ELAC - Adante... what’s the verdict?

I spent more than 2 hours listening to a pair AF61s at one of the Elac distributors in the SF Bay Area. They sounded very nicely. I personally would have liked a bit more bass extension and found that the high frequency response was a bit too brassy. When I pointed this out, the person who was demonstrating the speakers said that the brassiness may be due to the fact that the speakers were not completely burned in. He then proceeded to change the configuration of the electronics. According to him,  when I was listening to the speakers, the DAC was connected directly to the power amplifier. He then connected the DAC to a preamp and the preamp to the amplifier. The sound seems to have improved, both at the lower and high frequency ends, but unfortunately I had to leave and did not have enough time the evaluate the speaker with the revised electronics configuration. Unfortunately, I don’t remember the name of the equipment that powered the speakers, but it was supposed to be of very high quality. Even under my limited audition, I liked the Elac AF61 a lot a may consider buying them. I would like to first listen to a pair of Magico A3s and, if possible, to a pair of Tekton Electrons.

^ Seems like an honest assessment. I too have noticed that "brassy" tendency with aluminum drivers.

Dear James_w514,

Thank you for your explanation regarding the effect of aluminum drivers in enhancing the brassiness  of speakers. Now that you mentioned it, I recall having the same impression when I was auditioning a pair of paradigm prestige 85Fs, which also have aluminum drivers. I have always been somewhat sensitive to the sound of loud trumpets and other brass instrumentes.

I had an unfortunate experience with an 'unbroken in' pair of Adante at my local shop.  I wanted to try something with concentric driver and compared the Adante with KEF LS50 and R300.  Factoring out the unbroken in factor, I'd say you really have to listen to and confirm that you like the metallic concentric tweeter sound.  The Adante and L50 both were too bright and harsh for me though not the R300.  The R300 similarly with a 3way woofer I did not like the crossover between the bass woofer vs concentric midrange woofer, it was like the bass driver was constantly competing against the midrange driver.   I'd imagine similar concern with Adante.