Elac Debut Reference DBR-62 Speaker Review

[Beershaun]

Are the DBR-62 relatively easy to drive?

Will something like the 44w Onkyo A-9010 be sufficient enough for small/medium rooms?

S.

I don't think so. What is it's dynamic or peak output? If you look at my calculations in a previous post (assumes I am correctly calculating the peak voltage at that frequency) you need 96.6 watts peak power at rated distortion at that frequency for your amp to keep to stay in a healthy range.

 

[Benedium]

It all depends on how loud you want to go. A difficult load like the Elac will effectively cut your safe AMP output in half (strong simplification), which is -3dB of max volume.


No, this has nothing to do with it, it merely means the Elac is 2dB more efficient than your old speakers.
edit: misread and thought Elac was 2dB less efficient but nope, it's more.

Debut Reference seems to need higher volume from my av receiver for the bass to become more audible and sound more balanced with other frequencies but the best thing is the treble never sounds harsh even at higher volumes.

At higher volumes, the bass from dbr62 is so strong you'd even think the subwoofer was on. I love it! Hopefully the sound improves even more after 100hr run-in, if that's a real thing.

 

[StevenEleven]

Debut Reference seems to need higher volume from my av receiver for the bass to become more audible and sound more balanced with other frequencies but the best thing is the treble never sounds harsh even at higher volumes.

At higher volumes, the bass from dbr62 is so strong you'd even think the subwoofer was on. I love it! Hopefully the sound improves even more after 100hr run-in, if that's a real thing.

100 hour run-in or burn-in is not a real thing. Playing with room placement, or equalization or Digital Sound Processing, are real things. You got a really nice pair of speakers for a killer price. That’s awesome. I

So congrats on your DBR-62s! Sometimes I turn my subwoofers off when I listen to them and they still do sound satisfying. My teenage kids complain about the sound of my subwoofers vibrating upstairs in their rooms sometimes (especially during the quiet hours), so I have the subwoofers off a decent amount of the time. What’s the world coming to?

If you think your receiver is not powerful enough (I would ask the community here with specifics—what is your receiver, how big is your room, how loud do you listen, what kind of music do you listen to—and get opinions from here if I were concerned) maybe ask the community. The DBR-62s sound fine to me for my uses with an inexpensive Onkyo receiver at moderate volumes, but YMMV. Plus I have my subwoofers to pick up the slack when I want to crank it a little. Unfortunately, I personally am not technically knowledgeable enough to give you a good opinion on your receiver as paired with your DBR-62s without subwoofers.

 

[Benedium]

Thanks StevenEleven.
It's also possible I dont know the definition of moderate or high volume... LOL!

Based on my sound analyzer phone app I usually play music at an average of 70db. I sit up to 2m away from each speaker. My living room is about 3m x 7m with doors and windows that I keep open because I'm in tropical Singapore.

 

[Beershaun]

Thanks StevenEleven.
It's also possible I dont know the definition of moderate or high volume... LOL!

Based on my sound analyzer phone app I usually play music at an average of 70db. I sit up to 2m away from each speaker. My living room is about 3m x 7m with doors and windows that I keep open because I'm in tropical Singapore.

Someone double check my formulas here to make sure I'm not leading this person astray on my max voltage understanding please.

If I do some back of the envelope math...
70db at 2m is ~= 76db at 1m (source here: http://www.mcsquared.com/dbframe.htm)

Elac DBR6.2 spec is 1w for 86db 2.83v/1m. (source: https://www.elac.com/series/debut-reference/dbr-62/?r=us)
So 76db is 0.5w 0.1w for 2.83v/1m. (1/10 the power for 10db drop in spl) EDIT: adjusted per Foxxy's correction.

Double checking against this site's forumla for SPL and power this seems to check out:https://geoffthegreygeek.com/calculator-amp-speaker-spl/

You should be good for ~90db at 2m with 3db of headroom with a 40w amp. Above that your amp may start to distort and get hot.
My word of caution is while 90db will seem pretty loud for mid and high ranges it may not seem that high for low frequency ranges. If you have an app for your phone that could show you SPLs across the frequency range of your music you could get a sense of whether or not any low frequencies are pushing your amp that hard.

I know the phone app won't be as accurate as a calibrated mic but would help with relative SPL and whether or not you are coming close to 90db or not on your lower frequencies.

