Elac Debut Reference DBR-62 Speaker Review

[delta76]

Hello, I have just bought Elac debut reference DBR62. I would like to know if it is better to buy new Loxjie A30, or used Nad320bee, nad340)..I can get nad for 110-140 USD.
Or smtg else?

a good amp is a transparent amp, with power to match your DBR62. DBR62 max power input is 120w which is too much for your Nad320bee or 340. I'd say 375bee is a much better choice power-wise (2x150w)

 

[cavedriver]

Not sure what your room size is but I would get something with 100w rms and burst to 200.

Expanding on this answer. The small bookshelf speakers are less efficient than large floorstanding speakers and need more power than larger more efficient speakers to get the full capabilities of the speaker, especially in the bass region where more power is needed to accelerate the larger woofer.

In my time with the DBR's I observed that they love power. They also respond very well to being played loud. Their greatest strength, imho, is that I wanted to listen to all sorts of rock and electronic music at fairly loud volumes and just feed them to see what they would do with each piece. At low volumes they were relatively dull, especially vocals.

 

[cicastol]

what about placement ? make sure its at least 2 feet away from the front wall and wide enough between each other.

In my room i found, after several session of REW with a calibrated mic to get real in room response, that the best was placing them close as possible to the front wall, otherwise a big 80Hz SBIR dip was seen.

 

[Chromatischism]

In my time with the DBR's I observed that they love power. They also respond very well to being played loud. Their greatest strength, imho, is that I wanted to listen to all sorts of rock and electronic music at fairly loud volumes and just feed them to see what they would do with each piece. At low volumes they were relatively dull, especially vocals.

I'm actually surprised to hear this, because the curve suggests a little bit of bass and treble which is what you want for low volumes:

However, I think your observation is going to be the case with most neutral speakers, which is why we need equal loudness features in our electronics which bend the curve at low volumes and let off at high volumes.

You may be coming from a speaker with a more pronounced U or V-shaped response?

 

[cavedriver]

I'm actually surprised to hear this, because the curve suggests a little bit of bass and treble which is what you want for low volumes:

However, I think your observation is going to be the case with most neutral speakers, which is why we need equal loudness features in our electronics which bend the curve at low volumes and let off at high volumes.

You may be coming from a speaker with a more pronounced U or V-shaped response?

not really, my reference is an old pair of Snell E/III's that have a very flat response without any treble brightness and that excel at low volume playback. They are highly efficient speakers unlike the Elacs, but supposedly that shouldn't matter. My comment just above relates back to my previous comments about the DBR's. Compared to other speakers in it's price range that I tested them against plus all my available references, voices in the midrange sound "receded" like they are coming through a short tunnel. I can't say they are measurably lower, just that they sound distant and weak. Increasing the volume compensates a bit for this weakness but of course they never really recover. Maybe I'm sensitive to the dip in these speakers between 1k and 2k although I would be surprised if I were that good, but also the effect is heard on voices where their primary frequency is much lower, like 250-500 Hz like Hendrix and other male singers.

 

[Dodgexander]

The Topping arrived and is now connected and driving the Elacs.

Despite speculation that the Elacs would need more power (by Amir‘s comments in the initial review) the Topping and the Aiyima‘s drive them well and loud.

Too, as I comment in the Topping PA5 thread, the Topping is a great amp but if you’re on a budget, buy the Aiyima 04 or 07 instead with a quality, 36V Mean Well power supply and put your extra money into the Elacs. You’ll have a great system that will keep you happy for many years of listening pleasure.

These little speakers continue to make me grin with their outstanding performance.

Do you have a link to the power supply? I'm tempted to pick the A07 and these Elacs up but I have no clue when it comes to buying custom power supplies.
How will I ensure I have the correct cables, and will the power supply be portable like a brick?

 

[mgood]

I am finding that the Elac DFR52's have some recession in the midrange. Seems as if the singer is behind the band on a lot of tracks. Do you notice this with your pair? I am running Audyssey XT32, but have it limited to 200hz and below. I might try running it full range to see if it can boost the mids a little.

Do you have midrange compensation activated via Audyssey? I think thay may be the culprit.

 

[Audiofool1Q84]

Thought I'd Just post the final EQ I've been rocking for a few months.
Top thing that sticks out to me is it removes a muddiness in the vocals in most songs.
Very slight nudge to the bass but still sounds clean and stock to me and doesn't muddy any other frequencies.

