Once upon a time, before you chose your hi-fi, you were wise to choose your dealer. These days we are bombarded with channels on this platform, which goes a long way to make up for the lack of dealers and increase in direct to market manufacturers. However, just like the dealers back in the day, not many are worth your time. Tarun, your reviews are a model of clarity and I would have no hesitation in seeking your advice if I were upgrading my main system. Thanks for the insight and entertainment. Oh, and I look forward to walking the dog tomorrow whilst listening to Bob Marley 😀. In case you’re wondering, the Elacs, definitely not my Brownian motion generator, even though they are a proper size. Can’t help wondering why he didn’t opt for a smaller midrange driver, perhaps 100mm to help the upper mids and confine the bass to the big boy below.
Thank you Mark. Very kind of you to say and very much appreciated. I agree, I think a 3 way would have cleaned up that mids quite a bit. I suspect they went for the extra low frequency output to appeal to home cinema enthusiasts. Enjoy Bob whilst your walk with the dog 🐶😊👍👍
You eloquently describe why I subscribe to ABA. Although I live in a major metropolitan area, there are a scant few high-end hifi dealers. And I trust Tarun's ears. He does have those ProAcs!
Another comprehensive and informative review. What’s so helpful? That Tarun will always help us understand design uniqueness, the purpose behind that particular design, and explain the virtues of what he’s reviewing for the sake of those that might be searching for it. I learn at every review!
I traded these Solano's for PMC Twenty 24i's and the difference is unbelievable! This review is excellent and describes these speakers perfectly. I would call these quite dull
Hi Tarun. You definitely have a thing for difficult names 😂 Good to see a floor stander speaker being reviewed. Elac build some fine speaker's and these look well made and very clever tweeter technology. I'm very eagerly waiting for your review on the Ophidian p2's. Thanks for this excellent review.
Thank you Steve. Let’s see how many names I can butcher by the time the year is out 😂 I have the Mambo 2 coming soon. If I like them, I may look at the P2s later 😊👍
Sir Hegelton 😉 Excellent no fluff thorough honest non biased review! Although I'm not intrested in these, I think I learned about why I was expierencing some distortion from my KEF LS50 WIRELESS ii Metas at some higher frequencies during complex passages in certain songs From Freya Ridings, Carrie Underwood Never Enough, and etal. After back and forth with Kef I gave up and got Focal Kanta No 2. However, another great speaker that maybe a worthy apponent for the Elac Salonos for you to review are the Wharfdale Evo 4.4.
Tarun, as usual, you produced a review that provides real clarity when it comes to the characteristics of this speaker. Based on this review, it seems these could be a bit overpriced for what your getting. I too have a 2 1/2 way speaker floor stander priced similarly..uh maybe a little cheaper doing the currency exchange. I think they aren’t as nimble as they should be. For me, either go 3 way or drop the extra drivers and stay 2 way.
Thanks for your review, which is as enjoyable as ever. Im delighted you are reviewing a floor stander, as unless the room will not allow it, i much prefer the sound of a decent floor stander, where I fancy the extra lower end grunt is heard all through the mid range too (and even above) and gives me a timbre i associate with the real instruments. Interesting sounding speakers, and im a big fan of amt's. I wish I had the chance to check these when i bought earlier this year, but i expect Id still have made the same choice. I was prepared to pay up to £3k, but ended up paying £1200 for a speaker that blew all the others away imo. Wharfdale evo 4.4s are a 3 way design with a fine amt, crossing to a mid range dome. They are so cheap as they are made in china for wharfdale. Id love you to hear them, im not the only one who believes they blow away speakers more than twice their price, and they provide the wonderfull rich fast airy sound im seeking, and I belive they would show these a clean pair of heels! I'd recommend anyone looking at these units to also audition the evo 4.4s too. Appreciate you having reviewed these, and as always your insightfull comments seem to get to the heart of what these units are about. Looking forward to your next post, thank you .
Thank you Titntin. Very much appreciated 😊👍I have heard the Evo 4.3 at a show and was very impressed. I would love to get Wharfedale Evo’s in for review but they don’t respond to my messages.
With that Kevlar cone are they still able to produce a natural timbre in the midrange and what's the base extension like? My speakers have to go down low!!
@@jamesdwright The 4.4's go low and have lovely weight coupled with a foot tapping speed too. The have a full dome mid driver which covers the whole mid range and sounds great to these ears! Well worth listening too as a point of reference if nothing else.
