ELAC - Adante... what’s the verdict?

So far it seems there’s a consensus that these require careful gear matching. I wonder if the Audio Alchemy amps would work well. Wasn’t this the pairing at last year’s shows?

So far it sounds like they’re not the giant slayers that some might hope for...not a poor man’s TAD.

If memory serves, AJ swapped out the metal dome tweeter that was in the show prototype. 

The design lends a lot of interest as the approach is unique. Using a closed couple cavity with a band pass design to create an acoustic crossover of 12db per octave, which in turn lent to a simpler crossover design between the woofer and mid driver. A concentric driver to aid in creating better integration between the tweeter and mid driver. The passive radiator making speaker placement when dealing with boundary walls potentially easier. 

 A bit of effort went into the design to be a bit more clever than most, especially given the targeted price point, but the commentary thus far indicates further refinement will be required. Its measured characteristics also indicates careful paring. First, it has a rather low efficiency with a specified 85db and measuring a bit lower. The impedance plot isn't benign and the tweeter is crossed over somewhat low at 2khz, which can be a challenge for any tweeter to produce cleanly.  I know titanium and likely aluminium domes were tested, but fabric domes offer better damping properties and might have played a role in its selection. They are rather larger and heavy, which certainly isn't cheap to build and  are likely offering good value for the build.  Experimentation with power amps may be best. I also have some concerns about QC as pair matching wasn't very good.

A question remains if the engineering was complete? We know that Elac has been looking to be a benchmark products at their price points, do they achieve that here?

Time will tell, and feel I would be interested if they proved to be exceptional at their price, but initial impressions are not indicating as such. I do look forward in hearing what will be said about them as owners have more experience.

Does anyone have any experience with the AF61 model?

I spent more than 2 hours listening to a pair AF61s at one of the Elac distributors in the SF Bay Area. They sounded very nicely. I personally would have liked a bit more bass extension and found that the high frequency response was a bit too brassy. When I pointed this out, the person who was demonstrating the speakers said that the brassiness may be due to the fact that the speakers were not completely burned in. He then proceeded to change the configuration of the electronics. According to him,  when I was listening to the speakers, the DAC was connected directly to the power amplifier. He then connected the DAC to a preamp and the preamp to the amplifier. The sound seems to have improved, both at the lower and high frequency ends, but unfortunately I had to leave and did not have enough time the evaluate the speaker with the revised electronics configuration. Unfortunately, I don’t remember the name of the equipment that powered the speakers, but it was supposed to be of very high quality. Even under my limited audition, I liked the Elac AF61 a lot a may consider buying them. I would like to first listen to a pair of Magico A3s and, if possible, to a pair of Tekton Electrons.