Transcript
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TEST
Cult in new guise The small 303 loudspeaker from Elac has for a long time been almost a cult object among aficionados of diminutive loudspeakers. It has now undergone a high octane modernisation. By Sven BilÈn and Michael Madsen (measurements)
D
uring our visit to the German loudspeaker manufacturer Elac in Kiel (see High Fidelity 3/06), we were given the possibility to attend a world premiere. We ha the opportunity to listen to the very first set of the third incarnation of the company’s cult speaker Elac 330.3 Jet. Jet is referring to the use of their unique tweeter unit, designed according to Dr Oskar Heil’s principles. The premiere was very promising and inspired us to perform a proper review. A few months later, Elac’s Oliver John turned up at the editorial office with the very first production speakers (serial numbers 1 and 2!) of the model. Oliver John proudly unpacked and assembled them on their stands. Assembly of stands and speakers was simple and straight-forward, and the instructions were lucid and easy to understand.
Diminutive cult We called them cult speakers, and certainly in the Far East – where housing is cramped – this very unusual design has many supporters. The basic design has been around for a long time, and it was sensational when introduced. It is a rather irregular loudspeaker made of extruded aluminium; the front simply follows the shape of the drivers. You could almost say that the cabinet is folded around the drive units. This makes the baffle minimal, thus re-
PRODUKT: ELAC 330.3 JET INFORMATION: WWW.SAS-AUDIO.DK, WWW.ELAC.COM PRIS (CA.): 28.000 KR.
ducing diffraction. The choice of material contributes towards an extremely dead cabinet. Aluminium extrusion is beneficial when it comes to loudspeaker cabinets, as you can control the shape and simultaneously form struts and details that facilitate assembly. It is a very small loudspeaker when looked at head on. The height is only 28 cm and it is 19 cm wide. On the other hand it is 32 cm deep and weighing10 kg it requires a solid stand. Elac has converted one of their existing stands (LS 65), supplying it with a new top plate where the speaker rests on inverted spikes and fastened with a screw. The result is stable and secure, also thanks to the large bottom plate with adjustable feet. The loudspeaker is presently available in two varieties: silver shadow and titanium shadow. Our pair was titanium shadow, a novelty for the third incarnation of 330. This finish is difficult to reproduce in print, so you have to believe us when we say that it is really beautiful and nice to touch. You could say that it is discreet and spectacular at the same time. The finish is obtained by painting it as if it were a car. Smart thinking, it is a wellknown way of obtaining a nice and durable surface.
LLD The most important piece of news in this upgraded model is the all new bass-midrange drive unit using a technology called LLD (Long Linear Drive). They started with an 18 cm unit of Elac’s standard membrane configuration with an aluminium dome glued to a paper cone. The developed a 180 mm drive unit with Elac’s customary cone configuration: an aluminium dome glued to a paper membrane. Using the more powerful and physi-
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cally smaller neodymium magnets they managed an arrangement with a longer gap and a shorter voice coil. This gives a longer throw with increased control, giving an ability to move more air and hence produce more bass. More, but still very pure. It has also made it possible to cut off a few centimetres from the cabinet, compared to the predecessor. It is a bass-reflex design with a back-firing port placed behind the tweeter. In situations where a closed cabinet is preferred foam plugs to close the reflex port are supplied. On the back, just behind the bass unit, we find the crossover board mounted directly on the fine bi-wiring terminals. Jumper cables are provided for those who use single-wire speaker cables. The jumpers are made from a high-quality van den Hul wire – as is all internal wiring. The loudspeaker is equipped with an Elac Jet III tweeter unit. It is a rather unuThe grille is a perforated metal mesh, nice to look at and easy to remove if you want to. We preferred to listen with the grille off.
The frequency response is fine, with good balance and modest irregularities. A perforated metal sheet is acoustically superior to a textile front.
The output is somewhat reduced 30 degrees off axis in the 2–3 kHz range and there is a roll-off in the high end. The sensitivity is rather high: 88 dB/2.83 V.
