Review : Elac's Budget Marvel speaker BS-41BK and Crutchfield Cables
Budget Esoterica Review Magazine
March 2022 Issue
Elac's Budget Marvel Speaker BS-41BK and Crutchfield Cables
Leave it to a company like Elac to come up with a budget speaker design that any audiophile would love to own. For the price you wouldn't think that this speaker would have much going for it, but it does some things extremely well. It does bass and three dimensionality better than any speaker at this price has a right to. The build quality is also superb. If you were to show these speakers to your audiophile friend and ask him or her how much they sell for, they would probably guess around $300.Hook them up to your favorite esoteric amps and with some recordings you will notice a magical mid range.
This is a rather small speaker measuring just 8.9 x 6.6 x 10.9 inches. They are heavy and well built with excellent fit and finish. I especially like the Elac silver insignia at the bottom of the speaker. A very nice added touch. The woofer is only 4 inches but they have excellent bass, especially with high power. A one inch cloth soft dome tweeter is used but it appears to be a little larger than usual. Plan on giving the speakers a long break in period. They need to be played a long time before the highs come out.
Look no further than Crutchfield for excellent entry level speaker cable and interconnects. The Crutchfield speaker wire with attached banana plugs is a 14 gauge OFC cable with a black/silver jacket. A ten foot single cable sells for $20. I also like the Crutchfield Reference 2 channel RCA patch cables which sell for $13 for 3 feet. These are very flexible cables with nice good fitting rca connectors and a nylon mesh braided jacket.Sensibly priced cables, I like that!
At first i thought the Elac speakers were a little on the polite side, but the more i played them the crisper they got. In fact, they even had polished highs on some material. I noticed this while listening to "Josie" from the Steely Dan Aja album. The bass also continued to improve as i noticed a snappier tighter sound as the break in period continued. With my better quality amps the vocals sounded delicate and magical. Listen to the self titled Duncan Sheik album and you will see what i mean. I would probably call this high end sound , but you won't get it from ordinary amplification. The Elac speakers deserve to be used with the highest quality equipment. To get that performance at this price level is unprecedented. The bass performs much better with more power so i would recommend a good 100 watts of power if you want to see what it is capable of in the bass department.
The Elac BS-41BK are more than just entry level speakers. This is the type of speaker that will get better as you upgrade your electronics. I think that is a rare feat for a speaker in this price range. They also sound very good with just good quality inexpensive gear. So, we have here a speaker that is both good for novice and expert audiophiles alike. A rare breed animal for sure. I also recommend the Crutchfield cables, which are good for rudimentary systems and probably hard to substantially improve on without spending much more money.