Similarly, the speaker may have been designed to have them on. That is what Alan Shaw says about his Harbeth designs. This applies to high frequency response on the one hand but also at the bottom where the grille gives just the intended amount of back pressure on the port. The latter does not apply to designs with the port at the back, of course.
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Elac Debut Reference DBR-62 Speaker Review
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Sgt. Ear Ache
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egg-zacly!
I'm fairly sure I remember reading somewhere that A.Jones designed the speakers for grill-off (as opposed to waveguide off) listening.
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Hi,
Today I visited @renaudrenaud again and we had a new several hours session with the ELAC.
We worked on a room correction convolution file, and ended up with a simple narrow notch at 55 Hz.
Once there, we could enjoy a very clean bass. I'm still impressed. The music was detailled and going deep at the same time. Very good set of speakers really.
Today I visited @renaudrenaud again and we had a new several hours session with the ELAC.
We worked on a room correction convolution file, and ended up with a simple narrow notch at 55 Hz.
Once there, we could enjoy a very clean bass. I'm still impressed. The music was detailled and going deep at the same time. Very good set of speakers really.
I might have difficulty getting 45cm clearance from front wall... currently my speakers are 30cm(+/-3cm) away. Will try hanging a plush furry rug (sound absorber?) on the front wall behind the speakers. Anyone know if that might achieve the same benefits as greater clearance?
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barfyman362
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I've seen Andrew Jones in some youtube interview say he designs speakers around having the grills off. He was less approving of the fact that some people were removing the tweeter grill on his 1.0 ELAC Debut series however even though he admitted those were there mainly to prevent people from poking in the tweeter in retail stores.
bboris77
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I think 30cm will be absolutely fine, especially since this is front-vented speaker. I have them even closer, and there is not a hint of boominess.
Personally, I would not put a sound absorber on the front wall. I have tried that in the past with Klipsch speakers and it deadened the highs too much. I have sound absorbers on the side walls and on the ceiling as well as some bass traps in all the corners. This helps with some of the room modes around 120Hz but does not eliminate them totally.
Stefano_Milano
Member
The best thing I found for the elacs was placing foam monitors pads under them. The problem of intrusive bass is gone
Doesn't matter too much. Closer to the wall helps solve issues with SBIR which are near impossible to deal with if you have them in the lower frequencies from pulling the speakers out a bit but not far enough. As you mentioned, placing sound absorption behind the speakers will help attenuate the higher frequency SBIR you'll get from having them close to the wall, so you're on the right track.
Hoho... my US$15 carpet(also sound absorber) arrived and hung on front wall behind speakers.
Wow really cleans up the soundstage and improves clarity immensely. Certain frequencies that were previously sometimes too loud to my ears have somehow been reduced. Thus, I am now hearing much more details than ever.
I'm getting shivers of pleasure from the improved sound quality... I dare say, room treatment is the best upgrade I've experienced so far!
Wow really cleans up the soundstage and improves clarity immensely. Certain frequencies that were previously sometimes too loud to my ears have somehow been reduced. Thus, I am now hearing much more details than ever.
I'm getting shivers of pleasure from the improved sound quality... I dare say, room treatment is the best upgrade I've experienced so far!
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renaudrenaud
Major Contributor
Did you try some numeric treatment?
renaudrenaud
Major Contributor
@daftcombo defined a little correction with convolution filter in my living room and results are splendid.
Hi Honken sorry, How you connected your sub to the chain audio? Thanks
No problem, I don't recommend anyone copying this though. I'm using a Topping D70 DAC with both RCA and XLR outs, and I connect my speaker amps to the XLRs and my subs to the RCAs. The subs are crossed at ~50hz as there is where it sounded the best to me.
It works, it sounds better than without subs in the chain but playing with the low end in REW is tricky when the changes affect two very different speakers. I'm eagerly waiting for my 8ch DAC from Okto, with it I intend to do a proper digital crossover which ought to be as good as it gets. I could probably also tackle the phase issues I have right now.
So, got a trial pair of the DBR-62's in and have been running them for a day or so now.
My impressions are mostly comparing it to what I remember of the Aria 906 as that's what I last had.
Looks: Yeah, the ELAC clearly looks better than the Aria to me. The Aria is a bit of a hulking behemoth compared to the much sleeker ELAC, and I love that bass port. Not the biggest fan of the giant round ports on the front.
Build Quality: Well, the ELAC does have some cosmetic faults when you look closely at it. The wrap isn't the best as well all know at the back with the seams, but as it's never seen that isn't much of an issue. Some small blemishes on the front baffle which I think are more visible because of the white, so the black may be the better way to go if you're anal about that like I am. Overall though, for the price, can't complain!
I made an earlier post about how shoddy I've found Focal's QC. I'm still shocked how deliberate misprinting of the text on the speaker managed to pass inspection, to be honest. Since both speakers had it, and the store I got it from had just ordered it in not long before I got them shipped (was using a trial pair for most of the year due to being unable to swap it out due to corona, so spent a long time before getting a new pair shipped), I can only presume that recent QC has taken a bit of a back seat to make up for the slump caused by all the lockdowns? Would be a shame if so. In the UK, the Aria 906s are 800-900 (as of today) and at that price I'm going to bitch hard about lazy build quality. Not so bad if you have them across the living room where you can't see it, but in near field usage (yes I am insane, but it works awesome if you don't have a massively long desk so you can put speaker stands on either side of it), you can't unsee it. And grilles aren't an option this close either.
