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But a nearly €10.000/pr speaker must transcend raw fun and offer precision and fine resolution as well. And here Elac's mouthful of FS 507 VX-JET doesn't merely cross off the list, it moves these qualities to the very top. Two examples elucidated how. Idris Muhammad's "Piece of Mind" from the Power of Soul album is a chilled Jazz-Soul cut whose 9.5min. length takes its good time with variations on a theme and various solos. Particularly the Fender Rhodes piano solo six minutes into it demonstrates how fabulously fine the FS 507 resolves. Rarely have I enjoyed this archetypical piano sound this realistically.


Remember that a Rhodes piano combines various sonics traits in a single instrument. Sudden unmitigated attacks can, depending on finger pressure, move from the bell-like metallic to the gnarly and snottily wiry. With its keys merely tickled the Rhodes can also sound unbelievably soft and mellow. Depending on how the mastering engineer processes the recording, there's more or less distortion as well. Last but not least lazily held notes can on occasion betray some soft hiss on fades. In toto this instrument spans a grand dynamic and frequency range. And this Elac truly mastered this recording. It was massive fun to follow this solo. If you want another killer Rhodes solo, tap Frank Zappa's "Don't you ever wash that thing" from his live Roxy & Elsewhere album and cue up at 4'10". Damn, I had fun again. But was that so bad?
I'll cite one final example for magnification power – Radiohead's "2+2=5" from Hail to the thief. During the "Are you such a dreamer..." intro Thom York sings doubled up but at different amplitude. In pitch the quieter voice sings above the louder one. This irritates a bit since the 'second' voice usually occurs below. With the Elac I took full note of this effect for the first time though I've since been aware of it also with other speakers of course. With the FS 507 I could follow the second higher voice across its entire melodic arc, i.e. not merely on individual tones but with the full connective gestalt. That this peeled out so clearly without upsetting the flow of the big picture I had to pin on the sensational resolution of the Elac.


Tonality, resolving power. Anything still MIA? Soundstaging for one, dynamics for another. For the former I twirled my knobs (kinky, huh?). I recommend to start at the extremes, i.e. completely retracted, then fully forward. That makes patently obvious how this affects the staging. At first fully retracted i.e. 4mm behind the baffle was the better choice for me but I slowly moved things forward until the stereophonic illusion 'clicked' into place.

Where soundstaging goes, the Elac isn't a member of the cinemascope club. At first glance I've heard more imposing staging with for example the Sonus faber Venere 1.5 compact. Here the Elac descended noticeably into the far recesses to illuminate stage depth with even rather than spot lighting. This particularly benefited hi-res files like Vivaldi's Four Seasons on the legendary 1969 Decca recording with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields. A 96kHz FLAC version thereof was pure magic. The musicians teleported into my living room so tangibly that I felt I could walk between 'em.