Gear:
PC > Topping E30 > Loxjie A30 > ELAC DBR-62
(EQ: Direct) (Nearfield)

Thanks for sharing. I'm really enjoying my 62s and now starting to experiment with eq. Can someone please explain how to translate these filters from apo to something that moode offers where Q range is 0-8 please? And what should overall gain be set at to avoid clipping?

 

[flipflop]

Can someone please explain how to translate these filters from apo to something that moode offers where Q range is 0-8 please?

You can find a set of EQ filters for the DBR-62 with a max Q of 4 here: https://pierreaubert.github.io/spinorama/eqs.html
This EQ profile is based on the PIR, though, and not the on-axis like the one in the post you replied to.

 

[Chromatischism]

Do you have midrange compensation activated via Audyssey? I think thay may be the culprit.

Limited correction to 200 Hz does not use the MRC at 2k.

 

[mgood]

Limited correction to 200 Hz does not use the MRC at 2k.

MRC enabled might override the 200 hz limit, but I'm just guessing here. Seemed to make a difference in my X4500 even though I had applied a 300 hz limit, but i didn't do a ABX comparison.

 

[Audiofool1Q84]

You can find a set of EQ filters for the DBR-62 with a max Q of 4 here: https://pierreaubert.github.io/spinorama/eqs.html
This EQ profile is based on the PIR, though, and not the on-axis like the one in the post you replied to.

Thanks, I've seen this one tagged earlier as well and have tried it. Just wondering then if there is no way to equate the higher Q factor peq from APO to something more limited like in moode (0-8)?

 

[flipflop]

Just wondering then if there is no way to equate the higher Q factor peq from APO to something more limited like in moode (0-8)?

No, not really. You'd have to make a new set of filters from scratch.

 

[Audiofool1Q84]

Here is my take on the EQ.

The reviews are rather positive and I am not quite sure if the EQ will actually yield an improvement but that an interesting test to perform nonetheless. I am somewhat skeptical about it but it seems that some good people might be able to test it.
@renaudrenaud, @daftcombo

The raw data with corrected ER and PIR:
Score no EQ: 5.68
With Sub: 7.76
Spinorama with no EQ:

• Generally flat response except around 4k, which is definitively something related to the off axis behavior of the speaker. It looks to me as a typical case of deliberate voicing i.e. deviation from flatness to smooth out the PIR.
  the Horizontal normalized network of curve is quite telling.
• The directivity is decent, good candidate for EQ
• Decent LF for the size with mild boost in the 100-300Hz range
• 500-1000Hz range quite jaggy, not sure why

View attachment 96881
Directivity:
Better stay at tweeter height.
Horizontally, better toe-in the speakers by 10/20deg and have the axis crossing in front of the listening location, might help dosing the upper range.
View attachment 96853
View attachment 96861
Normalized data:
View attachment 96856
EQ design:
The APO config file is attached.

• The loudness between the EQ and bare version is rather different so careful set up of the preamp gains is required for ABX listening tests
• The EQ does not try to fatten the response ON around 4kHz as it would have negative impact on the PIR. This is not a target that I set but the result of the evolutionary optimization. In fact the flat LW original population seed has a significantly lower score (6.04). The designer seems to have been correct when designing the Xover, well done.

Score EQ: 6.44, quite respectable!
with sub: 8.52

Elac DBR62 APO EQ 96000Hz
December022020-121023

Preamp: -1.3 dB

Filter 1: ON HPQ Fc 31.6 Hz Gain 0 dB Q 0.85
Filter 2: ON PK Fc 169.5 Hz Gain -2.33 dB Q 0.67
Filter 3: ON PK Fc 573 Hz Gain 0.81 dB Q 3
Filter 4: ON PK Fc 630 Hz Gain -2.2 dB Q 11.4
Filter 5: ON PK Fc 843 Hz Gain -2.69 dB Q 2.55
Filter 6: ON PK Fc 1769 Hz Gain 1.51 dB Q 2.22
Filter 7: ON PK Fc 5813 Hz Gain -0.67 dB Q 1.11

View attachment 96875
Spinorama EQ
View attachment 96879
Zoom PIR-LW-ON
View attachment 96877
Regression - Tonal
The PIR regression suggests that the speaker sounds larger than its size.
The slope is about 8dB from 100 to 16000Hz compared to the more common 6dB of the EQ version.
Howe ever the ON regression is now flat.
View attachment 96876
Radar no EQ vs EQ score
Some improvements
View attachment 96878
The rest of the plots are attached.

