ELAC - Adante... what’s the verdict?

I just ordered the A61 center channel for my separate HT system (that is in the same room as my TAD CR1'S.)

I was trying to convince a friend to raise his budget and spring for the adante bookshelves and in his research he found a customer returned center at a fantastic price and I couldn't resist.  

My concern now is that my ancient HT 3 channel amp (acurus 100x3) may not sound well with the revealing adante.  
I'm trying to decide if I should get an emotiva XPA-5 gen 3 or an unconventional route and buy a 2 or 3 ps audio m300 stereo amps, which I've read are quite good sounding, are lightweight and run cool.  (Processor is the emotiva xmc -1)
I will eventually try the adante center with the TAD CR1'S temporarily to see how well they match.   

I've had my Adante AF 61s for about 4 months now. I'm using a PrimaLuna Dialogue Premium tube preamp and a McIntosh MC152 solid state power amp. This combination works well for me. When I first got the speakers I was using a PrimaLuna Prologue preamp with the Mac. The speakers quickly revealed that there was an impedance mismatch between preamp and amp. It is hard to explain but the setup just sounded off from what I expected. A bit of online research pointed to the impedance issue. The PrimaLuna Dialogue includes a cathode follower circuit dropping the output impedance into a good range for the Mac. Fortunately the folks at Upscale Audio were willing to allow me to trade up to the Dialogue at a very reasonable price. Kudos to them. Now the system sounds great. I close my eyes and the speakers disappear and a wonderful soundstage appears. This certainly confirms that system matching is very important with these speakers.

wilwhd

fantastic !

that cathode follower will most likely also drive a decently long cable so you can try amp out closer to speakers - the shorter speaker cable may control bass better.
i use that approach with Mac tube gear in my vintage setup.
inexpensive to try with Blue Jeans cable...

where are the active Argo speakers? anybody seen them for sale?

Looking to assemble a 2-channel set-up. I had been looking at the Emerald Physics KCII speakers (at a similar $2500/pair), and then came across reviews of this speaker. I know the Emerald Physics are kind of niche, so, doubt anyone reading this has listened to them. They are totally different kind of speakers, but curious which style would be better for rock, pop, electronic and chill out music. Not a lot of jazz or classical. My guess is the Elac's.

Has anyone tried the Elacs with a lower priced amp like the Monoprice Monolith amp:
https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=15595
or the Vincent Audio SP 331 amp:
https://www.audioadvisor.com/prodinfo.asp?number=VISP331&utm_source=Email+Newsletters&utm_ca...
or Emotiva:
https://emotiva.com/collections/stereo/products/xpa-2-gen3

Elac huh? Kind of like Wharfdales, neither a very good speaker in my book. Heck, I even think the B&W latest CM series a lil out of place. Low budget speakers all over the place today, I’d suggest find someone with a decent set of higher caliber for sale.

I would highly recommend the emerald physics over the Adantes.  If a “famous designer” wasn’t behind the Adantes, no one would look twice at them.  

Canibefrank
where are the active Argo speakers? anybody seen them for sale?

At Rocky Mountain Audio Fest 2018, Andrew Jones and another guy said they were on a ship on the way here. I have reached out to every ELAC dealer I can find and have gotten two responses:

-Tim from audioadvisor.com advised me they would have them by late November.

-Neal Berg from soundsciencecat.com said they should arrive by mid November, and that he's placed an order... After speaking with ELAC, apparently he is the first and only dealer so far to have an order in.

Considering it won a Best of CES 2018 award, I'm surprised more dealers aren't publishing the specs from their dealer portal and doing pre-orders.

I heard the Adante at CanJam and was somewhat impressed by them... Mostly the lesser amount of beaminess which is my complaint about a three way bookshelf I build recently.. Unfortunately nothing was played with sub bass during the time I was listening (EX: "Why So Serious" has sub bass around 3:20.)

The Argo however was my favorite at the show... Closest sounding thing to a powerful floorstander, and even a 1.5' below my head level, the trumpets in "Main Theme - Jurassic Park" on the John Williams Greatest Hits album came through. I leaned forward and lowered my head to test the more direct response and it was very similar: The trumpets weren't too peaky during the later part of the song, and they had plenty of bass at the beginning of that song, whereas a simply "good" set of bookshelves, or the ones I made (Hivi 3.1/Swan M3,) have just enough bass to savor and not have it get missed easily, but not what I'd call plenty.

For reference I have an like the sound of the Audio Technica AD900, a bright headphone and would say that it has audible bass, but not quite enough as sometimes I have to listen for it.

