Elac CL310 Jet Loudspeakers
by Pete Christie

Issue 3 - November 1999

There is absolutely no way that a loud-speaker cabinet made from aluminium and measuring a minuscule 8" high and 4 1/2" wide is ever going to be taken seriously, even if it is 10 3/4" deep. Obviously, it will be too small for any real bass, and aluminium? Someone's having a laugh.

OK, the good old metal Teac LSX8's are still a fairly effective little monitor for near-field stuff, and at £90.00, they're a reasonable price. These Elac people want £800.00 for the CL310's, and they're only a tad bigger than the Teac's. Someone is definitely having a laugh.

Which is exactly what I thought when Dave from Elac brought them in to the shop for us to have a listen to (he always was a bit of a wag!). After the initial size thing had been overcome, the aluminium front covers were removed revealing very strange drive units, causing even more head-scratching and eyebrow-raising.

Pete; "What's that thing?"
Dave; "That's the tweeter."
Pete; "That's not a tweeter!"
Dave; "Yes it is." Pete; "Right!&qu 646y2415g ot;
Dave; "What's that thing?"
Pete; "That's the bass driver."
Dave; "That's not a bass driver!"
Pete; "Yes it is."
Dave; "It's silver"
Pete; "Yes."
Dave; "What, like Monitor Audio's?"
Pete; "No." Dave; "er... Right!"

So, let me recap. I'm standing there, holding a small (but chunky) silver, shiny, metal box containing a tweeter that doesn't look like a tweeter, and a bass driver that looks like the inside of one of Madonna's bra cups. And this is hi-fi? "Try them out" was the invitation.

We thought that it was rude to decline. We were fairly busy at the time, and a quick listen was all we could afford, so we bolted (yes, bolted) the speakers onto their matching stands, hooked them up to whatever was connected together at the time and shoved on a CD. It's funny how appearances can he deceptive, isn't it?

After a couple of bars of one of the many sampler CD's strategically placed around the shop, it became very apparent that the Elac have managed to confound the "big bass needs big speakers" theory. Quite how was a bit of a mystery but believe me, this is one of the most exciting developments in loudspeaker technology that I have come across, and I couldn't wait to get them home for a serious listen.

But first I'd better explain a little of what's behind these speakers. Elac are an established German company, and they seem reassuringly obsessive about the engineering quality of their products. When it comes to the CL310, virtually all the components used, cabinet aside, are manufactured "in-house", thus ensuring consistency. In fact, they give their products a full 10-year warranty, and are justifiably proud that over 94%, of the Jet 310 is recyclable.

As a cabinet material, aluminium has a lot going for it. As long as the dimensions are small, precision extrusions can produce identical units of great sophistication. For instance internal bracing is unnecessary as the wall thickness of the Jet cabinet is 6.5mm (1/4"). Internal resonance can be "designed out" and therefore, represents less of a problem. It is an ideal medium for mounting loudspeaker units accurately and firmly. In fact, the only down side is that it is a metal, and therefore does not have the aesthetic quality of a wood veneer finish. For a lot of people, it wouldn't qualify as "furniture". The pair I was supplied with were silver, but there is also the choice of black or white and a limited edition of red or blue lacquer. The optional stands are available in matching finishes.

Think of a tweeter, and a dome-like construction springs to mind. We've all seen them, we know what to expect. The Elac Jet tweeter is not like any other tweeter, either in design, or appearance. It is, according to the information pack I received, a seven-piece construction with the business end being a folded lamellar foil membrane. This device is driven by an extremely strong magnetic system composed of neodymium rods, creating high efficiency with an outstanding dynamic range. I can't argue with that, largely due to the fact that I don't have the remotest idea what it means! What I do know is that I had the impression that the tweeter started lower, and went higher than most tweeters I have heard. Also, the top end appeared seamless and very fast.

What about that bass driver. Ah yes! Madonna's bra cup. What we have here is a 115mm (4 1/2") diameter driver. Yes, 4 1/2". Now that has got to be too small for any deep stuff - right? I would like to pass on some more information from the manufacturer.

This is not a mere bass driver. It is a long-stroke woofer which is rumoured to produce the best possible large-signal behaviour, and most linear frequency response possible. Also, what's with the shiny stuff? This is a 0.2mm aluminium layer which has been bonded to a more traditional pulp fibre cone to create a sandwich membrane. This not only stiffens the overall construction, but actually acts as a damper, muting any spurious, unwanted distortion. So there!

The crossovers are fitted with protection devices, however these will be omitted from future production, which can only make a great product even better. They also incorporate something called "dynamic high frequency adaption", and claim that "at high levels, this gently reduces the high pitch range so that a pleasant, balanced acoustic pattern is produced at all volumes". Hmmmmm.

Thus armed with all the technical information, I gave them a serious workout. Using the supplied stands, I connected up a system comprising a Marantz CD17 Kl and its matching amplifier the PM17 KI, with Nordost Solar Wind speaker cable and inter-connects. As usual with any listening test we do at work, interruptions always get in the way and I aborted the test after a period of about 30 minutes. This, however, was long enough to get a feel for just what dynamic little speakers the Jets are. They are immediately expressive - there is a massive loudspeaker lurking in these diminutive boxes. It didn't take too long to see why they called the bass driver "long throw". On highly-charged bass tracks such as 'My Brother, My Enemy' from the Lucky Dube

album Trinity (Tabu Records 31453-0479-2), at high volume levels it moves in and out like a deranged piston. On a serious reggae album such as this, it was fairly obvious to me that the Jets are indeed capable of reaching unlikely depths in the bass department. That's not all though. They do the lot - from the sharpest cymbal to the grunt of the B string of a five-string bass guitar. Having my appetite suitably whetted, I tucked one under each arm and scuttled off home. Alone at last, I connected them to my Shearne Audio Phase 2 Integrated amplifier with van den Hul CS122 speaker cable, and connected up my trusty Trichord Genesis CD player, again using a Nordost Solar Wind interconnect.

