I’d appreciate opinions from RMAF 2017 Show attendees on the Elac Adante AF61

normie. I was at the show and did hear all of the Elac speakers. My impressions in person was much like you heard on the video. I had never heard these before and left wondering what all the hoopla was about in the reviews. I would not purchase any of their speakers based on my likes and what I heard over the weekend.

Audition them and decide for yourself if you have a chance.

Thank you nhmanmtb!  I appreciate your relaying your experience and opinion.
No local dealer but I will indeed find an out of town dealer to audition.

I thought they sounded wonderful on Sunday. I am extremely sensitive to strident mids or highs and I heard natural sounding detail and warmth. I think you will have to hear them for yourself :-)

Thank you jeoneil for your opinion as well! Apparently it’s turning out similar to show goers in Munich, some loved them and others found them difficult to listen to. Our ears and preferences will always be distinct to our individual tastes and expectations. One friend in NYC values detail and impact most, I prefer the most coherent/cohesive and natural presentation, even if giving up a bit of detail. This is why component reviews should never, alone, determine purchase decisions.

I heard them at the LA Audio show  and they were nothing close to sounding strident in the mid and highs. In fact, there seemed to be a tiny bit of upper mid bass emphasis but that could have been because of the room set up or a design feature since they're not true full range, not going fully down to that last octave.

 As for the highs, there could have been more presence and sparkle at the highest end but piano came across convincingly. So did slide guitar and percussion. The mids just seemed natural and never drew attention to themselves. 

I, myself, may look into the AS-61 monitor for my system. I just need to be able to "borrow" a pair and hear them in my setting. I love that they lack ports. Good luck and do try to hear them for yourself.

All the best,
Nonoise

normie, The mixed results are why I said you should try to audition them. This was my third year attending and I am sometime surprised by the highly regarded components I just don't care for. Audition everything. In that price range my favorite speakers at the show were the Ryan Speakers. I do not own them and this was the first time I had a chance to hear them. Both rooms that were using them were outstanding. One had floorstanding and the other a pair of bookshelfs.

I heard the Elac's. Nonoise mentioned them in the last show he attended and so I wanted to make sure I got a listen. Extremely good sound I thought.  Probably in the top 10% of everything that was at the RMAF for me. My preferences are for natural timbre and harmonic structure of the recorded music to make it seem pleasantly real.  Individual instruments need to be as realistic as reasonably possible and all instruments need to fit realistically together dynamically as reasonably possible(proper harmonic envelope in relation to each other).  Definitely no errors of addition for me, so I like the smallest amounts of anything that doesn't fit well.  That being said these are show conditions. That means other peoples music, different room, ancillaries, different ears. I would definitely try to get an audition and go from there. 

Thanks to all for your kind responses and opinions. The consensus seems to be well worth an audition. Many US dealers are still waiting on their demos but I will audition as soon as possible.

They were the best sounding speaker at the show. My reference is Quad 57's restored by Electrostatic Solutions, TAD Ref1, Rogers LS3/5A and OMA Mini's.

Over on A-Circle somebody characterized them as slightly soft, so even more than usual an in-person audition will be mandatory.

The best sounding speakers at the show by a long shot.  Nothing else came close really.  Could not find any fault with them.  Of course I like the sound of real music in real space which is what these speakers sound like.  Unfortunately many audiophiles prefer hi-fi spectacular the reason why most speakers sound so terrible.  Over blown boomy bass, strident highs and sucked out midrange.  Ah yes the perfect audiophile sound.  The Elacs sound nothing like this.  

Everything he has designed is well worth an audition. 

The only questions are whether you want to expand your budget, and whether you want a different set of compromises in your own room (e.g. used Maggie 3.7i vs. these, etc.). 

I would have to disagree with the harsh and strident complaints.I heard them at the show on the Friday and they sounded very good to my ears.
I am sure for someone of Mr Jone's expertise would design a bad sounding speaker. We all hear things differently and I would not pay $5000 ( I think they are) without a long listen with my own choice of music.

I also heard them at LA Audio Show, and agree with nonoise.  Not as detailed as mine (Bob Carvers, but those are also 3.2X the price) , or as those I mentioned below. As someone else (mis, imho) noted, contrariwise -  they were not the best sounding speakers at the show.  With 100K $ speakers, that's ridiculous - I liked the Wilson-Benesch, the Raidho, maybe some of the Wilsons, some of the Magicos (but not the very big ones), Focal, and always, Sonus-Faber and Vandersteen.  All of those are way outside the 5K price range.  At 5K, these are probably on the short list. 

