Elac Debut Reference DBR-62 Speaker Review

[ROOSKIE]

Yea that was my point, and your brothers are the rule, not the exception. Even within the top 20% of households many would balk at a $1600 stereo, nevermind the 80% under them. I spend a lot of time in circles that are only tangentially related to and concerned with audio. The overwhelming majority of people looking for suggestions have $500 - $1000 to spend on a full 5.1+ system, and in most cases that's genuinely all they have (they've saved or financed just to manage that). That really won't even build a Pioneer or Sony system. That should put into perspective the gap to a minimum $2600 5.1 Debut Reference system, and how out of touch it looks calling it "budget".

I agree generally with your points. I do feel that these are essentially priced as "high end budget" if you get me. That is why they are debut reference, by no means are they ELACs reference level speaker but in their budget line they do represent top of the line, reference, budget gear.
Yes $2600 give or take is the high side of budget home theater. Or the middle of the road for a mid range buyer.
If you look at 2 channel, this makes more sense. Buy the dbr-62 for $600 and a refurb Yamaha r-s202 ($89) or Yamaha r-n303 for $199 and for $700-800 you have a very decent set up to start with. Yes, either Yamaha will easily power these, I have used both those ultra budget amps with serious success with several very good speakers, they sound great.
In any case I'd say that $600 for one pair is still budget, just pushing it though.

 

[Gatordaddy]

They play far louder than the 305. The 305 has dynamic compression that sets in as you turn them up.

I've noticed this effect, but only well over my typical listening levels. How stable is the voicing/timbre outside of listening position?

 

[amirm]

I've noticed this effect, but only well over my typical listening levels. How stable is the voicing/timbre outside of listening position?

See the review. Dispersion is quite wide.

 

[ferongr]

Any reason these wouldn't work for near field monitors on a desk?

I bought them for that application, in conjunction with a pair of 15cm stands to bring the tweeter to ear level.

 

[renaudrenaud]

Received one hour ago.

 

[BYRTT]

Promised @Cahudson42 some curves here in thread frequency dependent comparison of radar animations for @DBR62 based upon Amir's nice spindata . . .

Horizontals:

Frequency:

Verticals:

Frequency:

 

[StevenEleven]

I just ordered a pair of these. I had been checking a couple of times a day to see if they got any new ones in stock, and today there they were, got permission from my wife and ordered. So I get 60 days to try them out. They should get here early next week.

This is the most I have ever spent on anything audio and I hope they will be my end game speakers. It is not at all even a little strain on my budget, I just have never trusted what was out there about speakers, and got pretty lucky with the cheap stuff I bought. I’m actually very happy with what I have but if I can have something approximating top of the line sound for $600 / pair and if I find the benefit of it is not lost on me I’m all in.

BTW it looks like the new white DBR62s sold out in just a few hours today. I ordered the darker variety just a few hours ago and they had both types new in stock at that time, but now the white ones are out of stock but the dark ones are still in stock.

FWIW, the first user review is in from Amazon, definitely not someone grounded in the objectivist perspective, but they are extremely pleased with the sound apparently. They seem not too extremely knowledgeable but very credible, which is sometimes a good perspective to hear from. As I wrote this it seems a first user review went up on the Crutchfield website also, again very positive, comparing them favorably to the Debut 2.0 B6.2s.

My wife is compiling a list of things in the house I am not allowed to use as speaker stands. We do have available a pair of small cabinets with two shelves each underneath though and that way the space under them wouldn’t be wasted. We also have two actual real wood speaker stands but my wife says they’ll get knocked over too easily, and they are only 20 inches tall, so that wouldn’t quite get them up to ear height for me. I’ll figure something out while I’m trying them out, and then maybe get some ideal speaker stands if I keep them. Looks like 24” might be an ideal height for the stands?

To keep in stride with @renaudrenaud I plan to have Ultraman ready for battle on top of one speaker and a lego Speed Racer in the Mach 5 on the other.

 

[renaudrenaud]

I just ordered a pair of these from Crutchfield. I had been checking a couple of times a day to see if they got any new ones in stock, and today there they were, got permission from my wife and ordered. So I get 60 days to try them out since it’s Crutchfield. They should get here early next week.