There is local phase-out 10 degrees up, and quite clearly at 20 degrees, at 3 kHz. The treble roll-off is marginal at 10 degrees.
At 10 degrees down the response is by and large the same as on-axis. Even 20 degrees down the response is relatively smooth and the roll-off is still moderate.
The reflex port has its max output at 60 Hz. The frequency response is fine, but with an extra peak at 1 kHz. The responses of the active units are smooth and attractive.
The system resonance is 73 Hz with the reflex port closed and in reflex mode it is tuned to 55 Hz. Impedance minimum at 3.9 ohms is at 200 Hz.
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sual unit, based on the Heil ‘Air Motion Transformer’ principle. Read more about this in High Fidelity 3/06. The tweeter unit is exceptional in being specified to reach above 50 kHz. Several of Elac’s speaker models, 330 among them, have been considered bass shy. The bass output quite simply had such purity that it was instinctively considered as lean. This is certainly not unique to Elac speakers, but an opinion that the new LLD element should remedy. In particular, it is difficult to get a physically small speaker to play big.
Setup and test Elacc 330.3 is certainly a small speaker by normal high-end standards. Setting them up close to the reviewer’s 147 cm tall floorstanding speakers will make them look almost silly. “Can these midgets really play properly”, you think almost unconditionally. On their own, however, the harmonious look is more prominent than the small size. They are simply elegant creations. Placement was without problems. The amount of bass is of course to an extent controlled by varying the distance to the back wall, but it was in no way necessary to fiddle with the distance to find a fine and harmonious soundstage with sufficient bass level. Our starting point required only minor adjustments, mostly concerning toe-in. As is frequently the case, most speakers will be best off where the room itself dictates the ideal positions. These matters may be calculated, e.g. try Elac’s software CARA, on sale in our shop, where you may test your ideas before lugging the speakers around. In the case of Elac 330.3 this is not a problem, but moving around a set of von
Schweikert VR9 or similar is not something you undertake willingly. Concerning break-in of the speaker, a slight “plastic film” – so named by our son – was removed from the tweeter, but this happened after only a few hours use, so it should not be a major problem. It is gone even before you start listening seriously. Generally speaking the 330.3 requires relatively minimal break-in, compared to a lot of stuff, and the performance is in fact acceptable right out of the box. The fact that the speakers are not very tall, the centre of the tweeter is 93 cm above the floor, dictates that the ears be at this level. A tall listener will therefore end up a somewhat high in a normal sofa or chair. Everything will simply be better if you are at the right level, as the tweeter unit does not seem to disperse very much vertically. Choosing the right chair is important, and luckily we owned a suitable one. When testing audio equipment, loudspeakers in particular perhaps, it is important not to remain seated in a fixed position. Leave the room – does it sound good even when listening in the kitchen? What is the immediate impression when you re-enter the room? How is the distribution – do you have to sit in the sweet spot? You have to let the gear play and try to register even what is beyond the concentrated listening sessions. Such matters influence the unconscious impression of a piece of equipment much more than you would believe. The total impression consists of several parameters, of course with different weight but still in the context – consciously or unconsciously. The total impression is if you like or unlike what you hear, and if you are able to verbalise why. From there you may start digging into the details.
Small but great
Inside information...
If we apply the last paragraph, we will immediately get a generally positive impression, an impression that is amplified the more you play. The speaker is very easy to live with. It does many things in a manner that you perceive as correct, and considering the small size it is quite impressive how big it sounds. Tonally and harmonically we are slightly on the bright side, but very much within the narrow band we consider as “correct”. The soundstage is not as high as we
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are used to from our electrostatic speakers. Width and depth are considerable, although generally somewhat smaller. Thus, the speakers play “big” for their small size, but not as big as a pair of full-size floor-standing speakers normally do. We also experienced that our listening room of ca. 27 square metres is about the maximum size for things to go well. The tweeter has a certain electrostatic quality. High in the treble Elac 330.3 has this untroubled lightness, wealth of details and obviousness that we recognise from electrostatic speakers, with no unnecessary emphasis in the overall picture. They have built an extremely competent tweeter unit. Compared to previous Elac speakers we have heard, without the new DLL driver, the newcomer has got this element of body and weight that some listeners have asked for. The bass is certainly not less pure and distinct than before, it is simply more physical. The midtone has also got this extra body in voices and instruments that makes the speaker feel more mature and competent. There is just one small snag, though. Make absolutely sure that you connect them to high quality equipment. The treble response in particular may become ugly with lesser gear or too bright cables. Some equipment in the mid-fi category simply doesn’t go very well with the non-forgiving Elac 330.3. The speaker certainly puts out what it receives, and without glossing over the reality. We regard that as a quality marker for a speaker.
