![]() The Debut B6s produce an organic sound, while maintaining a sense of air and atmosphere that you usually associate with speakers that are a bit more pronounced in the treble region. They’re both cheap, cheerful and wonderfully, supernaturally good.īut I digress. When it comes to stereo hi-fi, I’m a bargain hunter and both the Onkyo A-9010 and the Debut B6s fit my needs perfectly. Sure, the B6 bass is more authoritative and the transients are more decisive with the Hegel H80, but the Onkyo is competitive enough that I don’t miss the Hegel’s performance – not too much, at least. In fact, my entry level Onkyo isn’t too far removed from the £1,350, 75-watt Hegel H80 integrated amplifier that I initially auditioned the B6 with, either. My Onkyo A-9010 stereo amplifier, rated at 44 watts per channel at eight ohms and 70 watts at four ohms, is probably doing around 55-60 watts into the six ohms that the B6s require – firmly within the recommended operating range. In any case, it wouldn’t be much of a review if I didn’t tell you any of the details and for one, these speakers are not hard to drive. And it has been three months of solid enjoyment since, so this review has been a long time coming. IN CONCERT: If you’d like the short of it, I was so impressed by a three-hour audition of the Debut B6 at my local dealer that I bought a pair of them then and there. Do be careful with that finish though, for a metallic vinyl surface, it scratches surprisingly easily. To be fair, they aren’t half bad with the speaker grills off, which is something most audiophiles will be doing after all. But forget about appearances – give me stellar sound quality and I won’t mind a black box with no distinguishing features. With a six-ohm impedance, ELAC specifies for them to be driven by amplifiers producing between 30-120 watts per channel.Īnd given a reasonable sensitivity of 87dB, entry-level amplifiers which mostly reside in the lower end of this band are going to be able to drive the B6s sufficiently without too much of a concern for amplifier matching.Īs for the looks department, at this price point, we won’t expect much more than the black metal vinyl and decidedly basic design with grills attached. And with a new odyssey comes a new challenge – instead of US$200, what can be achieved for the under US$300 loudspeaker market?įor this review, we delve into that question and take a closer look at the ELAC Debut B6 bookshelf speakers that currently retail for U$280 in the US.īITS AND PARTS: The B6s are a two-way, bass reflex loudspeaker that uses cloth dome tweeters and 6.5-inch Kevlar woven aramid-fibre woofers. Since embarking on a new odyssey with ELAC Americas in 2015, Jones has continued his attack on the entry-level loudspeaker market with the ELAC Debut line, consisting of bookshelf, floorstander and centre speakers targeting both hi-fi stereo and home theatre segments, all of which went into general availability late last year. Their introduction helped to legitimately open up hi-fi to a new generation of audiophiles, fuelling the focus on entry-level sound quality from hi-fi manufacturers in general. Jones made a huge splash with his US$130 Pioneer SP-BS22-LR bookshelf and SP-FS52 floorstanding speakers back in 2012 – they were critically acclaimed and became the budget kings that still reign at their price point till this day. The answer to that question was an emphatic yes. Can speakers for the under-US$200 entry-level market be designed and made that could honestly be called hi-fi? If you’re planning on spending £300 on some new speakers, it’d be an oversight to not at least try the Debut B6s with your current kit.AFTER decades of designing high-end speakers at KEF, Infinity and Pioneer, culminating in the TAD Reference line starting at US$80,000, Andrew Jones decided to address a challenge at the opposite end of the spectrum. ![]() There’s a definite leap between these and our Award winners in this price bracket, and a handy saving on the latter to boot, but there are plenty of reasons to give these Elacs a home. MORE: Best speaker deals - hi-fi, Bluetooth, wireless Verdict It isn’t devil-worthy detail, but it isn’t overly analytical either – it’s a cohesive listen that explores these arrangements more than adequately. ![]() ![]() The levels of detail are reaffirmed as the Debut B6s highlight the different synthesizer waveforms and juxtapose instruments and vocals well. These are well-layered grooves as well, incorporating plenty of conversing rhythms, which Elac organises and outputs with seemingly no trouble at all. You can certainly feel those pounding kicks in your gut when you dial up the volume. They might not be as dynamically versatile as the Bronze 2s, but it’s still an energetic and entertaining performance that shows off the power and punch of that impressive low end.
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