adante

They’re an absolute flop, that’s why. 

If they weren’t designed by AJ, they would have never been taken seriously at any point.  There is literally nothing special or good about them, even at half off.  

They are unforgiving speakers. A lot of returns and re-sales within the first few months.

At their price points, they offer nothing new. The KEF R3 is a safer purchase.

AJ should focus on improving his under $500 speakers, as that is his talent and that’s where the market is. 

The KEF R3 simply embarrasses the Adante stand mount in a much smaller package and for $500 less.  

Yeah these got a lot of initial hype then fizzled out fast. Never had a chance to hear them.  KEF R3 came along and is very good!

We sell both the KEF and the Adantes.

The Adantes actually sounded quite good when driven by warmer electronics as their top end was a bit peaky. 

Where  they excelled was at deep punchy bass, excellent dynamics, and created a very big sound stage. The Monitors at $2,500.00 were a lot of speaker for not a lot of money.

The flops were the floor standers which were too tall and not that much better sounding than the monitors. 

In terms of the KEF R3 being way better they are different smoother, less punchy with a more focused sound stage.

Given the right electronics and music the Adantes were quite enjoyable

Their issues were the monitors are huge, they required careful matching, and the floor standers are just huge for their size.

They were hard to sell for the price due to the fact that the Adante monitors were not really bookshelf sized loudspeakers so if you really wanted a monitor to sit on a shelf these were just too large.

Overall a decent line but not a standout more applicable to certain listener.

If anyone is interested we have both the monitors and floor standers priced really cheap.

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ

Past 2 weeks i am listing Andante as61, they are absolutely sounds fantastic , vocals, drums and symbols so real, super dynamic.   i am coming from Kef r300 and Kefls50 w ( b)  and both were just ok.  Also with my own cds,  I demoed New dynaudio evoke and kef r series. only Evoke 50 and kef r11 were good in their line. however still i preferred Andante sound signature its just different feels music so real.  i am really trying to understand at what sense they are flop ?  

Raviker, if you referer to our post above we have listed the issues with the line, 

We agree with you that the speakers sounded quite good especially when used with warmer electronics, Naim, Parasound etc.

The issue is the monitors are huge, and can not fit on an actual bookshelf, and the floorstanders were really not that much better than the monitors. 

The real white elephant is shipping with increased tariffs from China a very heavy and bulky product that has the above listed issues and the reason for discontinuing the product makes sense.

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ Elac dealers

Adante are a great speaker for vocals. They have the same wide and uniform dispersion as the KEF, but is slightly flatter in response in the range of vocal harmonics (2-8K). Where the KEF is maybe +/- 1db in this range, the Adante is closer to +/- 0.5db.

Due to the soft dome, the dispersion is directional above 8K. This makes the KEFs sound like they have more air, while the Adante sounds much more vocal focused, since this increases the relative volume of the vocal range. Also the KEF R3 is warmer and has about 10db more of bass extension.

For the size the Adante sounds smaller than the R3 (less air/smaller soundstage, less bass extension) which is surprising for a speaker with 65% more internal volume than the R3. I would say the Adante’s biggest problem is that it’s just too big for what you get. It’s also about 25% bigger than the Kef Reference 1 but gives up about 15hz of bass extension.

Vocals are without a doubt the worst part about the Adante.  I laughed out loud at that.  Have you even heard them?  Shouty and glaring.  Absolutely rubbish.  I’ve heard them with MANY amp combinations, in two different houses that all other speakers sound great in.  
Again, if they weren’t designed by a like-able guy that everyone wants to respect and (reviewers) get along with on a social level, they would be complete unknowns.

Dont even get my started on the hilariously bad bass, even with the passive radiator and hidden driver gimmick.  Oh, and the excessively huge cabinet.  
Defend your purchases all you want, but there is a reason they’re already discontinued after such a short amount of time.  
Trash.

Aren’t you 1 man army guy who keeps defending the Paradigm Persona and it’s wacky frequency response against the rest of the forum? lol

Actually Wildfoxinn, we also defend the Personas which have no more of a wacky frequency response vs any other major high end loudspeakers,

We have been looking at many highly lauded loudspeakers and many of them have dipped high frequency responses. So it seems that many audiophiles get activated when the top end of a loudspeaker has some rises at certain frequencies but are totally okay when other loudspeakers are dipped down and therefore have a "recessed or polite" top end. 

Most loudspeakers have either a rising top end or a recessed top end, very few loudspeakers are actually flat.  The real key is system matching. 

We have the Personas and the Adantes and the Kef's on display, as well as ATC and many other loudspeakers.

We don't agree with Contuzzi that the Adantes aren't good loudspeakers yes they do have a bit of a peak in their high end response but with the right warmer electronics they also sound very good.