After spending a few days with this eq I'm really enjoying the small but noticeable difference especially for lower volume listening. Subjective impressions (not measured with umik) as follows:
- Highs are ever so slightly "crisper" without being harsh
- The mids are brought forward a tad bit
- Bass (at least in my room) is tighter, digs slightly deeper & more articulate

 

[Topartisan]

not really, my reference is an old pair of Snell E/III's that have a very flat response without any treble brightness and that excel at low volume playback. They are highly efficient speakers unlike the Elacs, but supposedly that shouldn't matter. My comment just above relates back to my previous comments about the DBR's. Compared to other speakers in it's price range that I tested them against plus all my available references, voices in the midrange sound "receded" like they are coming through a short tunnel. I can't say they are measurably lower, just that they sound distant and weak. Increasing the volume compensates a bit for this weakness but of course they never really recover. Maybe I'm sensitive to the dip in these speakers between 1k and 2k although I would be surprised if I were that good, but also the effect is heard on voices where their primary frequency is much lower, like 250-500 Hz like Hendrix and other male singers.

Hi, I have the Elac Ref62's Running from a Denon PMA1600NE and Node N130 Qobuz.
These are nice sounding speakers and work very well with the Denon/Node pairing but they CAN sound a little dull at times (lack of presence and bite from the tweeter)
I decided to try a simple mod on the crossover by adding in parallel to the 2.7uF a 0.1uF Vishay ERO MKP1837 capacitor, this has made a big difference (to my ears) you can really hear the snap of a snare drum now, and symbol strikes and rides are brought out and sound more realistic whereas before they were kind of recessed a little. More importantly upper midrange presence now seems more apparent and imaging seems better.
I have no measuring gear so no idea what that would look like but I would say if you own this speaker and would like to get them sounding better try this simple mode above. I was very aware of not adding to high a value cap to upset the tweeter response too much but this mod seems to make the speakers sound even more special and breath more life into the music without adding any harshness to the sound. If you find there is too much harshness from the tweeter at higher volumes reduce the capacitor to 0.068uF.
I also added a little (a good large handful) extra polyfill wadding to the top rear corner inside which seems to have helped with the bloated bass response, it now sounds a little tighter and less boxy.
Hope that helps.

​

 

[Chromatischism]

I would never modify a crossover in my speakers without measuring gear.

But seriously, I wouldn't even do it if I had measuring gear, because I would just experiment with EQ. If I don't like the change, undo it and try something else. How long does it take to unsolder something and what permanent scars does it leave behind?

 

[Beave]

Hi, I have the Elac Ref62's Running from a Denon PMA1600NE and Node N130 Qobuz.
These are nice sounding speakers and work very well with the Denon/Node pairing but they CAN sound a little dull at times (lack of presence and bite from the tweeter)
I decided to try a simple mod on the crossover by adding in parallel to the 2.7uF a 0.1uF Vishay ERO MKP1837 capacitor, this has made a big difference (to my ears) you can really hear the snap of a snare drum now, and symbol strikes and rides are brought out and sound more realistic whereas before they were kind of recessed a little. More importantly upper midrange presence now seems more apparent and imaging seems better.
I have no measuring gear so no idea what that would look like but I would say if you own this speaker and would like to get them sounding better try this simple mode above. I was very aware of not adding to high a value cap to upset the tweeter response too much but this mod seems to make the speakers sound even more special and breath more life into the music without adding any harshness to the sound. If you find there is too much harshness from the tweeter at higher volumes reduce the capacitor to 0.068uF.
I also added a little (a good large handful) extra polyfill wadding to the top rear corner inside which seems to have helped with the bloated bass response, it now sounds a little tighter and less boxy.
Hope that helps.

​

Can you share the crossover schematic?

What led you to adding that value cap at that particular location in the crossover?

I'd guess that original 2.7uF cap is maybe 5% tolerance, meaning it could be anywhere from 2.565uF to 2.835uF.

A 0.1uF cap in parallel with a 2.7uF cap only changes the combined value 2.8uF nominal, by about 3-4%, which is probably within the tolerance of the original 2.7uF cap. I'd be surpised if that did much of anything, audible or measurable.

