ELAC Vela BS 404 Review
ELAC has a very logical division of acoustics into lines. The older the model, the more “elegance” it has: branded unique technologies that reveal themselves brighter and brighter as the class of the model grows. And the junior bookshelfs in the Vela series, which comes right after the top series, perfectly reflect this ideology.
Externally, the acoustics make a very pleasant impression. The design is interesting, not boring, but not flashy either. The materials feel - and look - high quality, the workmanship and fit are at a decent level.
The body has a shape rounded on the sides, the main part in our case is decorated with walnut veneer and coated with multi-layer varnish. In appearance, the thickness of the varnish is slightly greater than the average, and the quality of the coating is good. There are three available finishing options: in addition to walnut, as in our case, there can be black or white varnish. Acoustics in such versions cost 10,000 rubles less than the veneered version.
The body is composite: the upper and lower parts are aluminum and screwed to the central part, which is made of MDF. Also, the bass reflex port is located in the lower part of the case at the back: it is not directed directly back, but first looks into the aluminum base panel. From here you can understand why the minimum distance recommended by the manufacturer from the rear wall is only 30 centimeters.
For installation, both original ELAC LS80 racks and any other suitable in size and room can be used. If there can be a significant difference, it is only in the fact that the original stands provide for screw fastening of the acoustics to them.
Familiar details
The acoustic design is two-way. The traditional ELAC ribbon tweeter AMT JET 5, loaded on a small shallow waveguide, is responsible for the high frequencies.
The mid and low frequencies are handled by a speaker with a well-recognized proprietary faceted AS-XR diffuser with a diameter of 180 mm. The acoustics claim a frequency range of 38 Hz, which is good for a shelf model (however, the deviation at the edges from zero is not indicated anywhere) and a quite tolerable sensitivity of 87 dB.
To connect to the amplifier, either one or two pairs of speaker terminals can be used. In the case of bi-wiring or bi-amping, you will need to remove the removable jumper buses. According to my observations, ELAC acoustics still love fairly powerful current amplification, so perhaps this option will be useful to someone even in the case of small bookshelf speakers. The terminals themselves are quite universal; you can use standard blades, bananas or feathers for switching.
The only thing that seemed unusual to me in the design was that the acoustics did not have grills. Some ELAC models have them separately, as an additional option, but here, it seems, they are not provided in principle. Unusual. But not critical for most life situations.
As a test system, paired with the ELAC Vela BS 404, we used the following equipment: a full tube amplifier Octave V70SE, and as a source it turned out to be unusual - a Hegel H590 worked here, but only its built-in streamer connected to Octave.
Natural Honesty
The first one I played was Charlie Watts - Anthology. The sound is thick, moderately soft, but with high detail throughout the entire range. The bass is not at all aggressive, but detailed and varied in texture. There is no feeling of significant depth, but if you compare the size of the acoustics and the much larger room needed for it, the result is definitely no worse than I could have expected.
If the room had an area of 18-20 meters, then the whole picture would be much more convincing. Yes, these are classic two-way bookshelf speakers, but even in such conditions the overall scale turns out to be significant; I did not observe any desire for intimacy during the test at all.
The presentation of the middle reveals the nature of the recording of this album, which is already familiar to me. There is a slight uplift and some warmth, but at the same time a very decent and honest elaboration of details, natural timbres and good separation of sounds and planes in space - the album is written very well.
Despite the ribbon tweeters, I would not say that the high frequencies clearly stick out here. There are a lot of them, I certainly don’t feel any shortage, they are clean and reliable, but I didn’t notice any overkill or harshness. And this despite the fact that Octave, although a tube one, is definitely not noticed in tube softness or smoothing: I know well how these amplifiers play, blurring and softening are definitely not their thing.
The dynamics are at a good, confident level: I don’t hear any slowness or lethargy when I need to eat and attack. And a certain feeling of unity and extension of the sound is created due to the fact that the system decently plays out the after-sounds, without eating them up or extinguishing them, and without excessively savoring them. There is no damage to the basic tones; everything is in a completely pragmatic, healthy balance.
The stage is quite wide, but in order to get the appropriate depth, I needed to move the acoustics from the back wall another 15 centimeters from the original position and make the slightest turn of the bodies toward the listener. Although I won’t say that this model has a particularly rigid directional pattern - the listening point turns out to be comfortable, and there is no need to sit motionless in a hard, precisely positioned chair.
