CES 2017

Elac's New Adante

Robert Deutsch  |  Jan 7, 2017

There's a rumor that Andrew Jones, first with TAD and now with Elac, is incapable of designing a mediocre-sounding speaker. This rumor was confirmed with Jones's latest speaker, the Elac AS 61GB Adante, demonstrated at CES 2017. At $2500 per pair, this speaker is less expensive than the ones that Jones—seen in the photo above—designed for TAD, but more expensive than the bargain-priced offerings that were the first speakers he designed for Elac. Jones asserts that the Adante is still a work in progress; he's still tweaking aspects of the design. Listening to a pair of Adantes, in a system with Audio Alchemy electronics, I was impressed with their clear, lively quality. To me, the speaker sounded ready for prime time!

COMMENTS
Anton's picture
Submitted by Anton on January 7, 2017 - 9:36pm

While most high-end speaker companies trickle down technology to realistic pricing, ELAC has taken a trickle up approach which is genius! I wish them much success.

hnipen's picture
Submitted by hnipen on January 8, 2017 - 3:02pm

Seems like Andrew Jones is working really hard for the money; Andrew, your smile is getting wider each year as you go more upscale ;-)))

I reckon there is a lot of trickle-down from the knowledge Mr. Jones ackquired working with TAD :-)
Or rather than trickle down, using his vast experience from designing $80K speakers :-)
Just wonder how these speakers fare against the TAD Compact Evolution One? ...... Anyone?

Why is the woofer loading band-pass with a passive woofer, and not compound? Which would seem more logical to a non-specialist kind of guy lke me?

John Atkinson, when are they on schedule for testing in Stereophile?

I really believe my next pair of speakers will be Elac, just wonder if it could be Adganlte AS61 or the next upscale model of bookshelves :p

-Rudy-'s picture
Submitted by -Rudy- on January 10, 2017 - 6:51am

I heard the Uni-Fi UB5s at AXPONA and came away impressed, both with the sound out of that modestly priced speaker as well as Jones' entertaining qualities in the room. In addition to being the designer, he is also proving to be the best brand ambassador ELAC could have. I hope they bring this new design to AXPONA this year.

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