Elac Debut Reference DBR-62 Speaker Review

[Pudik]

Spin data enclosed.

How does it sound with some dense orchstral and movie music, such as, say, Stravinsky's Rite if Spring or Richard Strauss' Thus spake Zaratustra? Thanks, P.

 

[Philipp]

I have these speakers for two months now, I enjoy them sounding clear with any kind of music, no hearing fatigue so far regarding high frequences. This is subjective.

Technically there is no reason to think that the speaker would have trouble playing dense classical music.

From your amp the speaker demands some power, should not be much less than 100 W into 8 ohm.

It is a rather large bookshelf speaker, for what it is it has good bass, but it is still not a large speaker, so I would always recommend to at least try it with a decent subwoofer. Otherwise you missing out on the lower end of the signal.
If this is acceptable is a matter of personal taste.

 

[Colin Lewis Smith]

Is it just me or are the DbR62 UGLY? They tick a lot of boxes for me…form factor, non fatiguing highs that I am extra sensitive to, price…. But I just can’t imagine putting them in my living space. Why not offer a cheap black vinyl that would at least look inconspicuous?

 

[I know (almost) nothing]

Is it just me or are the DbR62 UGLY? They tick a lot of boxes for me…form factor, non fatiguing highs that I am extra sensitive to, price…. But I just can’t imagine putting them in my living space. Why not offer a cheap black vinyl that would at least look inconspicuous?

I like them (without the grills), but they do remind me of the Star Wars droid BB8

 

[Philipp]

Is it just me or are the DbR62 UGLY?

Mine are „built-in“, with grill, could be any design for that position, front ports are preferable for this I guess, that was a checkbox for me.

 

[jmillar]

Just wondering, but when did "bookshelf" speakers ever get used in actual bookshelves?

In the 60's, 70's, 80's bookshelf speakers (big, heavy, sealed cabinet) were used not on stands but on bookshelves. (natch!)
The move to stands is comparatively recent. Stands often seem so silly, so intrusive in a room, so overpriced that small floorstanders sometimes look like the more sensible alternative...
Of course I would say this because my audio experience began in the sixties.

 

[Philipp]

As you can see it lives on! And I was born in the 80s ;-)

 

[jimboaz]

Hi, I just received a new pair of the ELAC DBR62's to replace my DB62's in a near-field setup and I have the same impression - boy, am I disappointed! Just for kicks, I bought a cheap speaker switcher and connected two Klipsch Reference Theater speakers and went back and forth between the two. Exentuated the dulness of the ELACs (I know the Klipsch speakers are bright to start off, but the soundstage was wider and crisper). I can't imagine 120 hours of burn-in will remedy. Selling the ELACs for sure...anyone want a new (minus one hour) DBR62's?

You can't make any serious judgements about a speaker 1 hr old. Yes these sound MUCH better with at least 2-3 weeks break in....as most do. Also these respond to better upstream gear. I've gone up in many steps from $100 DAC's to $800 Dacs and the positive difference was clearly shown by these speakers. The brightness and tubby bass went away. I don't need a sub anymore. I had both the Elac Debut 6.2 and 5.2 for years at the same time and these are MUCH better. Returned the Unifi 2.0 UB52 not as good. SMSL M400/D1SE Dacs with SMSLAO200 amp.....Had Topping Pre90 and SMSL SP400, & HO200 Preamps. Not a big enough upgrade Back to Dac straight into Amp. .Next step would be to upgrade the amp.......Garbage in-garbage out

 

[Triliza]

You can't make any serious judgements about a speaker 1 hr old. Yes these sound MUCH better with at least 2-3 weeks break in....as most do. Also these respond to better upstream gear. I've gone up in many steps from $100 DAC's to $800 Dacs and the positive difference was clearly shown by these speakers. The brightness and tubby bass went away. I don't need a sub anymore. I had both the Elac Debut 6.2 and 5.2 for years at the same time and these are MUCH better. Returned the Unifi 2.0 UB52 not as good. SMSL M400/D1SE Dacs with SMSLAO200 amp.....Had Topping Pre90 and SMSL SP400, & HO200 Preamps. Not a big enough upgrade Back to Dac straight into Amp. .Next step would be to upgrade the amp.......Garbage in-garbage out

Check the link below about what the designer of these speakers has to say about "break-in":

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...-speakers-break-in.11898/page-56#post-1014101

Also your assumption that more expensive gear will make this speaker shine is contextual, sure if the gear driving the speakers is utterly crap you'll get an improvement, but I can't see how going from a $100 dac to $800 will make any real difference.

