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.
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Thanks. Just got the speakers in the mail today. I have them on an old pair 20” wooden speaker stands with two large hard bound books on each stand to make for 24” in height. In the near future I’ll probably end up getting the exact speaker stands you referred to so thank you.
The way the magnetic grills come on and off the front of the speaker is so cool!
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.
My wife actually wanted to do the unboxing! Naturally she noticed the seam in the vinyl wrapping on the underside.
I asked her if she would put the unboxing on Youtube and my teenage sons snickered and she said no.
A little while after we got them set up, she asked me if I liked the sound. I said yes!
The first thing I noticed is that these ELACs have really satisfying bass, sounds both forceful and very natural (it’s really quite surprising when you first hear it, I was like oh! Now wait a minute here! Now this is something!) and then the next thing I noticed after the bass perked me up is that these ELACs have great highs (the sound of a well-recorded high hat or cymbal or chimes is uncanny in its timbre and proportion to the rest of the music), and then the next thing I noticed was that the ELACs have really nice mids—there is some ambiance or atmosphere that is somehow being conveyed quite believably.
Another thing I noticed is that the ELACs are voiced, I would guess intentionally, to be extremely enjoyable as just stand alone speakers. It’s not like a normal person would feel compelled to go out and get a couple of subwoofers if they liked bass-heavy music. It’s not like this is just a fairly neutral transducer that goes from x hz to y khz, plus or minus z dB. It’s like I could live with these easily all by themselves, because they sound very pleasing on their own.
Day two comments: Have put in several hours of listening on these now. In my room sound best with grills off, maybe 16-18 inches from front wall. A lot of times I don’t know if I have center channel engaged on my HT or not, because even when not it sure sounds to me like one is there. A lot of times I listen to these w/o subwoofers or surround because, well, I like it! Lots of positive comments from family on looks of speaker. May have to keep eye out for center channel that will match quality of these that does not cost arm and leg. I’m not really competent enough to report good or bad on these, at this level, just that I really like them. I’m more of a music guy than an audio guy, or at least how I think of it. 58 days in the trial period to go.