Really enjoyed this review, Tarun -- particularly the explanation of how ribbon tweeters work, since I have very recently purchased a pair of Quad S2s which also have them. As Mark Carrington has already remarked below, the articulacy and clarity of your reviews is second to none. In a way, you're an ideal top-end speaker yourself! ;-)
Thanks Tarun for another excellently detailed review and of floor standing speakers too, nice. As you may remember from previous comments I'm currently looking at the possibility of buying new speakers and have recently tested the KEF R7. Next on my list are the B&W 702 S2. I was hoping these Elac could give me another option but your description of their sound quality doesn't quite seem to match the profile I'm looking for, but thanks again for your excellent review.
@@abritishaudiophile7314 I have a pair of KEF C95 from 1988 and I consider these to be quite warm in their character although that may be my misunderstanding of 'warm'. They're easy listening and I feel they add a little something to the original sound which I quite like. I won't buy the R7 even though I think they're great speakers just because they are still very similar to my C95's. Are they worth the price - yes but are they worth me paying that price for something sounding quite similar (albeit a little better) to what I already have? I'm awaiting a test on the B&W 702 as these seem to have a totally different sound to KEF which I believe is much more 'natural' (neutral?) and yes, I'll still keep my old KEFs alongside whatever I buy.
Thank you Tarun for another excellent review. And btw I prefer floor standers. Giving up some imaging to gain full range response is a trade I gladly make. Someday I'll have to replace my B&W 640s from the 1990s. British made and better sounding than current Bowers &.
Thanks Toruń Andrew Jones is becoming a legend in his own life time , bit like you bless you 😀 . But it might just be me but I feel he’s becoming to prolific in these constant updates and tweaks , no sooner a new model hits the market another is in the production stage. Yes I know that’s what the public wants, but to me I’d like more time spent refining a product till it becomes it’s self a legend . Because let’s face it we need more like the stalwarts of yesteryear to become tomorrow’s classics . My monitor audio system r352 are still giving a good account of themselves even after 40 odd years . But are there speakers waiting in the wings to fill the gap like my old faithfuls . Which with the best will in the world will not go on for ever . Kind regards as always. 😀👍👍👍
Thank you Michael. Very kind and very much appreciated. Good point you raise. I suspect at the more accessible end it becomes about shifting as many boxes as possible for manufacturers. Short life cycles with continual updates encourages people to do just that 😊👍
Also own the Carinas FS247.4, I’m not sure if Andrew Jones designed the Solanos vs the latest Carina/Velas. Moved to a much more capable MA8900 integrated looking for a good pair of speakers to pair it with. Excellent videos thank you.
Great review Tarun! Bit of a fan of Elac speakers, I have a pair of large Elac desktop speakers in one of my bedrooms. Always been very impressed by the bass and tone they produce for a relatively small speaker. Elac are know for offering a lot of "bang for the buck" so @ £2,699 I thought the FS287's might be up there with some 4 or 5k speakers. While the fact they appear to fall well short of that is disappointing its still good to know! :)
I've played with several speaker brands but have yet to try out an Elac. But I will say that what you described here really appeals to me. I've only had one speaker provide sufficient bass in my room without a subwoofer, and that speaker had way too many weaknesses for me to prefer it over my current, rather neutral speaker. It is possible that a bass null in my room is steering that preference but I will say that a warm speaker is always the best way to go for a first speaker in my opinion. The worst thing you could end up with is a bit of a dull sounding speaker... and I'd take that over a speaker that assaults my ears any day.
@Jingle Nuts my current amp does not have tone controls but my last one did... And let me say that it was a very high end amp with excellent tone controls and even loudness control. But I found the tone control only served to make it sound worse for my ears.
@Jingle Nuts I think you're inferring that the use of tone control increased the amount of audible distortion... which it did not. What it did do was make the sound bloated if bass was increased, and dull if treble was decreased. Although I will admit it was useful for filling out tracks with thin bass.
Great review as always. It sounds like these speakers would pair up nicely with the Yamaha 3200 which, apparently, has an upper mid bump and dry bass. I have seen reviews of many speakers where the designers push the mid bass too high to get to the tweeter. I guess profits count,, more than sound quality, by eliminating a midrange, to many companies. Or so they think. That is what I like about the KLH at 2K american. A simple three way design with a midrange that takes the stress off of the woofer and tweeter. That allows for a simple crossover because there is a lot of overlapping response between drivers. All of that allows for a veritable bargain. All of this pushing drivers to the edge of their abilities ends up costing money and performance from my Monday night quarterback seat (american saying). Oh, and the bass is punchy, fast and relatively deep by all accounts. Again no complicated engineering provides the most for the least. Occam's razor if you will.