These were certainly not strident on a mix of violin, orchestral, and pop music. Again, at shows, room acoustics have a lot to do with perceived quality.  The naysayers may have gotten a bad setup, or even poor recordings.  Listen several times in different environments, and try to get a trial (that last part never worked for me though) :-) 

The new rooms were TOUGH on presenters - especially if not treated properly. Really brutal wall and ceiling finishes. We agree with Marqmike - gotta hear them in your room/equipment (best) or a good audio-purposed room at least before anyone can make an honest call....

It was rare to hear a great sounding room this year - mostly from the folks that are serious experts at it. May not be fair to other good sounding gear masked by acoustic issues.

The ELAC rooms are always packed, especially when Andrew Jones is "holding court".  I did not have the best seat but I thought the ELAC's sounded very good and great for their price range, but not even close to the best at the show. The best sounding speakers were in the Gryphon room!

I truly appreciate all of your valuable opinions!  My suspicion is that the Elac AF-61 were the best loudspeakers in their price range or even slightly beyond, as Mr Jones has great experience and has received much acclaim for his fabulous sounding concentric designs.
Yes indeed, an audition is in my future and quite possibly a purchase. 
Many thanks!

My suspicion is that the Elac AF-61 were the best loudspeakers in their price range or even slightly beyond

Not sure about that. Some show reports say that the Tektons were also very good loudspeakers and are priced much less.

They sounded good, maybe just a touch of metallic coloration in the upper highs.  It most certainly was not the best sounding room at the show, at least not to my ears.  It was probably very close to the best room for the money.  I agree with shoff, Gryphon room sounded sublime.  I really liked Legacy, even though it was setup more in the open space.  And Raidho room also sounded awesome.

I heard them on both Saturday and Sunday.
On Saturday, Mr. Jones was giving a presentation.  The room was jam packed and hard to get into but I managed to work my way forward over time.  He's a very entertaining speaker (no pun intended) and made the listening that much better. His choice of songs was impeccable which certainly helped the quality of the demo.  There was a Q&A session and one of the questions that came up was 'how did you make the highs sound so open and engaging' (or something like that) and his answer focused on the work he had done on the concentric driver.   I left saying 'wow - I want to hear more and will return'.

On Sunday, I returned and the crowd was much smaller. At the time they were playing some chamber music - and the presenter was not nearly as engaging.  To be fair, this is not a genre of music I can judge, and I didn't want to hang out too long waiting for it to change, so I can't add a second listening opinion.

I would definitely take a listen and see what you think.  There's a lot of competition in the price range (Revel, Focal, Golden Ear to name a few) but these are definitely worth consideration.  Hopefully you can find a dealer who can demo them well. 

There were a couple of reports that gave the Adante's a best value remark at the show. There were also credible reports in regards to the Tekton Design speakers as being extraordinary as well. Something I will note about these two is novel an unique approaches applied in their respective products.

The Adante's closed coupled cavity for the bass arrangement and Tekton's tweeter array. With the Elac, that bass driver arrangement may aid in room integration of bass without as much concern of boundary walls. It also simplifies the crossover to mid driver due to what becomes a 2nd order acoustic filter with the band pass design. We also know Andrew Jones is well versed in coaxial driver design, but the crossover difference here will make it unique. The diaphragm material choices are curios only due to prior displays had shown some experimentation in this area. Any comments about it being the best at its price point is pure conjecture. First, its only been heard by few in show conditions. Second being a very wide range of capable speakers at the same point. I would certainly welcome a chance to audition it as I don't have any qualms to increases in buyer choice.

The Tekton has that tweeter array that is intended to allow more natural reproduction in its range. The claim from its designer being that the small radiating area of your typical tweeter is unable to reproduce the dynamic of the sound that is much larger in radiation area. His solution to that belief is very evident upon first look. I'm sure some issues needed to be worked out and some easier than others to make it work. The tweeter array is actually a two way portion of the speaker that has all those small drivers utilized in the upper mid to lower treble and then to a single unit when in the high treble. He had something similar in prior designs, but this looks expanded upon. It appears he used a dedicated mid driver in this edition to likely aid in integration. Prior model did have somewhat chatty cabinet construction, so hopefully some evolution in that area. I'm sure there are still some off measurements with a design idiosyncrasies such as this, but if well managed, it might work out fairly well.