 

[Despotes]

Somebody say, "ugly"?

 

[pseudoid]

Funcgtionally

"high-end" sound on a budget with little to apologize for.

Would you like french fries with that?

 

[melvinjames]

I just purchased these in white/oak today. They should arrive in a couple of days. Ugly? Not to me, just kind of basic. I'll be using an SMSL AO200 and DO100 with them, at least initially.

 

[Talisman]

I just purchased these in white/oak today. They should arrive in a couple of days. Ugly? Not to me, just kind of basic. I'll be using an SMSL AO200 and DO100 with them, at least initially.

DO100 will be fine, AO200 will be fine only if you don't have high spl demands, it's really not very powerful (around 35watt into 8 ohm)

 

[melvinjames]

DO100 will be fine, AO200 will be fine only if you don't have high spl demands, it's really not very powerful (around 35watt into 8 ohm)

I might be ok, we'll see. I tend to listen at a much lower volume level than I did in my youth.

 

[melvinjames]

The speakers arrived today and I'm having my 1st listen (Brian Bromberg "Wood"). They sound good right out of the box! I think it's going to be a long night.

 

[raceskier]

FYI, Crutchfield's website states the current Elac sale ends 6/28. (Neither Amazon nor Elac's website indicate an ending date.)

 

[ntsc525]

I finally got over the pain of discovering this website AFTER I'd purchased the Uni-Fi 2.0 speakers that got such a horrible review here. I told myself it'll be fine. After all, I'm not exactly a high end audiophile. My best system is a Yamaha R-N602 receiver, and I mostly listen to FM radio while working, or I'll play MP3s...

However, late one night recently, as I was cleaning out my in box of "junk" (marketing) e-mails, there was one from ELAC, and the Debut Reference 6.2s were on sale. (About $525, at ELAC and one seller on Amazon!) That sent me to re-read the review here, and wonder if my unsophisticated ears would be able to hear the difference.

"Oh, I can't afford that!" I thought as I added the speakers to the cart. "That's too much money to spend on speakers while I'm unemployed." as I clicked the Checkout button... Then I went to bed.

The next day, it felt like a drunken hangover: "Did I just buy a new set of speakers last night?!!!" (No, I was not drunk!)

"What the heck am I thinking?" I thought as I mounted them to the wall (I have a small living room and not even room for floor stands.) "I really should just return these." I thought as I hooked them up. Aww, too late!

I'm blown away! They're not even broken in, and I hear enough difference that I'm looking on my NAS for all the FLAC files I can stream just so I can get the purest source material. Dave Grusin and the NY-LA Dream Band sounded great, but the bass didn't really blow me away, and I wondered if the woofers just needed some loosening up. Well, that's because there's not much bass in the music. Switch to James Blake. Oh, THERE's the bass! (No, the woofers didn't need any "loosening up". They were ready!)

I hope I don't discover any great music below 44 Hz, because I have no place for a subwoofer, and right now I don't think I need one. (I'm not big into hip hop, and the extra bass that gets punched into modern alternative music is plenty.) No need to make my HOA aware of my new speakers!

Soundstage and imaging? Well, I have to work on my space and figure out how to drop the speakers down to ear level without bumping into them. (They're too high and I have reflection problems right now.)

So, I look forward to improving my room and improving the sound even more.

Thank you, Amir, for providing the kind of scientific, objective approach to audio reviews, so a person like me can have a pretty good idea of whether I'm going to like a set of speakers before I buy them, and also to understand why my Uni-Fi speakers were rattling so much when they were sitting on a shelf. (The rattling wasn't the speakers, it was everything else! Lively cabinet!)

As for the old Uni-Fi 2.0s, they're my new bedroom speakers where they won't be played loud enough to trigger those "lively" cabinet resonances at 800 Hz! They'll be paired with the Yamaha R-N303 "entry" network receiver they were originally paired with before I upgraded my main system.

People complain that these speakers look kind of plain, or even ugly. Well, you can spend a lot more money and get better looking speakers, but I'd rather have them sound great and be ugly, than be pretty and sound badly or cost too much. (Sorry, Klipsch!) (If they were cars, I think these would be called "sleepers".)

This is Dan, the non-audiophile who loves music, electronics and, well, speakers!