The second album in the test is Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders & The London Symphony Orchestra “Promises”. From the first notes there is a very decent, felt immersion in the atmosphere, well-readable air, volume and aftersound. Not to the point of holographic precision, but this may even be good - instead of sharp edges, there are more textures in the sound, there is a certain tactility, rather than precise detachment.
Here the recording is made differently than the previous one, and as such the warmth is no longer felt. There is no coldness, with high detail there is no sharpness, this is a fact, but the sound cannot be called warm either. Air is a separate pleasure here - there is a lot of it, but it is structured and beautifully interconnected with the images and plans of the stage, and it is the feeling of air that has a certain pleasant, difficult to formalize, but still tactility - you want to touch these textures in space, to reach out your hand.
But in this character there is no obsession, no fatigue with the redundancy of anything; on the contrary, sound evokes natural healthy interest and normal involvement, when you want to feel the music and think about music. And this is with much greater detail than the average, which allows you to analyze the sound, but does not push you to do so at all. I would say that this is an example where, with high resolution sound, you don’t want to call it analytical at all.
The third recording is Richard Wright “Wet Dream”. I haven't quite figured out how I feel about Stephen Wilson's recently released remaster of this album, so I'm putting it here to try and catch the difference from the original sound. And the difference here can be heard quite clearly - this is a clear plus for the resolution of the system.
The sound has a little less atmosphere of a certain echoing silence than in the original, the instrumental parts are a little more textured and clearly written, less of a certain veil that seems to mask everything. This is not super-sharpness or super-detail - there were quite enough of them in the original. Here all the parts are written a little more sharply, this is noticeable throughout the entire range - on the bass, on the drums, and on the high-frequency instruments.
True, at the same time there is a little less of the “colorful” light melancholy that permeates the original edition. Here everything is a little more unambiguous and straightforward. At least, it seemed so to me, and our experimental tract rather confirmed earlier observations. And, in addition, it showed the previously noted quite high detail and intelligibility combined with completely natural and reliable timbral characteristics.
Self-confident
Next I played the Suede record “Dog Man Star”. Certainly good rhythm, albeit not with very deep bass, but quite confident. The detail and dynamics are quite good, and in the case of this album the sound seems harsh - that’s exactly how it was recorded, harsh and somewhat dirty, even with a bit of muddiness.
However, there is very good intelligibility everywhere here, especially in the vocal range; the vocals even seem a little bit cut out from the general background and pasted on top. It looks like you can feel the walking bass and drum line - it’s just that everywhere there is high detail at the level of a specially compressed, dense and initially noisy sound as intended by the musicians.
High detail and dynamics never hurt if they feel natural. Regardless of genres and recordings. And in this case, the sound is just natural and captivating, allowing you to concentrate on the music without the feeling that something is unsaid or hidden. Perhaps someone will like the example of this album to have a darker and dirtier sound, but what I heard does not at all contradict the musical idea. But perhaps, to some extent, these acoustics gravitate towards more classical genres of music.
Johnny Jewel “Windswept” - and here you can clearly see the very high level of detail, attention to textures and after-sounds. Also, based on the example of this recording, it looks more like the sound tends a little towards light - albeit just a little, but you can guess it. Quite recently I listened to this particular album on very good studio monitors of a similar format, which have already been tested many times on their own, they are not light or dark in presentation - and on them the recording sounded a little darker. However, this difference is not at the level of a flaw or obvious coloring, just a slightly different tonality.
Emotionally, the music is perceived quite fully, and, as I have already noticed before, with high detail, the main emphasis here is on the music, on emotions, and not on the analysis of components. The stage, its depth, width and atmospheric fullness, together with non-merging images and plans, also greatly contribute to the perception of the music itself.
I also tried listening to the recording at different volumes, and at least in conjunction with this amplifier, the acoustics can play quietly. At a very low volume, the frequency range, fullness, stage, and emotional involvement are preserved. If you mentally transfer all this to a room of suitable size, and not to a redundant one, as in our case, the result should be even better.
Then he staged Bach's Cello Suites performed by Mstislav Rostropovich. The volume of the cello sound turned out to be a little more intimate than I expected, but I can’t say that it turned out to be completely “small” - no, it just feels like you are a little further from the performer than you might have expected. The sound itself is accurate, reliable, with good fullness. Maybe a little less in the lower middle than necessary, but this is quantified at the guessing level - either less or not. Rather, this feeling arises from the scale as a whole. Yes, and adjusted for the size of the room.