@@abritishaudiophile7314 yup. And it is a sealed box. My favorite for bass definition and smooth (er) phase response. If I didn't build my own speakers, I would definitely give the KLH speakers a listen.
@@abritishaudiophile7314 There aren't many reviews for ProAc, Spendor classic series, Graham and Stirling broadcast. And there is where I will look for my life time speaker. ( and Harbeth ofcourse) Hope to see them on your channel someday. Also for your pleasure.
@@abritishaudiophile7314 as a Proac owner that’s disheartening. Are they afraid of criticism? Or are doing so well they don’t care ? I wonder. It’s quite interesting especially since covid made access to hifi stores more difficult.
Hey Tarun, I'm close to buying my first pair of decent bookshelf speakers. Here in Australia, I can buy the Tablette 10's, or the Response DB1 or DB3, the Harbeth P3ESR, the LS3/5A in its various iterations, the Dali Menuet SE, and now recently I've discovered the Elac BS312, and the Mon Acoustics Super Mon Mini. Talk about being spoiled for choice. Today I lean toward the ProAc's, yesterday it was the Harbeth's, and tomorrow it will be something else. At 76 this will be my final stab at some decent speakers, and my long-suffering wife probably won't allow me another shot. So this is it. It'll take AUD$5-6K to buy any of the above, some cheaper than others. They're all available here, though not all easily available to review. Or I may just say bugger it and stick with my hundred year old DIY 1/4 wave Voigts which my wife loves. I recently bought the Cyrus CDi CD player to replace my ageing Marantz CD6004, though we're in the process of moving to a retirement villa and I can't play anything at the moment. The joys of the new Cyrus will have to wait. Maybe it'll make my old Voigts sing, and I won't need a new set of bookshelf speakers. I'll know next week.... Incidentally the old Voigts might be considered "similar" to the Sibelius about which you're clearly enthusiastic, but the comparison ends at "looks". Mine use a Fostex 4 inch paper driver, not the much more modern and arguably much better Mark Audio drivers, although it would a small task to rip those old Fostex out and sub in Mark Audio drivers, which are very cheap here. It would probably muck everything up tonally so maybe I won't bother. But hey, that's what DIY is all about....
Great to learn about your experiences. I am sure you will have a lot of fun exploring the options you have described. May I suggest another one? Building another TQWP enclosure based on Mark Audio drivers. It may be a fun project 👍
@@abritishaudiophile7314 Ha ha. Thanks for your reply Tarun. If we didn't live across the globe my wife would come round and beat you over the scone with a rolling pin for such suggestions. Moving to a small retirement villa means I no longer have a shed/workshop, and now the mere suggestion of diy is anathema to my wife. She's tolerated my dabblings for 53 years so enough is probably enough I think... No, it looks like another visit to a reputable hifi shop is in order. There are some really good ones here.. Your videos have been an excellent guide and a source of inspiration, my dude, and you've renewed my interest in ProAc. Never affordable until now and I'm very tempted. I know you wax lyrical about yours, and sometimes that's all it takes. But I must make some effort at exploring alternatives I guess. The Harbeth and the Dali I mentioned are still very high on my list... I will let you know what transpires, and thanks for your encouragement...
It seems that the tweeter is better than the other two drivers. The compromises with driver speed would be a bridge too far for me. I have PMC's, so detail and rapid bass is a given. As always, well presented, clear and easy to follow. I lost at Tarun bingo this week. No 'bunch.' :-)
excellent review (as always!) and great to see you reviewing a tower speaker. perhaps this elac solano could start the 'barely recommended' bracket from your channel. seems they have too many issues. hope one day you can review Q acoustics concept 40 tower speakers. I've seen too many reviews on their budget speakers and a couple on their very expensive Concept 500, but none on the Concept 40. I think they are right on the spot of $$ accessible and still, perhaps, really musical and engaging? would be fascinating to have your take on those.
Thank you. Funny enough, I have just received the Concept 300 in for review. Now I have a contact for the U.K. distributor I would like to review more of their speakers in the future 😊👍
Hi, I’m in Sydney, Australia and heard these speakers for the first time today in a Hi-Fi store. I played “Everywhere” by Fleetwood Mac and thought the sound was clear, rich and appealing. I also listened to the KEF Q950 speakers and liked the ELAC speakers a lot more. Only issue is that the room they will live in is 4.1m x 3.5m which is I think approximately 15m2. Will they be a good purchase for a room that size? Thanks, David
Very very late to this, but another great review. Thank you. Have you heard any Audiovector speakers by any chance to compare please? Specifically, their models with AMT tweeters?
