ELAC Debut 2.0 B6.2 Speaker Review

[mhardy6647]

Which one do you prefer?

So far, the R200 is well ahead of the ELAC to my ears. There's just something funny about those little ELACs. They're not bad, but they miss the mark relative to my taste.

 

[sool]

Could anyone share some good DSP settings for this speakers, please?

 

[flipflop]

Could anyone share some good DSP settings for this speakers, please?

Filter 1: ON PK Fc 1514 Hz Gain -1.53 dB Q 0.12
Filter 2: ON PK Fc 720 Hz Gain -2.17 dB Q 6.00
Filter 3: ON PK Fc 4635 Hz Gain -1.36 dB Q 3.38
Filter 4: ON PK Fc 7176 Hz Gain -1.10 dB Q 6.00
Filter 5: ON PK Fc 2740 Hz Gain -0.50 dB Q 6.00
Filter 6: ON PK Fc 141 Hz Gain -0.50 dB Q 6.00
Filter 7: ON PK Fc 464 Hz Gain -0.50 dB Q 6.00
Filter 8: ON PK Fc 721 Hz Gain -0.50 dB Q 6.00
Filter 9: ON PK Fc 1444 Hz Gain +1.21 dB Q 1.04
Preamp: -0.2 dB

 

[trevor_bartram]

I find the bass lean in an attractive way compared with the often bloated bass of most mini monitors. The treble is not over emphasized or recessed. The comments above HT use make sense, you don't want vocals with bloated bass. Any more thoughts about recommended break in period and post break in sound quality?

 

[marcello252]

it's a common safe measure not talking about break in period in this forum !

 

[trevor_bartram]

it's a common safe measure not talking about break in period in this forum !

OK, thanks for the heads up, I'll reword my question.

Any further comments about sound quality from long term users?

Is the 700Hz port resonance noticeable? I'm wondering if there'll be a Debut 3 6.3 with the port moved to the rear.

Has the walnut finish been available from other than MusicDirect in the past?

 

[mhardy6647]

Has the walnut finish been available from other than MusicDirect in the past?

No, AFAIK -- and they claim it's an exclusive.
I'd have gone "walnut" when I got mine had it been an option.
The black is deadly dull -- and 1990s looking.

 

[nick779]

I couldn't decide between these of the Q150s so I bought both to try out. Even with a ~$600 budget, I couldn't find much that appeared to outperform these in a meaningful way that weren't fiddly to place.

So far they sound solid to my untrained ears.

 

[johnwong]

I just got these speakers. The bass is a bit boomy but the overall sound is well balanced. Andrew Jones used what appears to be an ordinary woofer and a soft dome tweeter. No copper, beryllium, titanium, horns, or any gimmicks but yet achieved something good on a extremely tight budget for a designer.

 

[trevor_bartram]

I just got these speakers. The bass is a bit boomy but the overall sound is well balanced. Andrew Jones used what appears to be an ordinary woofer and a soft dome tweeter. No copper, beryllium, titanium, horns, or any gimmicks but yet achieved something good on a extremely tight budget for a designer.

To my ears, the Debut has lean bass, the Debut Reference has fuller bass. I prefer the Debut. If the bass from your speakers is boomy try pulling them out into the room away from boundaries (on stands, of course). A little experimentation goes a long way.

 

[Joe Smith]

To my ears, the Debut has lean bass, the Debut Reference has fuller bass. I prefer the Debut. If the bass from your speakers is boomy try pulling them out into the room away from boundaries (on stands, of course). A little experimentation goes a long way.

Yeah, I have mine on 30" stands about a foot out from the wall corners and they sound great. I feel the bass is very controlled on the 6.2s.

 

[nick779]

One thing does confuse me about these reviews. The general area of 1-2khz is VERY similar here compared to the reference with the debut having less of an overall dip (1.2khz bump) and yet the ref gets so much more positivity. Why is that?

The ref is slightly less S shaped, but with a wider dip below the line.

Also, perhaps as a strike against the Debuts:

Maybe it's the ohm scale making it look a bit strange, but that "difficult" spot seems very much present on the Debuts with more amplitude.

 

[trevor_bartram]

One thing does confuse me about these reviews. The general area of 1-2khz is VERY similar here compared to the reference with the debut having less of an overall dip (1.2khz bump) and yet the ref gets so much more positivity. Why is that?

The ref is slightly less S shaped, but with a wider dip below the line.

The difference in the 1-2KHz band is probably just a small change in crossover component values.

The 700Hz port resonance is reduced by going from a tube port to slot port. Can anyone hear the resonance?

 

[nick779]

The difference in the 1-2KHz band is probably just a small change in crossover component values.

The 700Hz port resonance is reduced by going from a tube port to slot port. Can anyone hear the resonance?

My point was that they're so similar with the debut's possibly being slightly more level in that area, but there was no negative comment made by Amirm about it. Just all good with the Reference model.

I am not a sound engineer and just adequately comprehend these graphs, so I could be overlooking something.