It wasn't long before I realised that changes were needed. The stands were far too high - so they went. I substituted the tubular silver things for a pair of stone stands of the correct height, and used some Stands Unique isolators as the interface (seriously the supplied stands are over-tall at well over a metre high). Next to go were the grilles. The only thing they are good for is protecting the speakers from sticky little fingers. To hear these babies at their best, dispense with the covers!

I began by playing the Lucky Dube album again, to refresh my memory. Something wrong here! It was a good sound, but it didn't groove as it should. So I dispensed with the van den Hul, and tried a few cables until I finally settled on Chord Legend. Now we're cooking!

I wandered on through the album a bit further experimenting with toe-in, and found the best set-up was to point the speakers at my shoulders. Great focus, but now there was a horrible "booming" in the deeper bass parts. This confused me for a while until I discovered that it was due to that common enemy rear wall reflection. I moved my chair forward about a metre, and at last it all made sense. The soundstage was now open, detailed and uncannily transparent. I'd just spent two hours of moving, pointing, connecting, reconnecting, and generally redesigning my lounge with a reggae band who started off in the background, and gradually got closer until they joined me in the room. And we all had a splendid time!

I returned to the speakers the next evening, and picked out a selection of my usual "test" pieces. Starting with something classical, I gave the Jets a taste of the 'Dies Irae' from Verdi's Requiem (John Eliot Gardiner conducting the Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantique, with the Monteverdi Choir, Philips 442.142.2). Anyone who has heard this particular performance will be well aware of the sheer power and presence it generates. I always start with this piece, as it represents a mighty hurdle for any component. With the room lights off, the Jets disappeared from the equation both visibly and audibly. The music flowed through effortlessly with absolutely no perceived restrictions.

For piano, I played Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5, The Emperor, Claudio Arrau and the Staatskapelle Dresden conducted by Sir Colin Davis (Philips 416 215-2). I particularly enjoy the sympathetic rendition on the Adagio, and once again the Jets did not fail to impress. Claudio Arrau's lightness of touch was as noticeably subtle as the Verdi Requiem was powerful and dynamic. The gradual evolution into the third movement (Rondo Allegro), and the reintroduction of the bulk of the orchestra was fairly breathtaking.

Something more contemporary and instrumentally challenging - an album my brother Alan tracked down for me in Paris. Hadouk by Didier Malherbe and Loy Ehrlich (Tangram TC 30 27). The sleeve notes are fairly sketchy but this album is superbly performed using a staggering array of traditional instruments. The recording quality is A: 1, and I may well review it in it's own right at a later date. Suffice to say if you want real acoustic, it's here. A melange of ethnic styles which again flowed through the Jets with no apparent difficulty, track 4 'Loukoumotive' fairly dancing into the room.

From Rachmaninov to Suzanne Vega via the Beatles, with diversions into the extremely obscure, I could only find one recording that gave me a problem. Ritual by the Bulgarian State Television Female Vocal Choir (Elektra Nonesuch Explorer Series 7559 79349-2). Now this is a fairly obscure album, and I'm putting the rather nasty grating top end down to the actual recording rather than the Jets.

It was on the third evening of testing when I was visited by a customer (and friend) of mine. He came in, spotted the Jets and recognised them from a recent review in another well-known publication. He intimated that the verdict was less than ecstatic and asked me what I thought of them. I said nothing, but sat him down and played a selection of classical pieces. He was (as I had expected he would be), totally impressed. "But they're marvellous!" he enthused. He went home, and about an hour later, he 'phoned me, saying that he had just re-read the review, and in his opinion, he couldn't believe the review was describing the same speakers as he had just heard at my house.

Which brings me to the point. The Elac CL 310 Jet loudspeakers are certainly a hugely massive small speaker. They are not forward, neither are they "laid back". In my system, they perform so well, I am prepared to go to fisticuffs before I have to hand them back. They have impressed me with their ability to fill my room with a sparkling reality and without a hint of the tiring top-end apparent in a lot of smaller boxes. I like them, my wife likes them, my wife's friend Ruth likes them, even my mother who is going deaf said-"they've got a nice tone dear!" BUT! - It is absolutely vital to set them up properly or you'll probably miss the point, and that really would be a shame!

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS
Dimensions (H x W x D): 208x 123 x282
Gross Volume: 7.2 litres
Weight: 5.5 kg
Crossover Frequency: 3.3 kHz
Nominal Power Handling: 60 Watts
Peak Power Handling: 80 Watts
Frequency Response: 42 Hz - 30 kHz
Sensitivity: 86 dB
Nominal Impedance: 4 Ohms

Price: £800.00 (Optional stands extra)

Distributor
Sennheiser UK Ltd.
3 Century Point,
Halifax Rd,
High Wycombe,
Bucks.
HP12 3SL.
Tel. (44)((0) 494-551551
Fax. (44)(0) 494-551550

Manufacturer
Elac Phonosysteme Gmbh
Tel. (49)(0) 431-6477415
Fax. (49)(0) 431-682101
Web. www.elac.com
E-mail. [email protected]