 

[Foxxy]

Elac DBR6.2 spec is 1w for 86db 2.83v/1m. (source: https://www.elac.com/series/debut-reference/dbr-62/?r=us)
So 76db is 0.5w for 2.83v/1m. (halve the power for 10db drop in spl)

Nope. 10dB drop means a tenth of the power, so merely 0.1w. The half goes for the perceived volume level.
Also, what do you mean by headroom in this scenario?

My numbers are slightly different: I'd say 86dB at listening position is the safe maximum. That leaves room for 10dB of dynamics, bassy music often has less, and 3 dB safety margin if a bass solo plucks a 120Hz note very loudly.

 

[StevenEleven]

Please note @Benedium has a Denon x3600h receiver, not a 44w Onkyo. I can’t do math wars the way you guys can, but I would guess he’s good to go, with a good margin of comfort?

ASR review: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...ds/denon-avr-x3600h-av-receiver-review.12676/

Specs: https://usa.denon.com/en-us/shop/denonna-receivers/avrx3600h_d#divSubscribe

 

[Beershaun]

Nope. 10dB drop means a tenth of the power, so merely 0.1w. The half goes for the perceived volume level.
Also, what do you mean by headroom in this scenario?

My numbers are slightly different: I'd say 86dB at listening position is the safe maximum. That leaves room for 10dB of dynamics, bassy music often has less, and 3 dB safety margin if a bass solo plucks a 120Hz note very loudly.

@Foxxy Thanks for double checking my math. You are correct with the power drop being 10x. The 3db headroom was the assumption listed on the site I pulled the formula from. I tend to agree with you though 10db headroom is a better assumption. Although I don't know if that's headroom should be applied to RMS power rating or Instant/peak power rating when performing a calculation to choose an amplifier to marry to a given speaker.

Second question I am not sure about: Max voltage to use in the equation for power needs. I believe the max instantaneous voltage a speaker line level would be 28.3v and hence the max power equation should be based on using that. But the equation I referenced is using 2.83v. So would like some guidance on which is the appropriate voltage to use when trying to calculate the maximum instantaneous power required given the speaker's impedance curve and SPL at a 2.3m (7ft) listening position.

@Benedium thanks for clarifying. 100w rms should be fine then.

 

[Benedium]

Oh wow... thanks for the science help guys!

 

[Laserjock]

Oh wow... thanks for the science help guys!

Check the 80W BASH amp used at the RMAF this past September with the speakers.
I heard them there, in that room and liked how they sounded.

 

[ezra_s]

Leaving this new review in youtube about these speakers here for you guys to discuss if you like

 

[StevenEleven]

Leaving this new review in youtube about these speakers here for you guys to discuss if you like

Thanks for posting this. But seeing it posted here, I think it needs to be called out for what it is—nonsense—and on the small chance the author has a chance to read this, I would encourage him to try to do much, much better. It is do-able, but it will require a little hiatus (“months”) for some real learning and hard work.

No data and tons of unsupported assertions, subjective gobbledygook speak, and technical nonsense. In short, if he cannot do better, he should find another occupation. I know he is a shade on the anti-audiophilia side, but he is spreading misinformation and sloppy thinking. He has tons of room for book learning and trying to learn a few basic things about audio and electronics and at least trying to apply them in a very basic manner. As a whole, it’s an ignorant and stupid review. Worse than worthless. He should take a look in the mirror and try harder. In the “months” he had auditioned those speakers he could have read Toole’s book, learned a lot about audio acoustics, tried his hand at REW and a Umik-1, and learned some basics about solid state amplification. He is not qualified to review speakers. IMHO. Sad. I see potential there but perhaps not the motivation to do better.

 

[Foxxy]

Just got them. Say what you want, the WAF on them is super high, noone should have problems having those in the living room. The structured oak veneer imitation is super nice and prevents there being any feeling of cheap surface.

Okay, okay, we are here for the sound, aren't we?
I'll keep it brief: they sound fantastic. A bit basshy in my room but my small 8-inch sub crossed in at 65Hz made sure this will play most things with authority, even if the lowest octave is still missing. And nope, no bigger sub allowed.
Tonality overall is fantastic, everything sounds very natural. Nothing is sharp or juts out.
Resolution: pretty awesome. Even the very faint smacking of lips in front of the mic is rendered with high accuracy as well as very subtle breath noises. Hahaha, Clint Eastwood (the song) almost sound jarring with this, feels like I can seperate the real voices and the mic from each other. Like others have said, this is good studio monitor rendering.
Cymbals are sound beautiful and the faint layers of ringing are rendered with great clarity. Okay, I could go on and on but yeah, those are really resolving speakers.
Imaging is almost nonexistent... because their placement and my room just suck. In a proper place those would open a huge spacious venue, that's for sure.
Considering they replaced bookshelves from a direct reseller for twice the price with a good ribbon tweeter and a Seas magnesium midwoofer, which themselves replaced commercial speakers for €1600, it's simply crazy. And I never could satisfactorily integrate the sub with those old bookshelves, with the Elacs it's just cohesive top to bottom.
They are driven with the Elac Element amp (first version) and it goes as loud as I want in the room (22sqm).

