The Absolute Sound - ELAC Navis Review

I agree completely with jkreidler. I have them since yesterday and I had the LS50W in my room as well. I don't know if it's fair to compare them anymore since I use an excellent external pre-amp with separate streamer and dac.

The fact remains that the LS50W are fully integrated and for that amount I haven't heard anything better (I used these with the speakers as Roon endpoint).

The navis reach deeper, have more clarity and definition in the midrange with a silky, well defined treble. A deep and wide soundstage with to my ears immaculate driver integration and excellent speed that easily matches the LS50W.

I placed them in a midfield position slightly toed in with 30 cm's of distance between the backwall in an almost perfect equilateral triangle with many of the first reflections to the ceiling eliminated and plenty of distance behind my listening distance that's also treated. 

I had the LS50W and Elac Navis at home and did A/B testing. To try to have a level playing field I fed a signal from my external DAC through the LS50W RCA input which sounded considerably better than using only the internal DAC on the LS50W. My observations were the same that the Navis beats the LS50W in sound quality. Bigger, fuller, and richer sound with the Navis and they scale really well. As I change/upgrade components the Navis keeps sounding better and better. With my most recent upgrade to a Gustard U16 DDC I have been astonished how good the Navis speakers sound.

The review is now online

https://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/elac-navis-arb-51-active-loudspeaker/

I’m having a significant issue with stereophile and absolute sound in regards to there reviews. I’ve listen to three speakers that are mediocre at best but are getting very good reviews in Publications. My experience: I owned a premier high-end audio store In the late 80s Representing products including Audio Research (delivered by Bill Johnson himself- plane), Vandersteen, Conrad Johnson, Rodgers, Quad, Linn ,etc.
Additionally from the experience gained from owning the store for 10 years, I listen to my father a Juilliard trained Jazz pianist practicing on his Steinway grand in our living room almost every day for years. I also played jazz guitar for 10 years and know something about how musical instruments sound. When I read rave reviews from those magazines on products like emerald physics, LSA and Goldenear triton loudspeakers, I question the motives of these publications, I think these reviews are based on financial or personal relationships with these vendors rather then the sonic attributes of these products. (Sorry for any typos I use speech recognition on my iPad)