ELAC DF63 Floor standing Speaker Review

[Thomas_A]

REW's RTA mode, actual playback.

View attachment 474718
before the cowbells


View attachment 474719
after the cowbells

So peaks around 200 Hz as well what I can see.

 

[Sokel]

So peaks around 200 Hz as well what I can see.

Double peaks there already exist, from earlier in the track.
Cowbells fill mid-highs from 30 sec on, without any other major change apart a small peak at 180Hz which is an area that does not takes much to to explode peaks.

Edit: I made the pics so one can short of go back and forth to see changes.

 

[Thomas_A]

Double peaks there already exist, from earlier in the track.
Cowbells fill mid-highs from 30 sec on, without any other major change apart a small peak at 180Hz which is an area that does not takes much to to explode peaks.

So red is not peak in the section but rest of the track?

 

[Sokel]

So red is not peak in the section but rest of the track?

In REW's RTA mode peaks are stable, they stay there until something higher in level changes them.
What changes is the white trace but that's too fast to capture.

To make it simple, I just started the track and captured the two screenshots along the way.
Timestamps can be seen below RTA, at foobar's meter.

 

[Thomas_A]

In REW's RTA mode peaks are stable, they stay there until something higher in level changes them.
What changes is the white trace but that's too fast to capture.

Hm perhaps I remember incorrectly re peak and average of RTA. I might try myself to understand.

 

[Sokel]

Hm perhaps I remember incorrectly re peak and average of RTA. I might try myself to understand.

See above.

 

[Henryk]

On what basis do folks think they are justified in asking me to do more instead of the company???

Well said!

I think all generous people experience something similar;
The more you freely give, the more people expect.

 

[Wesseling Audio Lab]

Try Bjork “My Spine” for a tweeter workout while enjoying incredible vocal art and expression!

 

[daniboun]

If you want an album that will push any speaker to its most extreme limits, listen to this album "Des Pas Sous La Neige" by Joël Grare. (HD version)
These are complex percussions / strings and ultra-stressful bells for the speakers. And it's absolutely sublime to listen to.

 

[beagleman]

@amirm

One question, is it possible at all for you to publish Distortion figures in the same manner as Erin does?

Not saying one way or the other is "Better" but simply more as an aid in easier comparison.
I realize you are very busy, but just a request that may or may not aid in decoding what is amiss here.

 

[Cote Dazur]

@amirm “speaker wire resonating against the cabinet”
Is that a thing? Never heard of it. What does it looks like on a graph?

 

[Thomas_A]

Loose things in or outside cabinet can give rattling noise and distortion. But it should show up in measurements. What is evident is that distortion is higher order around 200 Hz and is quite narrow Q. There are stronger peaks in the ”fading sun” song around 200 Hz but it is not the cowbells doing that but the special percussion (ice?).

 

[Davey]

The sheer difference in distortion behavior between the two samples (never mind that socking great hole in the response around 1k on Amir's) that have been klippel'd with public data leads me to believe that 1.) Erin was sent a "golden sample", or 2.) Amir's speaker does not meet spec and is defective.

It's one of the two. Neither are particularly great looks, but for my money it seems significantly more likely this was a QC or shipping oops more than Elac trying to game the review system - because other than the one other speaker that showed some wacky behavior, Elacs are generally (mostly) well designed speakers.

I'll look at the speaker if Amir is willing. This might involve taking the speaker apart and having a good look inside.

 

[Thomas_A]

Another observation is the big jump in distortion between 91 and 96 dB. If one assumes an avalanche distortion occurring at 96 dB, small differences in drivers and/or SPL levels between Amirs and Erins tests can cause this as well. Small differences when calibrating SPL? Frequency? Microphone? Distance?

 

[beagleman]

Another observation is the big jump in distortion between 91 and 96 dB. If one assumes an avalanche distortion occurring at 96 dB, small differences in drivers and/or SPL levels between Amirs and Erins tests can cause this as well. Small differences when calibrating SPL? Frequency? Microphone? Distance?

I am sure you meant 86-96db but also I notice the appearance of huge amounts of 4th and 5th order distortion, meaning what in particular?? ((200hz range))

higher amounts of 5th order than almost any normal working speaker would exhibit. (As mentioned by Amir also)

 

[tw 2022]

Good find. Assuming it is some kind of in-room, gated measurement, it more closely matches my estimated in-room measurement:

Than Erin's:

correct me if i'm wrong , but the *general trend* from each looks similar .. the measurement you have has exaggerated lower mid to mid roll off and muted treble...sounds like a re-test and another unit are needed to sort it all out , I hope you can procure another unit .... very interesting results so far....

 

[Robbo99999]

If you want an album that will push any speaker to its most extreme limits, listen to this album "Des Pas Sous La Neige" by Joël Grare. (HD version)
These are complex percussions / strings and ultra-stressful bells for the speakers. And it's absolutely sublime to listen to.


View attachment 474743

Why is that track hard to play? Maybe it's not valid what I did, but I listened to the Youtube version on Harman tuned headphones and I couldn't hear anything that was an issue in the headphone for instance. I mean it seems pretty simple music, not busy.

EDIT: mind you didn't notice anything weird with same headphones on Amir's track he used, I'll try it on my own speakers.

EDIT#2: tried listening to Amir's track all the way up at 92dB at 4 metres with my x2 JBL308p speakers & sub. Well 92dB at 4 metres if you were to play a 0dBFS sine wave, so I don't know how loud that is actually on the Youtube track, but I didn't notice any problems with the bells coming in at 30seconds and later. I'm not sure if the 300Hz'ish area was clean though, but that wouldn't be the tweeter. Converting 4m to 1m and accounting for 2 speakers vs one then that would 92dB +12dB -3dB = 101dB at 1 metre per speaker if a 0dBFS sine wave was played, so it was those type of volume settings on the system, but I don't know how loud Amir's Youtube video is recorded. Maybe most speakers don't exhibit this problem. Just wanted to test it on my system.

 

[Juhazi]

200Hz peaking distortion at 96dB is 5th and 4th harmonic. My guess is that the mid is hitting Xmech there. (But why not in Erin's test? - has Amir's speaker a broken surround or spider, lead wires?)
Sadly nearfield measurement of the mid starts at 200Hz, but the slope is not very steep and spl is only 6dB down from max there.
Both woofers and both ports should be measured!

 

[Power Pop 23]

correct me if i'm wrong , but the *general trend* from each looks similar .. the measurement you have has exaggerated lower mid to mid roll off and muted treble...sounds like a re-test and another unit are needed to sort it all out , I hope you can procure another unit .... very interesting results so far....

Assuming Amir is amenable to devoting more time, ELAC (USA) could contact Amir to authorize him to procure a random sample to measure and then ship to ELAC for resale at their outlet store website - with full reimbursement to Amir of the costs of the sample and shipping.

What say you ELAC ?

 

[Billy Budapest]

Might be OK at moderate volumes but not pushing towards break up like Amir. Erin seems to like it. Voted “Not Terrible” due to too many problems but wanted to vote “Fine.” It’s hard to do this without having actually listened to it.