This is basically the Andrew Jones promise: make something that is high-end on a budget. And unlike the Debut 2 and UniFi series, those again really deliver. When the original sounded like a balanced high-end speaker but with less resolution, those new ones just sound fantastic in every aspect.
And it's not budget hype, this is coming from a man who parted with a DIY speaker where he spent 40 hours on the cabinet to then simply give it away because he wasn't really satisfied with the sound.

So yeah, if you are shopping for new speakers, those should go to the very top of your auditioning pile.

Spoiler

Oh god, I am so relieved. I was so worried that again I would not like a pair of well regarded speakers. That's a load of my shoulders, finally something that I can live with.

 

[Foxxy]

Addon: I just HAD to know. So I pushed around all furniture, pulled out the speakers and turned the room into a landfill for acoustic material. Yep, fantastic imaging. The better I got the room situation, the better it was. You can get a LOT done with electronics but the washing out of the image is not one of them, sadly.
I'll build them some custom stands to be able to better place them in the conditions I can have. It won't make it good but better for sure

 

[turbotuff]

Anyone using these for a nearfield/desk setup? How sensitive are they to wall placement?

 

[JoachimStrobel]

Within the Elac Debut series, they have the floorstanding DFR52. Does anybody know or offer an educated guess if they would be an improvement over the DBR62 and/or offer similar value for money?

 

[KaiserSoze]

Just got them. Say what you want, the WAF on them is super high, noone should have problems having those in the living room. The structured oak veneer imitation is super nice and prevents there being any feeling of cheap surface.

Okay, okay, we are here for the sound, aren't we?
I'll keep it brief: they sound fantastic. A bit basshy in my room but my small 8-inch sub crossed in at 65Hz made sure this will play most things with authority, even if the lowest octave is still missing. And nope, no bigger sub allowed.
Tonality overall is fantastic, everything sounds very natural. Nothing is sharp or juts out.
Resolution: pretty awesome. Even the very faint smacking of lips in front of the mic is rendered with high accuracy as well as very subtle breath noises. Hahaha, Clint Eastwood (the song) almost sound jarring with this, feels like I can seperate the real voices and the mic from each other. Like others have said, this is good studio monitor rendering.
Cymbals are sound beautiful and the faint layers of ringing are rendered with great clarity. Okay, I could go on and on but yeah, those are really resolving speakers.
Imaging is almost nonexistent... because their placement and my room just suck. In a proper place those would open a huge spacious venue, that's for sure.
Considering they replaced bookshelves from a direct reseller for twice the price with a good ribbon tweeter and a Seas magnesium midwoofer, which themselves replaced commercial speakers for €1600, it's simply crazy. And I never could satisfactorily integrate the sub with those old bookshelves, with the Elacs it's just cohesive top to bottom.
They are driven with the Elac Element amp (first version) and it goes as loud as I want in the room (22sqm).

This is basically the Andrew Jones promise: make something that is high-end on a budget. And unlike the Debut 2 and UniFi series, those again really deliver. When the original sounded like a balanced high-end speaker but with less resolution, those new ones just sound fantastic in every aspect.
And it's not budget hype, this is coming from a man who parted with a DIY speaker where he spent 40 hours on the cabinet to then simply give it away because he wasn't really satisfied with the sound.

So yeah, if you are shopping for new speakers, those should go to the very top of your auditioning pile.

Spoiler

Oh god, I am so relieved. I was so worried that again I would not like a pair of well regarded speakers. That's a load of my shoulders, finally something that I can live with.

That's the general problem with kit speakers. Generally you have to rely on other people's opinions with respect to how they sound. So you buy them and pay whatever, then invest way more time than you expected it to take, only to be disappointed by the sound and eventually deciding that the only way to get it right is to simply throw away the crossover that was included and start from a clean sheet. In the end, all you really got by buying a "kit" was a pair of drivers and a few miscellaneous parts. Now to do it right you're going to have to buy a calibrated microphone and some expensive software that you're probably only going to use once.