This is the most I have ever spent on anything audio and I hope they will be my end game speakers. It is not at all even a little strain on my budget, I just have never trusted what was out there about speakers, and got pretty lucky with the cheap stuff I bought. I’m actually very happy with what I have but if I can have something approximating top of the line sound for $600 / pair and if I find the benefit of it is not lost on me I’m all.
63]@renaudrenaud[/USER] I plan to have Ultraman on top of one speaker and Speed Racer in the Mach 5 on the other.

Our living room is a big mess. I have plenty of headphones and do not know exactly where to place them...

Relative to the Elac, there is a good chance you keep them. It seems you have to deal with WAF and this pair of speakers is highly WAF compliant (I am discussing with my wife about horn speakers). And I am pretty sure you will like them. They sound right.

 

[BYRTT]

Received one hour ago.

View attachment 56974

Looks good have fun there ..

Now i can't really know dimensions but it looks a bit you have close to two same distances to boundarys there and any same distances to boundarys is bad somewhere in lows region, what i mean is in below visualization for the three closest boundarys using distances of 1 and 2 and 3 feet, one can see how it collapse a bit when two get the same and with three being same we get a huge mess of interference

 

[renaudrenaud]

Looks good have fun there ..

Now i can't really know dimensions but it looks a bit you have close to two same distances to boundarys there and any same distances to boundarys is bad somewhere in lows region, what i mean is in below visualization for the three closest boundarys using distances of 1 and 2 and 3 feet, one can see how it collapse a bit when two get the same and with three being same we get a huge mess of interference

View attachment 57103

So can I ask for an advice?
More mess hahaha! My wife is an angel.

 

[Mauro]

It seems to be the normal behavior of paper coated/aramid woofers of about 6 inches of diameter. Just look for example on the Seas website..the driver supplier

After an interesting reading on SoundOnSound, I thought that it would be interesting sharing this comment from the writer about resonances on two way systems around 1khz: “The resonance is almost certainly the result of a mechanical mismatch between the bass/mid driver cone and its rubber surround, and may be audible as a distinctive mid-range character” and “speaker designers face a continual struggle against cone/surround resonance in the 1kHz region”

 

[Davedaring]

AJ living up to the reputation, will be very interesting to see the B6.2 and UB5 measured. I don't know that I'd call $600/pr budget or affordable, there are a lot of options in that price range when you account for sales and discounting, but these will be a steal when/if Elac runs their semi-annual sale like they've done with their other mainstream big box models.

Noaudiophile rates the B6.2 highly.

 

[BYRTT]

So can I ask for an advice?
More mess hahaha! My wife is an angel.

View attachment 57105

Angels are good stuff about distances say you adjust 3 feet to floor 2 feet to sidewall and 1 feet to frontwall should get you the smootest gain as numbers was set in that simulation, distances is relative to cone on frontbaffle so in that DBR62 is 11 inch deep enclosure will end up positioned close to the wall if you can live with that, else move around and find the best compromise of look verse the distances to boundarys are so relative different as possible.

BTW here are link to spreadsheet i used for that boundary model http://audio.claub.net/software/jbabgy/jbagby.html

 

[thewas]

Noaudiophile rates the B6.2 highly.

The B5.2 http://noaudiophile.com/ELAC_B5-2/ , they haven't tested the B6.2 yet?

 

[renaudrenaud]

Angels are good stuff about distances say you adjust 3 feet to floor 2 feet to sidewall and 1 feet to frontwall should get you the smootest gain as numbers was set in that simulation, distances is relative to cone on frontbaffle so in that DBR62 is 11 inch deep enclosure will end up positioned close to the wall if you can live with that, else move around and find the best compromise of look verse the distances to boundarys are so relative different as possible.

BTW here are link to spreadsheet i used for that boundary model http://audio.claub.net/software/jbabgy/jbagby.html

Thanks a lot... Now I have to transcode information in metric unit... Gonna ask to my wife!

 

[BYRTT]

Thanks a lot... Now I have to transcode information in metric unit... Gonna ask to my wife!

12 inches per feet and 25,4mm per inch makes one feet 30,48 centimeter, and by the way if should you get that smooth predicted room and boundary gain from model it will probably not hurt dial down a bit in very lows, say one PEQ at 64Hz Q1,5 -1 to -2dB or -3dB, hard to tell but on paper it looks a squizze to hot down there and neighbor is always happy when we dial down.