Air, details, after-sounds - everything is in its place here, and here you no longer feel any coloring, neither warmth nor coldness. Involvement in the music is present as on other recordings, and the involvement is neat, not the kind that first causes a wow effect and then quickly tires - no, everything here is natural and delicate, although, perhaps, rather strict, with a share of academic pedantry. But here this approach to the place does not in any way spoil the impression of the music.
And the last recording is a performance of Verdi's Requiem. There is a noticeably good sense of the hall, the choir is very well developed, there is high detail in quiet fragments, but there is also unity, musicality, and that same natural emotional involvement that was felt on previous recordings.
In complex fragments there is attack, drama, the sound does not clearly lose its harmony - it is interesting to listen and there is no feeling of being deprived of details or emotions. Perhaps there is just a little lack of transparency. Sometimes detail and dynamics seem limited, a certain ceiling is felt, but these are already extreme conditions for any path.
It is the sound of classical music that causes me the least questions in this tract: perhaps if I were assembling a system specifically for classical music, I would still use transistor amplification, even though the Octave amplifiers are quite universal and do not have a pronounced tube color.
Verdict:
Very universal bookshelf, understandable in character, predictable. The character of the sound is still somewhat straightforward - not simple, but straightforward. I won’t hide that I sometimes lacked a certain amount of air, details, and after-sounds, as well as the volume and accuracy of the scene. But otherwise, predictability and versatility are clear advantages of this acoustics. As well as the ability to pull out truly complex musical material.
These speakers are not suitable for those who love a soft and soothing sound - this is what they cannot do and, I think, in any combination with any amplifier they will not change their character so much. But they do what they can, and they do it well, conscientiously.
Music We Use
Charlie Watts - Anthology / BMG
Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders & The London Symphony Orchestra – Promises / Luaka Bop
JS Bach - Mstislav Rostropovich – Cello-Suiten / EMI Classics
Johnny Jewel – Windswept / Italians Do It Better
Richard Wright – Wet Dream/Harvest
Suede – Dog Man Star / Nude Records/Columbia
Verdi – Missa Da Requiem - St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra, Yuri Temirkanov / Delos
Pros and Cons on ELAC Vela BS 404 Review
Pros:
Sound Quality: The ELAC Vela BS 404 speakers are known for their exceptional sound quality, offering clear, detailed, and balanced audio reproduction across various frequencies.
Build Quality: These speakers are well-built with high-quality materials, which contribute to their durability and longevity.
Design: The design of the Vela BS 404 is sleek and modern, making them visually appealing and suitable for various room aesthetics.
Versatility: These speakers can be used in a variety of setups, whether as part of a stereo system or as surround sound speakers in a home theater setup.
Imaging: The speakers provide excellent imaging, creating a sense of space and depth in the soundstage, enhancing the overall listening experience.
Compatibility: They are compatible with a wide range of audio equipment, making them easy to integrate into existing setups.
Cons:
Price: The ELAC Vela BS 404 speakers are relatively expensive compared to some other options on the market, which may be a limiting factor for budget-conscious buyers.
Size: While the size of the speakers contributes to their impressive sound quality, it may also be a drawback for those with limited space, as they require adequate room to perform optimally.
Power Requirements: These speakers benefit from being paired with a high-quality amplifier or receiver with sufficient power output, which could add to the overall cost of the setup.
Bass Response: Some users may find that the bass response of the Vela BS 404 speakers is not as pronounced as they would like, especially if they prefer a more bass-heavy sound.
Sensitivity: These speakers have a relatively low sensitivity rating, meaning they may require more power to achieve higher volume levels compared to speakers with higher sensitivity ratings.
Placement: Achieving optimal placement for these speakers to maximize their performance may require some experimentation and adjustment, which could be challenging for users with limited experience in speaker setup.
OFFICIAL SITE
Specs Elac Vela BS 404:
Type: bookshelf passive acoustics
Number of stripes: 2
Number of speakers: 2
Tweeter: ribbon, AMT JET 5
Mid/bass driver: 180 mm, AS-XR diffuser
Acoustic design: bass reflex
Frequency range: 38 Hz - 50000 Hz
Sensitivity: 87 dB
Impedance: 4 ohms (minimum 3.2 ohms at 240 Hz)
Crossover frequency: 2400 Hz
Recommended amplifier power: 40 - 200 W
Peak power input: up to 120 W
Input Connectors: Two pairs of screw terminals
Dimensions (WxHxD): 276 x 412 x 332 mm
Weight: 9.7 kg
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