 

[KaiserSoze]

Within the Elac Debut series, they have the floorstanding DFR52. Does anybody know or offer an educated guess if they would be an improvement over the DBR62 and/or offer similar value for money?

Same questions I ask myself. Without question floorstanding speakers cost more due to the increased cost of the bigger and more complicated cabinet. As for whether you get more, to my way of thinking you get more if you get deeper bass extension and/or cleaner bass down to the point where you'll cross it to a subwoofer. In some cases the floorstanding speaker will offer so much improvement in bass that you might not need a subwoofer, but this is very subjective and in my personal opinion this is not ordinarily the case except with very large and expensive floorstanding speakers. So to my way of thinking what you get, potentially, is better integration with a subwoofer, and potentially less distortion in the bass frequencies above the crossover point. Which may or may not matter, depending on how loud you like to play your music and your explosions.

All indications on Elac's site and elsewhere are that the DFR52 is a true 3-way speaker (as opposed to a 2.5-way where all three woofers would operate below the lower crossover frequency - 90 Hz - and where just one of them - the top one - would operate on up to the crossover point with the tweeter). The true 3-way design would be desirable if the woofers and the midrange were not the same diameter, however with respect to achieving the desired frequency response there are advantages of a true 3-way vs. a 2.5-way even when the midrange and the woofers are the same diameter. Presumably the 3-way design makes the speaker more efficient and more sensitive below that 90 Hz crossover point than above. However the benefit of this seems a little uncertain since most people would cross the floor-standing speaker to a subwoofer at right around that same frequency. The benefit would mainly be for use sans subwoofer, but then you have to ask whether the amount of swept area for those two drivers is sufficient. The Xmax isn't known, but it is probably about the same as with the 6.5" driver in the bookshelf speaker, and as such it is meaningful to compare the total diaphragm area for the two speakers. In doing this a correct calculation requires adjusting the claimed diameter for what is taken up by the outer part of the surround and the frame especially. Typically about 3/4" is lost on each side, or 1.5" total, so the combined diaphragm area for the two 5.25" woofers in the DFR52 will be about 1.5 + (2 x (5.25 - 1.5)^2)^.5 => roughly equivalent to a single (claimed) 7" driver. Thus, if the claim is correct that DFR52 is a true 3-way speaker, the total swept volume in frequencies below the 90 Hz crossover point will be not be significantly better than it is for the bookshelf speaker. As such it seems likely that the only strong advantage of the floorstander will be the advantage of frequency response contouring that comes into play below 90 Hz, which advantage will likely be moot if you plan to use a subwoofer. Each of the DFR52 floorstanding speakers costs the same as a pair of the bookshelf speaker.

The Debut 2.0 speakers are much uglier than the Debut Reference speakers. In spite of this, if I were seriously considering any of these speakers I would probably put my money on the Debut 2.0 DF62, the floorstander with 6.5" drivers. Personally I doubt that other than cosmetics the Reference series is significantly different from the Debut 2.0 series. The crossover points are the same (90 Hz and 2.2 kHz) for the Reference DFR52, the Debut 2.0 DF52 and the Debut 2.0 DF62. This suggests to me that the crossovers themselves are likely identical. The DF62 is the only one among them where you get two 6.5" woofers, equivalent to a single (claimed) 8.5" driver.

Presently the DF62 is on sale for $350 each, which makes it the bargain of the bunch as far as I am concerned. But the Reference series will go on sale at some point, it is only a question of when. Maybe in another four weeks, maybe after Thanksgiving, maybe not until early next year. But at some point they will.

I think it comes down mainly to a question of whether you can stomach the looks of the Debut 2.0 series. If you can't, and find yourself looking at the Debut Reference series, then I doubt whether the Reference floorstander is worth twice as much as the bookshelf speaker. Unless you simply want the floorstander for the different aesthetics. The DFR52 is certainly a good looking speaker. But at $1200 for a pair vs. $600 for a pair of DBR62, vs. $700 for a pair of DF62 with the two 6.5" woofers, I would spend the money on the DF62 and then try to figure out some way to dress them up.

 

[Foxxy]

Dude, sorry but what? Have you heard the Debut 2 series? Just no. It's a Debut 1 edited to appeal to reviewers who found the original too dark, despite that being completely untrue. It's actually worse.
The Debut Reference is just a better speaker with better drivers.

That said yeah, what's the point of the floorstander? If the bookshelf could use one thing it's more surface for better bass punch. But this thing not only crosses at 90Hz where this doesn't really help,it also only gains a single dB of efficieny and 2 Hz in bass spec.