 

[johnwong]

I did some A/B testing of these Debuts with a pair of Sony SS-CS5, mostly on brief sections of live concerts so what I heard was fresh in my memory. The description that kept coming up with the Debuts in comparison to the Sonys is that the Debuts sounded "congested". Where live vocals, stringed acoustic instruments, and cymbals sounded clear and present (close to being live in person at the performance) from the Sonys, the sound of the Debuts seemed congested. It wasn't just the fact that the Sonys are brighter and it wasn't that the Debuts sounded veiled by comparison. It's like the Debuts have a slightly audible coarseness in live vocals and strings at medium sound levels.

 

[Joe Smith]

I did some A/B testing of these Debuts with a pair of Sony SS-CS5, mostly on brief sections of live concerts so what I heard was fresh in my memory. The description that kept coming up with the Debuts in comparison to the Sonys is that the Debuts sounded "congested". Where live vocals, stringed acoustic instruments, and cymbals sounded clear and present (close to being live in person at the performance) from the Sonys, the sound of the Debuts seemed congested. It wasn't just the fact that the Sonys are brighter and it wasn't that the Debuts sounded veiled by comparison. It's like the Debuts have a slightly audible coarseness in live vocals and strings at medium sound levels.

Interesting. I really like my 6.2's. I almost ordered a pair of those Sony's last year, but eventually decided that the construction looked pretty cheap and was worried that the super tweeter would emphasize treble too much for my taste. There do seem to be many fans of the Sony's, tho.

 

[mhardy6647]

I did some A/B testing of these Debuts with a pair of Sony SS-CS5, mostly on brief sections of live concerts so what I heard was fresh in my memory. The description that kept coming up with the Debuts in comparison to the Sonys is that the Debuts sounded "congested". Where live vocals, stringed acoustic instruments, and cymbals sounded clear and present (close to being live in person at the performance) from the Sonys, the sound of the Debuts seemed congested. It wasn't just the fact that the Sonys are brighter and it wasn't that the Debuts sounded veiled by comparison. It's like the Debuts have a slightly audible coarseness in live vocals and strings at medium sound levels.

Can't say I've noticed congestion so much -- although I tend to listen to simpler stuff than, e.g., orchestral music. They still strike me as tonally not quite right. There"s just something un-natural about them. Not euphonically un-natural (plenty of that in "hifi" now and in the past!)... just unrealistic. Not sure what the root cause of that is, based on the quantitative assessment.

 

[johnwong]

Can't say I've noticed congestion so much -- although I tend to listen to simpler stuff than, e.g., orchestral music. They still strike me as tonally not quite right. There"s just something un-natural about them. Not euphonically un-natural (plenty of that in "hifi" now and in the past!)... just unrealistic. Not sure what the root cause of that is, based on the quantitative assessment.

Seems like the quantitative testing is mainly for tone, dispersion and distortion. However, there isn't a test for how close to real the reproduction is. Like how real does it reproduce the pluck of a string, a tap of a cymbal, or a vocal? In the rest of the testing world there are usually reference standards that other instruments can be calibrated against. The problem is no one speaker can do everything well so it seems like there needs to be a set of reference standards for audio speakers. So there would be a reference setting committee that would select one speaker to serve as the reference standard for, say, true and real reproduction of a female vocal. In this example, this female singer would be present in the room and the reference standard chosen would have the most realistic reproduction of that singer to actually being present in the room to hear her.

Of course, that reference committee would have to select all the components that come before the speaker to record the original sound in the truest way possible.

Perhaps there would be 10 categories of basic sounds so there would be a kit that speaker designers and manufacturers would get to compare their speakers against the reference standards for the realistic reproduction of musical sounds.

 

[mhardy6647]

Perhaps there would be 10 categories of basic sounds so there would be a kit that speaker designers and manufacturers would get to compare their speakers against the reference standards for the realistic reproduction of musical sounds.

Sort of like those little kits for developing one's winetasting chops.

I think it comes down to boom and thwack. Hit a large drum, there's the deep, resonant tone of the drum, but it starts with a sharp transient*. You get all that stuff at more or less the right relative amplitude, without much (ideally without any) phase shift across the relevant band of frequencies, and it'll sound right. Or at least good.

___________________
* I really shouldn't go there but really asymmetric signals (like the thwack of a mallet on a drumhead) represent the kind of situation that might lead one to buy into the hypothesis that absolute polarity just might, sometimes, be important. But I'm not goin' there!

 

[nick779]

Can't say I've noticed congestion so much -- although I tend to listen to simpler stuff than, e.g., orchestral music. They still strike me as tonally not quite right. There"s just something un-natural about them. Not euphonically un-natural (plenty of that in "hifi" now and in the past!)... just unrealistic. Not sure what the root cause of that is, based on the quantitative assessment.

I made that observation as well. The Elacs do sound good, but there's something about them that I do not like. It becomes MUCH more prominent at louder volumes too. (Maybe 70-75DB at 4-5 feet based on a phone app)