 

[Topartisan]

It is the main series tweeter capacitor, it is very easy to do and very easy to undo if you don't like the result (YOU WILL)
You just need a soldering iron and takes 5 minutes., remove the 4 crosshead screws holding the speaker terminal panel on (this also forms the crossover which is stacked over 3 small PCB'S) pull it right out (may offer a little resistance half way but keep pulling) you will see the series cap marked 2.7uf and also marked on the PCB, simply solder a high quality small 0.1 MKP cap (lower than 200v for size) on the solder side of the series cap.

Point taken on the cap tolerance (both actually measured better than 5% @ 2.72 and 2.73 on my Beckman Industrial DM25)
Yes 0.1uf is a very small value but this crossover is very sensitive to small value changes (I had previously experimented with values from 0.047 to 0.22uf) and was still able to notice the difference by comparing the modded speaker with unmodded speaker one meter away from the ear. The best results came from the 0.1uf, the difference is very subtle but noticeable. Using a larger value than 0.18uf may make the tweeter sound too prominent. I believe this speaker is crying out for this small mod, especially if you find it a bit too tame. (test and compare one speaker at a time with plenty of hi hats/cymbals/snare drums/sax/brass/breathy female vocal etc) you will see it will come alive.
I must of course point out that you may invalidate your warranty by doing this mod so do so at your own risk.
Note: Bypass cap on pic 01 should read 160v not 60v

 

[cavedriver]

Point taken on the cap tolerance (both actually measured better than 5% @ 2.72 and 2.73 on my Beckman Industrial DM25)
Yes 0.1uf is a very small value but this crossover is very sensitive to small value changes

Makes me wonder if the normal variability on a couple of the components could be enough to explain why myself and some others have complained about the distance/weak mid-highs in these speakers and others rave about them. Would be interesting if someone here had the resources to test series of low cost speakers to see which ones show a susceptibility to manufacturing variation. I assume most more expensive speakers are factory matched to a reference, but what about sub-$1k speakers? Then some designs are probably insensitive to variability by virtue of their particular crossover designs and so on.

 

[Topartisan]

Makes me wonder if the normal variability on a couple of the components could be enough to explain why myself and some others have complained about the distance/weak mid-highs in these speakers and others rave about them. Would be interesting if someone here had the resources to test series of low cost speakers to see which ones show a susceptibility to manufacturing variation. I assume most more expensive speakers are factory matched to a reference, but what about sub-$1k speakers? Then some designs are probably insensitive to variability by virtue of their particular crossover designs and so on.

Yes of course that is a real possibility, and we never really know on what equipment they were finally voiced, measurements and graphs only tell part of the story, and the person who voiced the speakers will have different hearing to you or I, and it is unlikely that the end user would have exactly the same amplifier and source which will to some extent have a bearing on what we with our different amps and source components will hear. I am sure there "are" variations to many speakers out there and you could be right, the manufacturer is hardly likely to spend and excessive amount of time checking quality control on low cost models which indeed may explain why some people love a particular speaker and others are scratching their heads wondering what all the fuss is about, which honestly is a real shame.
But personally, I do feel many modern speakers are voiced too bright and unnatural, probably and possibly to grab your attention in the showrooms.
When I first listen to a speaker I imagine a person singing in front of me with no electronic equipment, do they sound natural? or do they sound unnatural? does the acoustic guitar they are playing sound too bright or too dull? does it sound REAL? if it sounds unnatural or too bright I walk away and try a different speaker.

I think Andrew Jones has created an excellent loudspeaker, especially with the limited funds he had to work with on this model, but tried to err on the side of caution with the ref62's and maybe played it a bit too safe, and yes out of the box they can sound a little unexciting and bland in some systems to some people, especially when you compare them to say some klipsch models for example.
Personally I don't like a bright sounding speaker but I felt that something must be done to my ref62's before selling them on.
This is why I decided to experiment a little with the tweeter output, there are 3 ways you can deal with this, firstly lower the padding resistor on the tweeter, or change the series cap for a slightly larger value or change the value of the parallel inductor to allow more low frequency to get through to the tweeter, unfortunately these require more major modification to the crossover and without the proper measuring gear you are in uncharted territory. I decided to add a bypass cap as being the easiest option as I did not want to mess up the crossover too much and I think this has given me enough to want to keep the ref 62's, they now have that little extra sparkle and presence that they so desperately needed in my system. If I change my system or sell the speakers on I can easily put them back to factory spec no problem. As each day goes by I get more and more amazed at what these relatively cheap speakers can do.