We have demoed the Adantes vs many of the best $2-2,500.00 monitors and they are in some ways quite remarkable, especially in their deep bass response.

Dave and Troy
Audio Doctor NJ ATC, Kef, Paradigm, Elac, dealers

At $1500 a pair (the close-out price) I think they are interesting because while I think the R3 is better overrall, it's an extra $500 for a smaller cabinet and better bass extension. It certainly adds a lot of pressure in the $1-2k market.

It adds zero pressure.  You are delusional if you think this will have any effect other than people buying them blind at Music Direct because of the “deal” and then convincing themselves they like them. 

If they are bigger than the average monitor and now going for a discount, then that sounds like a deal. More speaker per $$. Just match them up right as suggested which has to be done in most any case anyhow to get things to sound best.

Also older ears that no longer hear flat to 20khz may tend to like a tipped up top end more so than otherwise.

It’s always shortsighted to focus just on the gear. The person is part of the system that determines the final results and only they know what they hear and like. That’s why no speaker will ever dominate the market alone no matter how good or flat technically it is.

Cage match!  White elephant vs. elephant in the room.

Who on earth is this clown? I had to register just because it appears Andrew bad-touched him at some point.

contuzzi359 posts01-22-2018 11:07amI’d absolutely go with the ELAC.  Have spent a lot of time recently with the stand mounts.  Really outstanding.  

Have little to no experience with the floor standers yet.

 So we went from superlatives to laughing out loud they're so bad? Good grief. Zero credibility.

The Adantes are really nice, I'm just not sure what they were aiming for. They're big and seem to be over-thought. I'd be interested in comparing with the R3, but the reality is I'm trying to downsize for a smaller listening environment, and these just aren't going to pass the grade. What I found interesting was the measurements between the 2 are eerily similar, I guess AJ's DNA is still all over the KEFs.

I have the Adante monitors. I like them I moved them to my home theater room and found they sound best there, due to their excellent dynamics and deeper than average bass extension. A unique speaker that can and does sound great with Parasound amps. 

The Adante are revealing, you have to spend 2-3x more on the rest of the chain to get them performing as thy should

Read Contuzzi post throughout Audiogon...Hypocrisy at its worst!

Ricered1: you’re just upset because I usually disagree with you.
Uncle_monkey: you registered for that? Very hard to believe. Anyway — I was initially impressed with the Adante, when the right music is played (how Andrew jones conducts all his demos), but once I started listening to female vocals etc, I realized how painfully flawed they are. Also, your assessment that the R3 is anything like the Adante is funny. They sound nothing alike.

There is a reason Adante was at blow out pricing only two years after their introduction. Just as there is a reason ELAC is bringing a new debut reference line out that is reusing original Debut 2.0 parts. Can you guess 

The Adantes seem like thoroughbreds, high performance, yet more demanding than most in this racehorse hobby r able to muster.  Some crackpots probably attempting to run em with his beloved silver loom, and blaming the speaker for the blocky base response...

I’ve the two newer Debut Reference in house, the bookshelf and floorstanders, & they r gonna make it hard to justify spending major coinage on audio jewelry. The monies have been well spent by AJ.  Sit back, kick your feet up, enjoy your music as they easily reveal both the quality of the recording and exactly where any colourations exist in ones playback system.  Easy to live with, fun to be around, non demanding yet responds to qualit’y compny’.  Lots to recommend here...

Contuzzi, 
When I owned Wilson Audio speakers I argued with people and I was pretty defensive when someone made negative comments about them. Now I don't let other people's opinions affect what I like. Audio is about preferences, not absolutes. I try not to condemn any components. Although I don't agree with everything Audiotroy posts, I do agree when he says that speakers have to be matched with the right components. 

Just wanted to chime in since I never replied since posting I had ordered the Adante AC-61 center channel quite some time ago.

Since I’m only using an Adante for HT center, I can’t really comment about its use for stereo, but I can say anyone who already own Adante’s that the center would be a great addition.

I didn’t have the stand at first but found it has better bass response on it’s dedicated stand.

So good in fact that I run my LCR in full range and often don’t turn on my Velodyne subs. The Adante bass is really articulate and might be the best aspect of the speaker. The L and R are the Cerious Too, an older speaker with a unique full ballistic ceramic poured cabinet that’s probably never been a technique utilized since.

I have TAD CR1’s in the same room but as part of a separate 2 channel system. At some point I’ll try the CR1’s as the L and R speaker just to see how all three concentric speakers work together.

At some point I’ll get around to hooking the single Adante to my BHK300 amp, just to hear it with music on excellent electronics but perhaps I might not really be able to get a good feel of what’s it capable of, or any shortcomings in the tweeter.