 

[Newman]

Hi Dan, thanks for the nice and fun report. If you do go for a subwoofer, make sure that you are also set up to do some EQ on it, based on measurements you take in your room. The reason subs have a bad reputation 'for music' was born of a lack of EQ and correct SPL integration. Without it, the extra bass you are paying for will often be bloated, boomy and lumpy. No wonder people often preferred no sub, even if an octave was missing.

BTW in my experience a subwoofer is not only justified for certain bass-laden types of music. Even with other music it can add a touch of weight, almost imperceptible, that can transform one's opinion of the treble, from ever so slightly 'hard' despite the FR not showing it, to 'beautifully balanced' sound. I have never put this impression to a blind test, but I have never regretted the sub.

cheers

 

[bodhi]

BTW in my experience a subwoofer is not only justified for certain bass-laden types of music. Even with other music it can add a touch of weight, almost imperceptible, that can transform one's opinion of the treble, from ever so slightly 'hard' despite the FR not showing it, to 'beautifully balanced' sound. I have never put this impression to a blind test, but I have never regretted the sub.

cheers

It just depends on the speakers. My desktop setup has Genelec 8350s (not even full range speakers) with a sub and no matter how hard I try, I can't really notice differences 99% of time. Of course there are songs that make the difference clear but they are few and far between (say, Fading Sun by Terje Isungset). This is easy to test as I can toggle sub on and off with one click on GLM remote.

 

[ntsc525]

Hi Dan, thanks for the nice and fun report. If you do go for a subwoofer, make sure that you are also set up to do some EQ on it, based on measurements you take in your room. The reason subs have a bad reputation 'for music' was born of a lack of EQ and correct SPL integration. Without it, the extra bass you are paying for will often be bloated, boomy and lumpy. No wonder people often preferred no sub, even if an octave was missing.

BTW in my experience a subwoofer is not only justified for certain bass-laden types of music. Even with other music it can add a touch of weight, almost imperceptible, that can transform one's opinion of the treble, from ever so slightly 'hard' despite the FR not showing it, to 'beautifully balanced' sound. I have never put this impression to a blind test, but I have never regretted the sub.

cheers

I'm not sure I need a sub at this point. As James Blake's "Limit To Your Love" makes clear to me, I have too much non-audiophile stuff (I collect antique radios, phonos, Victrolas, Edison cylinder players, etc.), and these speakers are already enough to make that stuff rattle at the lower bass lines when I play the above mentioned song at reasonable levels. (He goes way below the 44 Hz "lower limit" of the DBR 62s, and believe me, that bass does not roll off THAT sharply!).

I don't watch too many movies on my system, and don't need wall rattling bass coming from that either. I enjoy the bass as it is, and so far, in my collection, only James Blake pushes the lower limits enough to make you sit up and take notice. (This is what happened during a YouTube demo of some very expensive speakers that was discussed elsewhere in this forum, so much that they had to stop playback when the lower bass came! Naturally, I bought the CD because of that!)

My issue is how I have the speakers mounted, but I don't have an alternative at this point unless I get rid of some antique audio gear. (No! I'm waiting for Amir to do a review of the Edison Amberola 3! I mainly want to see how he makes a cylinder with the tone sweeps to measure the response of the horn, and don't forget the off-axis measurements!)

I have the following speaker mounts bolted to studs in my walls:

Amazon.com

That keeps them up and out of the way, and other than the imaging (such that I can muster) but puts any imaging (such that I can muster here) too high. When playing music at reasonable levels this works fine, but of course if I turn it up and there's heavy bass (or if I keep it "normal", and there's James Blake), then of course it'll vibrate the walls a bit. So far, only that one Blake song made my Philco 70 (and probably other radios, horn speakers, and primitive 1920s cone speakers), sitting on an entertainment center, on a concrete floor without touching the wall, start to vibrate and dance around.

Oh: What was I talking about again? Oh yeah... I need to relocate my speakers and do some wall treatment before I even decide whether or not I need subs. Yeah, that was the point I was trying to make!

It's amazing what 60+ year old ears can still hear and appreciate with these speakers, even with my high noise floor at 10 KHz (tinnitis), and my high frequency rolloff starting at about 10K as well! I think I can make some pretty good improvements without buying any new hardware (except maybe stands if it comes to that).

Dan (In other circles they call me "The Junk Man". That's only based on my derelict record players and tube radios, not my main receiver. Perhaps you've seen my Crosley Cruiser piece over on Vinyl Engine! Yeah, that's good for some laughs!)