Altitudo Audio: Elac, Electrocompaniet, Audio Note, HRS - Toronto Audiofest 2024

All prices are in CA$.

Some products at audio shows create a buzz. They get people excited and raving about them in the venue’s corridors. One such product at this year’s show was the Elac Concentro S 503 standmount speaker ($12,000/pair).

On its website, Elac calls the S 503 a bookshelf speaker, but I feel “bookshelf” doesn’t do the speaker justice—in looks alone; when I saw the S 503 as I walked into Winnipeg-based retailer Altitudo’s exhibit room, I thought, "what a smart-looking speaker". It looked distinguished with its trapezoid-shaped, beveled cabinet in its high-gloss walnut veneer finish.

The Elacs were being demoed with an Electocompaniet ECI 6 DX MKII integrated amplifier/DAC/streamer ($13,000)—a mighty fine piece of gear—feeding them music from FLAC files off an external hard drive. Other than the cabling by Audio Note and equipment racks by HRS, that was it for the equipment and accessories—unless you count the three directivity rings that come with the Elacs.

Referred by Elac as Directivity Control Ring Technology, the rings come in three colors—green, blue, and red—and are meant to be placed separately around the concentric AS-XR midrange/JET 5c ribbon tweeter to see which you prefer according to your room’s acoustics, or personal taste. Of the two I tried, green (more direct) and blue (more diffuse), I preferred the green one, which made sense because it’s designed for nearfield listening, which is what I was doing.

And boy, was the sound good, delivering one of the most natural and well-balanced presentations I heard at the show. It was intoxicating—the verisimilitude of the timbres, the sense of musical ease, the quality of the bass. The bass didn't go subterranean deep, of course, but it was of quality and in seamless harmony with the rest of the audio band.

Something else that surprised me: the soundstage depth. There are "flapping" sounds that appear on the song "Birds" from Dominique Fils-Aimé's album Nameless. I had never heard them reproduced this far out into the soundstage before. Now that's resolution!

Also in the picture, at bottom, is a Unison Research Simply 845 tube integrated amplifier, but I didn't get a chance to hear it.

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