the very finest recordings, if it cannot play the music you like to listen to, it doesn’t matter at all! From this you can only conclude that you have to listen yourself, and listen to the music you like before buying anything. Our listening to the Elac 330.3 may help you in this matter to the conclusion that it obviously is able to play a fairly varied choice of music in a way that High Fidelity’s test team appreciates. We will, however, exemplify with one of our Reference CDs: No. 66. One of the first things we noted was the ability to follow speech and texts. On Track 4, Guano Island with ”Of Course There’s life on Mars!”, there is both talking and singing that exemplifies this very well. Listen to the harmonics from the organ and percussion as well, they really make the song come alive. The resolution of all these harmonics must be good for all things to come together, and this is the case here. This song is also a demonstration that the speaker is able to play dynamically, and that the percussion attacks are sufficiently quick, otherwise everything
Conclusions Elac 330.3 is a loudspeaker that we like very much. When in comes to speakers, there are frequently some ”Yes, but...”. This is not the case with 330.3, maybe only that it is rather choosy about what you connect it to. It is by all means a small speaker, but it sounds fairly big and with an ample soundstage, a resolution and an appearance that we appreciate. It may seem expensive, considering its size, but the money buys high quality. If you have a small listening room it is a sure candidate for the place of honour.
Music For those of our readers who believe that we reviewers only listen to classical music or diddle-diddle-diddle music (which several of us suffer with great difficulty), let us mention some of the artists the music of whom has emerged from the membranes of Elac 330.3 during the course of this review: Sophie Solomon, Blaasband de Dommelaers, Edith Söderström, Ambrose Adekoya Campbell, David Gilmour, Feist, Anthony and the Johnstons, Brian Wilson, Van Morrison, Sergio Mendez/Black Eyed Peas, Leftfield, Uriah Heep, Henrik Hall, Tina Dickow, Tom Petty, Joe Jackson, Jethro Tull, Tori Amos, Stina Nordenstam – try and find a pattern there! The reviewer’s attitude may be summarised, slightly provocatively: It doesn’t matter how good a speaker is able to play
will be muddled. You will also find out if your speaker cable is too bright! Track 2 with Coralie Clement is one of our favourite tracks for determining resolution, and it takes a good speaker to prevent the bass from overpowering both vocals and music. Here, too, an excellent musical unity is created, even if we perhaps have heard even better control on bigger and more expensive speakers. Track 9 is a classical guitar piece by Mangore. Classical guitar is difficult to reproduce due to all the harmonics that determine timbre and string sound. Everything is fine here, it really sounds like a guitar (this is not obvious!) and you get a life-like impression of the sound that is heard when the hand is moved along the fingerboard. Track 13 is organ music by Bach. Maybe it is impolite to test such small speakers with organ music, but they come out surprisingly well. The speakers are able to give an excellent illusion of power in the bass, and capture the “breathing” of the room and the space behind the organ in a quite decent way. However, we have experienced the church as larger using bigger speakers. Track 16 contains organ music too, by Reger, and it is a more delicate piece, having a more advanced registration that perhaps demands more from the speakers for a realistic reproduction. This is also surprisingly well done. Dare you try this on your own equipment?
English translation of the review “Kult i ny skikkelse” published in The jumpers are made from van den Hul wire, just like all internal wiring.
(Denmark/Sweden) nr. 5/2006