My JH Audio Lola, (3 way IEM with 8 drivers time aligned) typically makes me critical of speakers as they don't often sound as good (ignoring soundstage obviously.) From memory, the B&W 800 Diamond, Elac Argo, and Focal Kanta No3 are things that seemed promising enough for me to not miss my Lola when listening to speakers, though the B&W was playing some odd music and might have some coloration or it could have been the room. I wasn't familiar enough with the song which featured no real instruments and had an autotuned vocalist. (Human Nature by Sevdaliza)

Where I'm coming from: I'm in the $10k speakers and $1k amp camp, value accuracy, and by that I mean the Etymotic sound signature with a touch of bass like the ER4-XR, or a Focal Twin6 in a treated studio where I used to work, and use original releases of un-remastered CD's and solid state amps whenever I can to avoid added harmonics, noise floor, and dynamic range compression.

Steven many dealers wait until there is a release update from the manufacturer or from their dealer rep.

At this point no one from Elac or their reps have forwarded anything about   the new Argo line to us and I am sure that means other dealers, they are still probably putting the finishing touches on the production process and the product. 

We will also be ordering a set of these speakers as well. 

The Argo seems to be one of the best of the new active speakers we are also ordering the new Dali Caliston  Active speakers as well. 

So that will give us three highly rated actives the Kef ls 50, the Elac Argo and the Dali Calisto for our clients to choose from. 

Exciting times for those music lovers looking for a more simple solution to getting great music in their homes and who want something better than the world of Sonos and other simillar types of products.

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ

Hi,

(I posted this in another audiogon discussion and then I saw that hificrazed has adantes pair with parasound, so I thought I'd post here as well) 

I own the ELAC Adante AS-61 and I'm currently looking for an amp and preamp to match with them. Hifi is a relatively new hobby for me so I'm not able to describe how the speakers sounds yet. I believe this takes some experience.

I was contemplating getting the new Parasound (hint 6 or p6/a21+/a23+) when I saw a used accuphase e560 (pure class A amp rated at 30W) for $4000. The accuphase is apparently much better quality but i contacted elac to check on the power and Andrew Jones responded saying "The accuphase is way underpowered. Go with the Parasound".

Anyone here has experience with the adantes paired with parasound gear? Do share your thoughts. And how do they compare to say Naim, Accuphase, Mcintosh, Yamaha (A-S2100/A-s3000) or Audio Alchemy amps.

Thanks 😁

The Adantes with Parasound amp sounds quite nice. The Adantes do open up nicely about 4 months with regular use IMO. PARASOUND is somewhat on the warm side and Adante need this kind of amplification to sound their best. 

Op we sell both brands and recently setup a Parasound P5 with an A23 power ampliifer for a YC based record company, the two brands really do work very well together and the new Hint 6 is a terrific piece in terms of getting an excellent dac with a preamp and phono stage. 

At the price the new Parasound Hint 6 with the AS 61 makes an excellent package. 

If you have any specific questions please feel free to PM us

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ

I have a pair of Adante AF-61 and run them with a PS Audio BHK 250, directly connected to a PS Audio PW DAC mk2. The Adante AF61 throws a huge sound stage in my setup, but they do sound a bit bright in the mid frequency spectrum. I hope this will improve as they break in.

Arned, they will not.  I absolutely promise you that they will sound the same after 2,000 hours as they do now, unless you move them.

Did you buy them without hearing them?  The midrange is extremely shouty in a lot of cases.  It doesn’t go away.  I know that ELAC changed the design a bit compared to the first run of speakers, but apparently they didn’t fit that issue.

Arned it could be a number of issues.

It could be your cables room or source

Please give us a call.

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ

They are a great deal for your bucks buy them asap.

Arned, I too have heard them many times and that's just the house sound.  Many are into that and it's cool.  Well built for the price.

I just pulled the trigger and ordered the Naim NAC-N 172xs + NAP 155xs to pair with my Elac Adante AS-61. 

Anyone has experience with these naims, and how they sound with the adantes?

Also how do they compare to the parasound hint 6, naim uniti atom and uniti nova? 

Despite all the fancy footwork and attempts to dance around the issue, it's clear from the Stereophile review and even clearer from the measurements that the floor-stander is bass-shy.  The AS sounds like a better proposition.

+1 on the no bottom end (no matter what amplification you use). I dunno, there are numerous low frequency drivers on the top model which in the hands of a different designer would be expected to produce some relatively serious bass. Or the same designer with the TAD speakers for example which are not bass shy...even the evolution series.