Naim and Elac Adante, Wow

I’m on the West coast, Dave is on the East coast. I’m basically housebound due to medical reasons and am forced to buy online, and ONLY from vendors with good return policies. Dave carries my current speakers and amp, along with many of the speakers I’m considering to upgrade to. If I can pick his brain and get some hands on insight, then I consider that a bonus and not a schill for my business. 

Another review with an additional group of measurements came out for the Adante bookshelf, and while they subjectively reviewed well for bass quality, the tweeter subjective and performance measurements provide a good insight to how they were engineered.

As the tweeter begins to cross over with its mid diver, a flare at around 10 degrees off axial occurs ranging form the upper mid range to mid treble. This levels off at around 30 degrees with the axial response and then the typical upper treble roll off that occurs with most tweeters. There is a mild notch at the upper end of the mid treble as well, which may be attributed to that oddly designed cover.

Considering its designer, this is certainly an intentional voicing and my expectation was to create a broad and vivid sound. You would likely need some very specific positioning to get these speakers to work. Very little toe in would be a good start and maybe some room dampening. 

If you test these for yourself, certainly bring your most favored recordings, but I would also bring some less than ideally mastered stuff to see if you can enjoy all of your library with it. A speaker that doesn't allow you to enjoy your library isn't something I would purchase for myself.

Link to the review?

mmey, excellent.  Thanks for sharing.  That's probably why I heard that treble peak and why the dealers I heard them at all wanted to use a warm group of electronics.  

crn, I can appreciate your situation as I am housebound much of the time also with MS.  First point is that Audiogon isn't supposed to be used by businesses for marketing and sales. That's why they have the paid forum.  They have been very specific about that and I don't think it's changed.  

As for buying coast to coast, these companies usually have a very protective territory.  That protects the dealers.  It's just a good business practice.  I personally know many dealers on your coast who would probably love to earn your business too.  Many have a great return policy also and depending on where you live, they may even bring over a system for a day or two and help you listen in your own home.  I have had two dealers close to me bring over equipment when they know I'm serious.  

For those who like class D amps (not the biggest fan), that 300X2 watt Peachtree integrated with built in DAC is nice with the Adante line also.  For the price though there are so many good options as it's a tough market to play in.  You just need to figure out what compromises you are willing to make.  All speakers have them regardless of the cost.

Ctstooner your points are being raised for what reason exactly?

There is no paid forum on Audiogon. As per gaining sales, so far has almost never happened.

Any dealer that responds to these posts and mentions their dealship name is "selling " or calling attention to their dealership and their expertise, however, if you are not supposed to be an invisible non identified person who works for a dealer so hiding anonomously that isn’t right either.

I don't see you raising these objections when a particular Vandy dealer friend of yours answers or makes comments on these boards and signs off with his dealship's name, you can't have it both ways. 

People are free to make up their own minds on whom they want to do business with. As per manufacturers protecting dealers, you can order, almost anything on line and have it shipped directly to you by dealerships like ours or others or on line shops like Cruthfield or Music Direct.

It is up to the respective reader to see if they want to discuss a possible purchase or not with whomever they like.

As per Peachtree class D anything is not going to be exactly peachy with these particular speakers as most ICE based amps sound noticably thiner with great bass control but tend to have a less warm sound compared to a good class A/B amp, however, with that being said we haven’t heard the latest Peachtree stuff. We have had Ice based amps, Hypex and NCore here and haven’t found one yet that we actually wanted to listen to. We have found the Nuprime amps which are hybrid Class A/D amps and the NAD to actually sound good, but haven’t tried these amps with the Elacs.

We do recommend a really good tube/solid state hybrid. Do you know of any, we know of an amazing sounding one, but hey I can’t mention names now or that woud be shilling right?

Perhaps you should hear the combo we recommended in the post initially?

And yes there are ton’s of good choices in this price point including Vandy, Kef, Dali, Paradigm, B&W, Golden Ear, ATC, Harbeth, Focal as well as the Elac Adantes, we just have the added advantage of having most of the major players to compare them to in one location, which is why we post in the first place.

Go google Audio Doctor and see what people whom have either worked with or visited our shop have to say about working with us. One of the reasons we get people comming in to our shop is the selection of top competing brands is very wide, because we seek out what is new and setting the market on fire because our philsophy is to support the clients not the manufacturers, if someone is making a better dac or amp or speakers then what we sell we replace that brand or model with the new one.

For many people there aren’t any good dealers with a wide selection left in many parts of the country.

We will go find a Peachtree to listen to, why don’t you find a Naim to listen to and see what you think.

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