So far, ELAC is doing good for me on the visuals department, but of course, for most, sound is what's gonna matter. This is where things are definitely a bit different. When I first got the Aria 906s the first thing that came to mind was 'huh, these remind me of my LS50s, but with the harshness of the highs all toned down and some actual meat (bass), so the sound. Not bad at all. The more time I spent with the Arias the more I liked them due to that smoothness.
The first thing I noticed with the ELAC was, as some have noted, the bass definitely kicks down a notch lower than the Arias. This is actually somewhat of an important point to me because if the bass kicks down too low and rumbles throughout the house, that's no good. For near field volumes, the balance of bass that the Arias had was just right to stop that. I'm unsure on this front when it comes to the ELAC for now, will have to spend more time with them.
When it comes to the highs, and I accept this may be entirely placebo, I feel like they seem kind of recessed a bit, compared to what I remember on the Focals? I'm not sure if this is just me thinking that a metal dome tweeter is always going to have a more airy/sparkly reproduction of high trebles, and a soft dome being unable to do that, or what. This is my first soft dome tweeter so it could just be a bias I have that I'll need to spend more time with. It could also be the low-end being more powerful is affecting my perception of the highs. Unsure right now. I just find it curious as the ELACs do not have the rolled off treble of the Focals, yet here I am typing the above.
And of course, compared to the relatively easy to drive Focals, the ELAC requires me to kick up the volume a little bit on my amp (NAD D3045, 60wpc at both 4-8ohm with up to 200w dynamic power) . Still got plenty of power to spare at the listening distance, of course.
My main regret is having sold off the Focals before getting the ELACs due to the aforementioned QC issues. They got snapped up fairly quick which I didn't expect, so I guess I should've kept them, so I could do a proper comparison between them. Audio memory is infamously pretty unreliable after all.
My impressions are mostly comparing it to what I remember of the Aria 906 as that's what I last had.
Looks: Yeah, the ELAC clearly looks better than the Aria to me. The Aria is a bit of a hulking behemoth compared to the much sleeker ELAC, and I love that bass port. Not the biggest fan of the giant round ports on the front.
Build Quality: Well, the ELAC does have some cosmetic faults when you look closely at it. The wrap isn't the best as well all know at the back with the seams, but as it's never seen that isn't much of an issue. Some small blemishes on the front baffle which I think are more visible because of the white, so the black may be the better way to go if you're anal about that like I am. Overall though, for the price, can't complain!
I made an earlier post about how shoddy I've found Focal's QC. I'm still shocked how deliberate misprinting of the text on the speaker managed to pass inspection, to be honest. Since both speakers had it, and the store I got it from had just ordered it in not long before I got them shipped (was using a trial pair for most of the year due to being unable to swap it out due to corona, so spent a long time before getting a new pair shipped), I can only presume that recent QC has taken a bit of a back seat to make up for the slump caused by all the lockdowns? Would be a shame if so. In the UK, the Aria 906s are 800-900 (as of today) and at that price I'm going to bitch hard about lazy build quality. Not so bad if you have them across the living room where you can't see it, but in near field usage (yes I am insane, but it works awesome if you don't have a massively long desk so you can put speaker stands on either side of it), you can't unsee it. And grilles aren't an option this close either.
So far, ELAC is doing good for me on the visuals department, but of course, for most, sound is what's gonna matter. This is where things are definitely a bit different. When I first got the Aria 906s the first thing that came to mind was 'huh, these remind me of my LS50s, but with the harshness of the highs all toned down and some actual meat (bass), so the sound. Not bad at all. The more time I spent with the Arias the more I liked them due to that smoothness.
The first thing I noticed with the ELAC was, as some have noted, the bass definitely kicks down a notch lower than the Arias. This is actually somewhat of an important point to me because if the bass kicks down too low and rumbles throughout the house, that's no good. For near field volumes, the balance of bass that the Arias had was just right to stop that. I'm unsure on this front when it comes to the ELAC for now, will have to spend more time with them.
When it comes to the highs, and I accept this may be entirely placebo, I feel like they seem kind of recessed a bit, compared to what I remember on the Focals? I'm not sure if this is just me thinking that a metal dome tweeter is always going to have a more airy/sparkly reproduction of high trebles, and a soft dome being unable to do that, or what. This is my first soft dome tweeter so it could just be a bias I have that I'll need to spend more time with. It could also be the low-end being more powerful is affecting my perception of the highs. Unsure right now. I just find it curious as the ELACs do not have the rolled off treble of the Focals, yet here I am typing the above.
And of course, compared to the relatively easy to drive Focals, the ELAC requires me to kick up the volume a little bit on my amp (NAD D3045, 60wpc at both 4-8ohm with up to 200w dynamic power) . Still got plenty of power to spare at the listening distance, of course.
My main regret is having sold off the Focals before getting the ELACs due to the aforementioned QC issues. They got snapped up fairly quick which I didn't expect, so I guess I should've kept them, so I could do a proper comparison between them. Audio memory is infamously pretty unreliable after all.
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Great text. Did you try set them aiming straight at the wall or toed-in?
I have them toed in just behind my head, similar to how I had the 906s. From my understanding this should actually pronounce the treble even more. May need to play around with that a bit more.
The sweet spot is at least as wide as I'd hoped. Can move my head around the desk and notice no perceptible change in the sound, similar to the Arias.
If I were to give a verdict today (which is a bad idea because it takes a good couple of weeks to adapt to a new sound, especially if you're instinctually resistive to change like I am), I'd hand it to the Focals - assuming I could get a pair that were built to my (very high) standards.
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Interesting! As you might now already, I have two pairs of Aria 906 and heard the DBR-62 twice at @renaudrenaud 's.
Next saturday, we plan to do a 7-people blind test of the DBR-62 VS the JBL 305p mk2.
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