While there are far more advanced center speakers, for the amount I paid for the speaker and the stand it’s a ridiculous value that I still find hard to believe.

I have the Debut Reference dbr62 being delivered tomorrow....cant wait to put them tru their paces...

whoever in this post calls the Adantes an absolute flop is a dumb, foolish and ignorant idiot, who probably never ever even listened to them. I own a pair of the AF61 and also a pair of Dynaudio Confidence 5. The Adante Af61s sounded very bright in the first couple of weeks, almost shrill. They do need brake-in time to smoothen out. Once they are fully broken in the silk dome tweeter actually starts to relax and becomes a lot more balanced sounding- same is true for the mid range unit. Bass slam and extension were great from the beginning, but as mentioned before, compared to the Confidence 5, the mid range and tweeter sounded too bright in the first 3 weeks. After that female vocals became spot on. However, one statement is true, the Adante AF61s are very holographic in soundstage imaging, revealing the width and depth of the recorded soundstage with ease. They are also unforgiving- if your gear sucks, they will sound bad as well. On the contrary, you will hear every little upgrade and investment, from fuses to cables and interconnects, when your source and amplification are high quality. I have been using mainly PS Audio gear, BHK250, P15 powerplant, Directstream DAC, combined with a tuned Mystere CA21 tube preamp. Fuses are SR Orange, Interconnects are Nordost Tyr and Wireworld Silver Eclipse 6. Powercords are mainly from Pangea- Ac9SE and AC14XL Mk2 for the preamp, Wireworld Silver Electra 6 for the PS Audio DSD, streaming high res audio from my NAS and via Audirvana from a dedicated Mac Mini. At the current discount prices the Elac Andante AF-61 is a fantastic deal, but they prefer high quality gear to really unleash their true potential. 

Just as an FYI for readers that missed it.

"Conclusions
Yes, I had a few mild critiques of the Elac Adante AF-61, particularly for the need, with some music, in my very large room, of a good subwoofer to flesh out the bottom end, which turned a very good speaker into an exceptional one.

But with or without a subwoofer, I liked what I heard from the Adante AF-61s as soon as I hooked them up. I liked them even better after several weeks of listening. When I went back to check a few last-minute details while writing this review, I found it difficult to listen for only a few minutes and then return to my writing. I wanted to listen longer. I had to pull myself away. If that's not a solid recommendation, I don't know what is."

- Stereophile
Thomas J. Norton
https://www.stereophile.com/content/elac-adante-af-61-loudspeaker

I have had the Adante floorstanders for a year and a half now. I have them paired now with 2 of Danny Ritchie’s open baffle servo subs and some competent electronics. I was lucky to have a a good room to begin with (didn’t have to do any major remodeling) and have my room acoustics tweaked up to the nth degree as of now. I recently walked out of a 100k+ dollar system snickering to myself after realizing what a good thing i’ve got going at home with a pair of speakers that retailed for a measly 5k. I still have to pinch myself when i realize I picked them up for half the price last year.  I sometimes feel like kicking my other speakers that cost ten times as much.

When i sense the disgruntlement oozing out of other guys i know who’ve dropped six figures on a system, i realize what a joke all of this is. 

In any case, I greatly appreciate the "charity" that Mr. A. Jones has provided to the world of hifi.

I just received a pair of Andante AF 61's and installed them first with a humble Naim Unitiqute, just for the kicks of testing the Qute.  I've used KEF's LS50's with the Qute and one of my two Linn LP12's as my home office system for 4 years, and a pair of KEF R700's paired with Naim Superuniti, another Linn LP12 and a Linn Akurate DS/1 in the family room.
Just the basic Qute setup revealed an astonishing speaker in the Andante's without any tweaking.  I had just returned a pair of KEF R3's after being very disappointed with their brittle high-end, although they had a lot going for them in the lower registers and imaging.

Now setup with a Mytek Brooklyn DAC+, and a Nuforce STA200 (another gem in value Audiophilia), the Andante's are delivering amazing sound, with the Nuforce, and at the discounted price they represent amazing value.
It's easy to blow a lot of money on audio equipment with subprime results.  Finding diamonds like these in the rough is what makes this hobby truly exciting.  It's like the Sondek LP12 that I purchased 39 years ago, which is still going strong and carefully upgraded with mostly used components, probably the most rewarding purchase I've ever made.  I have a similar emotion with the Adante's. 

Thank you ELAC and Mr. Jones.   

hello,
interesting topic, for 2 of the most great speakers in my opinion, for the last years! You must be kidding, saying adante (elac as-61) is not good! Regarding its sound i mean, it's one of the best i ever heard...!