm is above average (a good thing). Once again we see a sign of our 700 Hz resonance in the form of a "kink" in the phase response (red).
Speaker Listening Tests
"5-second" reaction to speaker first playing was neutral. Nothing stood out as broken. Nothing stood out as exceptional. Usually it is one or the other.
Listening some more, the sound could be better as it was a bit bright and unexciting for lack of a better term. So I went after it with some Equalization. I first corrected the 700 Hz peak. It seemed to only reduce bass a bit and not much else. I then pulled down the highs a bit, that seemed to make some things worse, some better. So I then went after the mid-range dip and that was helpful:
This increase in response brings out more air and detail in lower frequencies which I always find welcome. With this in place, the pull down at 5 kHz (purple) was then more helpful than not.
The teal one is for the room so ignore that.
Once there, the speaker was pleasant. And importantly, it can play loud, very loud! It is most impressive speaker in that regard. Even playing one speaker I could get it to nearly ear bleeding levels with almost no distortion!
Performance when the needed volume was required was very good. Above average to be sure. But when not, it was ordinary. Not in a bad way but not exciting.
Conclusions
From what I read, the designer Andrew Jones tried to add some more highs to this second iteration of B6 speaker. I find that change unwelcome as it made the speaker a bit bright. I can see why that may sell speakers but I did not like this change. The main issue with the speaker is the dip in response in important 1 to 2 kHz range. Once corrected with EQ, and combined with its great ability to play loud due to its larger than typical woofer, this becomes a competent offering.
I was torn how to rate this speaker. I could say "I like it" or "I don't know." I could be pushed to go with either. In interest of time and many important problems in life to ponder, I just gave it the latter panther rating and went about my business. If you choose to buy the ELAC Debut 2.0 B6.2, I am not going to tell you it is a bad decision.
-----------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
The weather is gorgeous outside. Sunny, beautiful with so much greenery with perfect temperatures. Yet, I am sitting indoor testing speakers. Needless to say that makes me depressed. The only thing that fixes that is a few more dollars in my pocket. So please donate what you can using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
The Debut 2.0 has a decent look:
It comes with an external grill that I did not use. But I did leave the tweeter screen in place for testing. It is likely a nod to retailers putting these in showrooms trying to keep fingers away from the delicate tweeter.
The finish is fine except I saw a fine white line above the speaker:
Back panel is as you expect:
The binding posts as is typical are too close to each other and recessed in this case, making them pretty difficult to turn.
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 an anechoic chamber. In a nutshell, the measurements show the actual sound coming out of the speaker independent of the room.
I used over 800 measurement point which was sufficient to compute the sound field of the speaker.
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:
Overall, this is a rather flat response so response is not going to be too far from neutral.
A sharp resonance sticks out prominently at 700 Hz which you will see later in a number of other measurements.
The woofer is getting directional before the tweeter takes over with its much wider beam width.
Going back to the resonance, I made near field measurements (almost at driver/port location) to see what they each are doing:
We see our 700 Hz resonance there as a peak in the woofer response so we know it is coming from that. We can also detect the crossover frequency at near 2 kHz.
There is a bump in tweeter response which seems intentional to give the speaker a bit more "zing."
The port (red) helps fill in the low-bass response.
Back to our "spinorama" here is how the important reflections look in a room:
We see a dip in energy around 2 kHz due to directivity error mentioned before. Worst offenders are floor and ceiling reflections so at least a carpet is advised.
Putting everything together, we can plot a hypothetical frequency response in a simulated room:
We see our dip in energy around 1 to 2 kHz again and then some increased amount after that.
Distortion response at two different output levels is shown here:
Response at 86 dB is very good. At 96 dB we have the woofer getting unhappy around 400 Hz and tweeter screaming as well but that distortion is at pretty high frequencies. In absolute levels we get this:
As noted, in this plot I like to see nothing but blank space above 500 Hz. We have some distortion here so not matching our ideals.
Directivity plots are are as follows:
I like the overall well behaved response although it is not super wide. We see the same with fancy color graded chart:
Vertical directivity is typical of 2-way speakers but while some speakers really fall apart off tweeter axis, here you have about +-20 degrees before response gets worse:
Here is our waterfall telling us what we already know with respect to 700 Hz resonance:
Finally, we have our impedance chart:
Impedance at 5 ohm is above average (a good thing). Once again we see a sign of our 700 Hz resonance in the form of a "kink" in the phase response (red).
Speaker Listening Tests
"5-second" reaction to speaker first playing was neutral. Nothing stood out as broken. Nothing stood out as exceptional. Usually it is one or the other.
Listening some more, the sound could be better as it was a bit bright and unexciting for lack of a better term. So I went after it with some Equalization. I first corrected the 700 Hz peak. It seemed to only reduce bass a bit and not much else. I then pulled down the highs a bit, that seemed to make some things worse, some better. So I then went after the mid-range dip and that was helpful:
This increase in response brings out more air and detail in lower frequencies which I always find welcome. With this in place, the pull down at 5 kHz (purple) was then more helpful than not.
The teal one is for the room so ignore that.
Once there, the speaker was pleasant. And importantly, it can play loud, very loud! It is most impressive speaker in that regard. Even playing one speaker I could get it to nearly ear bleeding levels with almost no distortion!
Performance when the needed volume was required was very good. Above average to be sure. But when not, it was ordinary. Not in a bad way but not exciting.
Conclusions
From what I read, the designer Andrew Jones tried to add some more highs to this second iteration of B6 speaker. I find that change unwelcome as it made the speaker a bit bright. I can see why that may sell speakers but I did not like this change. The main issue with the speaker is the dip in response in important 1 to 2 kHz range. Once corrected with EQ, and combined with its great ability to play loud due to its larger than typical woofer, this becomes a competent offering.
I was torn how to rate this speaker. I could say "I like it" or "I don't know." I could be pushed to go with either. In interest of time and many important problems in life to ponder, I just gave it the latter panther rating and went about my business. If you choose to buy the ELAC Debut 2.0 B6.2, I am not going to tell you it is a bad decision.
-----------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
The weather is gorgeous outside. Sunny, beautiful with so much greenery with perfect temperatures. Yet, I am sitting indoor testing speakers. Needless to say that makes me depressed. The only thing that fixes that is a few more dollars in my pocket. So please donate what you can using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