 

[Dennis Murphy]

After an interesting reading on SoundOnSound, I thought that it would be interesting sharing this comment from the writer about resonances on two way systems around 1khz: “The resonance is almost certainly the result of a mechanical mismatch between the bass/mid driver cone and its rubber surround, and may be audible as a distinctive mid-range character” and “speaker designers face a continual struggle against cone/surround resonance in the 1kHz region”

Amen to that. And as I posted on this thread (I think), this problem can occur on very high end drivers, and also suddenly in the middle of a production run when a company (like AT-Skanning) sources parts from a different supplier and the crossover has to be redesigned. Such irregularities are easy to deal with using an active Xover. With a passive, a 1 kHz bump can be damped down with a lrc trap circuit. However, if the mismatch in behavior between the cone and surround produces a dip, you're pretty much out of luck with passive components. That's why I never use a number of the otherwise excellent SB Acoustics woofers in a 2-way. They have a pronounced dip a little above 1 kHz, and if you try to fill that in, you're borrowing energy from a different frequency region and you can't optimize the crossover. (The white ceramic SB woofers, like the 6" used by Revel, are an exception--they're super linear in that region.)

 

[Mauro]

Amen to that. And as I posted on this thread (I think), this problem can occur on very high end drivers, and also suddenly in the middle of a production run when a company (like AT-Skanning) sources parts from a different supplier and the crossover has to be redesigned. Such irregularities are easy to deal with using an active Xover. With a passive, a 1 kHz bump can be damped down with a lrc trap circuit. However, if the mismatch in behavior between the cone and surround produces a dip, you're pretty much out of luck with passive components. That's why I never use a number of the otherwise excellent SB Acoustics woofers in a 2-way. They have a pronounced dip a little above 1 kHz, and if you try to fill that in, you're borrowing energy from a different frequency region and you can't optimize the crossover. (The white ceramic SB woofers, like the 6" used by Revel, are an exception--they're super linear in that region.)

Interesting! Life of a speaker designer can be tough!

As this might be a relevant subject I will leave here some more details by Phil Ward (SoS) on surrounds and problems at 1khz:
“
The surround component on a bass/mid driver fundamentally has two jobs. The first is that at low frequencies, the surround has to enable the diaphragm to move significant distances with minimal resistance. The second job, however, is that at higher, mid‑range frequencies, especially as the diaphragm begins to move more chaotically, the surround has to damp and dissipate the vibrational energy. Unfortunately, one of the problems often thrown up by the mechanical properties of feasible driver diaphragm and surround materials is that successfully doing both jobs simultaneously is a problem, and that’s typically reflected in a significant surround resonance, usually somewhere between 750 and 1500 Hz (depending on the diaphragm diameter).

Curing such diaphragm/surround resonance ills in decades past would sometimes result in narrow beads of damping compound applied to the inside of the surround roll, or even in surrounds made in two parts; one floppy, one stiffer. These days, however, with the benefits of computer‑based FEA (Finite Element Analysis) modelling available, surround components with complex profiles that simultaneously offer both flexibility at low frequencies and damping at targeted mid‑range frequencies can be created”

 

[wje]

Looks like 24” might be an ideal height for the stands?

Congrats. Glad you were able to score a pair when you did. Our favorite listening chairs can have different types. I happened to own a pair of 28" stands that I bought to get the Paradigm 200B speakers up to the right level - their cabinets were not as tall, so the tweeter sat a little lower. I have a new home theater recliner, and the seating height is a few inches taller than the old recliner. I initially started using the 28" stands for the Elacs. My ear was in alignment with the speaker, right between the woofer and tweeter - or more along the lines of the very top of the woofer. I then pulled out the 24" stands that I have. Now, with my current higher chair, the Elac tweeters are right at ear level for me. While I'm working on repainting the 28" stands to match the decor a bit better, I still think I'll stay with the 24" stands as that seems to be a good height, for my setup/situation.

The 24" stands that I have, are the Trans Deco stands from Amazon. I initially bought them for the Focal 1008BE speakers. The stands are truly solid and capably held the heavier 1008BE speakers very well. I've realized Amazon dropped the price of the stands and they're down to $91, now. I had paid $119 at the time, but don't have any regrets, because they are solid and well made. Plus they include plastic caps to cover the carpet floor spikes if you place them on hardwood floors. They have a bigger top plate than some of the stands, which tend to typically be about 6" x 6". The Elacs fit very well - very solid and secure on the stands.

 

[tuga]

With a passive, a 1 kHz bump can be damped down with a lrc trap circuit.

I never hear this name before. Is this the same as a notch filter?