Seriously, just a 2.5 way with a 2nd 6.1/2 incher crossed in like 250Hz or so and that would be excellent.

As it is, that floorstander seems like a total waste of money.

 

[JoachimStrobel]

Same questions I ask myself. Without question floorstanding speakers cost more due to the increased cost of the bigger and more complicated cabinet. As for whether you get more, to my way of thinking you get more if you get deeper bass extension and/or cleaner bass down to the point where you'll cross it to a subwoofer. In some cases the floorstanding speaker will offer so much improvement in bass that you might not need a subwoofer, but this is very subjective and in my personal opinion this is not ordinarily the case except with very large and expensive floorstanding speakers. So to my way of thinking what you get, potentially, is better integration with a subwoofer, and potentially less distortion in the bass frequencies above the crossover point. Which may or may not matter, depending on how loud you like to play your music and your explosions.

All indications on Elac's site and elsewhere are that the DFR52 is a true 3-way speaker (as opposed to a 2.5-way where all three woofers would operate below the lower crossover frequency - 90 Hz - and where just one of them - the top one - would operate on up to the crossover point with the tweeter). The true 3-way design would be desirable if the woofers and the midrange were not the same diameter, however with respect to achieving the desired frequency response there are advantages of a true 3-way vs. a 2.5-way even when the midrange and the woofers are the same diameter. Presumably the 3-way design makes the speaker more efficient and more sensitive below that 90 Hz crossover point than above. However the benefit of this seems a little uncertain since most people would cross the floor-standing speaker to a subwoofer at right around that same frequency. The benefit would mainly be for use sans subwoofer, but then you have to ask whether the amount of swept area for those two drivers is sufficient. The Xmax isn't known, but it is probably about the same as with the 6.5" driver in the bookshelf speaker, and as such it is meaningful to compare the total diaphragm area for the two speakers. In doing this a correct calculation requires adjusting the claimed diameter for what is taken up by the outer part of the surround and the frame especially. Typically about 3/4" is lost on each side, or 1.5" total, so the combined diaphragm area for the two 5.25" woofers in the DFR52 will be about 1.5 + (2 x (5.25 - 1.5)^2)^.5 => roughly equivalent to a single (claimed) 7" driver. Thus, if the claim is correct that DFR52 is a true 3-way speaker, the total swept volume in frequencies below the 90 Hz crossover point will be not be significantly better than it is for the bookshelf speaker. As such it seems likely that the only strong advantage of the floorstander will be the advantage of frequency response contouring that comes into play below 90 Hz, which advantage will likely be moot if you plan to use a subwoofer. Each of the DFR52 floorstanding speakers costs the same as a pair of the bookshelf speaker.

The Debut 2.0 speakers are much uglier than the Debut Reference speakers. In spite of this, if I were seriously considering any of these speakers I would probably put my money on the Debut 2.0 DF62, the floorstander with 6.5" drivers. Personally I doubt that other than cosmetics the Reference series is significantly different from the Debut 2.0 series. The crossover points are the same (90 Hz and 2.2 kHz) for the Reference DFR52, the Debut 2.0 DF52 and the Debut 2.0 DF62. This suggests to me that the crossovers themselves are likely identical. The DF62 is the only one among them where you get two 6.5" woofers, equivalent to a single (claimed) 8.5" driver.

Presently the DF62 is on sale for $350 each, which makes it the bargain of the bunch as far as I am concerned. But the Reference series will go on sale at some point, it is only a question of when. Maybe in another four weeks, maybe after Thanksgiving, maybe not until early next year. But at some point they will.

I think it comes down mainly to a question of whether you can stomach the looks of the Debut 2.0 series. If you can't, and find yourself looking at the Debut Reference series, then I doubt whether the Reference floorstander is worth twice as much as the bookshelf speaker. Unless you simply want the floorstander for the different aesthetics. The DFR52 is certainly a good looking speaker. But at $1200 for a pair vs. $600 for a pair of DBR62, vs. $700 for a pair of DF62 with the two 6.5" woofers, I would spend the money on the DF62 and then try to figure out some way to dress them up.

Thanks a lot for that extensive reply. Makes all sense. I own 6 Canton RCL floorstanding speaker, the go down to 18hz with their control box, that beats most subwoofers but is a different design but is no help for taking care of the .1 channel. The DBR would be bought for another room... I bought the Debut 2.0 bookshelf speakers for my son last year. Reviews were great ( in Germany), when I listened to them at home I felt a bit ashamed not having spent the money for the DBR. But they can still be used a surround speaker...