When it comes to entry level hi fi loudspeakers in the 200
to 300 USD price range, is the ELAC 2.o OW4.2 represent the 21st
Century’s hi fi budget wonder?
By: Ringo Bones
Before ELAC’s designer Andrew Jones joined the German based hi
fi manufacturing firm ELAC, he began work at KEF from 1983 until 1994. Then he
later went on to Infinity and later with Sony and it was with the Japanese firm
that he gained familiarity with designing hi fi loudspeakers using “exotic”
materials like beryllium for tweeter diaphragms. But does his engineering
experience translate to finally making an entry level budget loudspeaker in the
200 to 300 USD price range that would be universally loved by audiophiles the
world over?
When I first heard of the ELAC Debut 2.0 OW4.2 last year,
memories of budget loudspeakers of its price class made during the past 25
years came flooding in and begged for comparison. Fortunately, one of my
audiobuddies kept his old Mission 731 LE loudspeakers bought back in 1995 –
though he has moved on to much better speakers – i.e. his mega-buck albeit
entry level Magneplanars. If 25 years of inflation is taken into account, the
mission 731 LE would be much more expensive today than the ELAC Debut 2.0 OW4.2
and yet the 21st Century ELAC’s raison d’être is to provide novice
audiophiles a taste of the high end with a much lesser impact on the wallet.
The entry level ELAC’s Kevlar cones (Kevlar is the same
aramid fiber used to make bullet proof vests) allows it to be played loud
without breaking up and yet maintain reasonable efficiency, but unfortunately,
there’s a somewhat broad suck-out in the midrange which if your idea of hi fi
loudspeaker fidelity is how close it replicates hearing baritone Leo Nucci
belting out the best parts of Verdi’s Rigoletto at La Scalla while sitting only
50 feet away without any electronic amplification, then you may find the entry level
ELAC a little lacking in this department. If your loudspeakers you currently
have can do that much better than the budget ELAC, then maybe you should spend
your upgrade money in buying records and CDs instead. Nonetheless, the ELAC
Debut 2.0 OW4.2 is very adept when it comes to mainstream pop and electronic
dance music reproduction, albeit only up to a certain volume level and it serves
as a gateway for millennials wanting a taste of high end at beer budget prices
like the Mission 731 LE did for gen X’ers during the 1990s.