It's interesting to note you didn't find them lean with that tweeter, but actually the reverse if anything. Sounds like a nice balanced speaker for the $ that perhaps tries too hard to be all things to all people for the $.
@@abritishaudiophile7314, To be honest, I like that "German" sound signature, I have a few collections from Heco, Canton, and MB Quart (now German Maestro) very good with my style of music, metal, and rock genre, for orchestra also very good. I listened Elac DBR series from Andrew Jones, sound boring, I don't like them. When saw your review about other series from Elac, looks like Elac is not on my list. Thank you for your great review.
Hope there will be more reviews of AMT based Loud speakers in your future. Cannot wait for your first Magnapan speaker review. Curious but have you at least heard any dipole planar speaker before?
Interesting tonal balance choice by Elac with these. I don’t get the sense from other reviews that the Velas are like this. I would love for you to be able to review and compare a set of those.
Great Rewiew Tarun 😊👍 I have the vela fs 408 and i think they are fantastic. The loudspeaker disserpers….The bass i tight and deep, and the tweter are the best i have ever heard…..and i have tried B&W 804 d3 and the Proac d40, too me det Elac 408 is the best 😊👍
Hello Tarun, an interesting topic for us Patreon supporters might be a shallow deep dive into speakers lingo and specs. I still don’t fully understand what all that means -3db or -6db at 35hz as an example. Paradigm‘s Founder series might be interesting for you to review. The 80f (I like this model for its size /performance) costing $4.5k (pair) Canadian or $2.6k sterling. Compact and beautifully crafted in Canada. My local dealer has the entire line and they sound very, very, good. Take care, Brian
So Elac is buying the folded ribbon tweeter from ATC. Good choice there. From you review it sounds like everyone might have benefitted had Mr Jones incorporated more ATC product in these speakers.
I didn’t think there was any special synergy between the Elac’s and the Willsenton. It is a speaker that has a particular sound and works well with lots of amps 😊
You tube says it has been a year since this review. I really would have loved to know your opinion of the difference between these and the Vela floor standers. I am curious if you think that they improved on the weaknesses. Thanks.
Still not available in the USA. The Jet5 tweeter is the best I have ever heard. And I agree that it is not suited for a 2 1/2- way speaker; it needs to blend to a dedicated mid-range as in the Vela 409s.
This was interesting because my Adam audio monitors also have a ribbon tweeter. Was curious about how that worked. Sounds like height is very important. I'll experiment as my stands are variable height.
It's a bit what I noticed when I went from the 247 to the 407. The quality, speed and texture and impact of the bass on the 407 was lightyears ahead of that on the 247. The 247 really is underwhelming in the bass departement
Hi Tarun, appreciate if you could review Spendor D line specifically D7.2 or D9.2 speakers (prefer D9.2). I am intrigued, the sound quality and signature that they are rated at on the net seem to be positive. I want to know your perspective and thoughts to make an informed decision. Please note they are not available for an audition in my location currently and I await dealer/ distributor partnership for the same. Your insight would be good to progress further, thanks!
@@abritishaudiophile7314 I did get a prompt and helpful response from Mr. Paul Clewes at Spendor Audio Systems U.K when I had reached out. He directed me to a dealer Mr. Gary Penska from Analogue Seduction. Hope this helps to facilitate a demo unit of the D9.2, cheers!
Wish more manafacturers would go sealed or acoustic suspension. Using a ribbon or AMT it's pretty stupid to waste it in a bass reflex cabinet beyond all but the most supremely accomplished builder's.
@@cougar2465 normally the speakers in the same range have a very similar tonal balance. On paper the warm Elacs should balance the cooler NAD but you can only truly tell by trying 😊
This transducer gets resounding faint praise from this channel. Looks like Andrew Jones has nothing to fear from other elac designers....other than being mistakenly credited for these:-/
@@jbt6121 You certainly have a point there. I love KEF and have a pair of C95's from 1988, still going strong and as I already posted I've tested the R7's which are brilliant and highly recommendable but not for me as they aren't almost €3000 better than what I already have.
Thank you FM. Whilst, I find sound demos entertaining, I believe using them as a tool to judge hifi equipment is misleading. You can’t listen to a system through another system and draw any meaningful conclusions 😊