This content analyzes two budget-level speakers, the ELAC Debut 3.0 and the Polk Signature Elite ES20, to determine which offers better potential for upgrade and improved sound quality through component enhancement.
Mind Map
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Hey everybody, welcome back. Today we're
looking at a couple of budget level
speakers and I'm going to kind of
look at these things side by side. We're
going to dig into the guts on these
things, look at the crossovers. We're
going to look at how they measure and
I'm going to give them a little evaluation,
evaluation,
which is what I do first and foremost
every time a speaker is sent in. And
what we're looking for is something that
what I call has good bone. something
that has something to work with,
something that you can build on and not
have to put a ton of parts on, something
that can be made to sound a whole lot
better with minimal amount of
investment. And you know, I get sent a
lot of these budget speakers from every
brand out there. You name it, we've had
these things sent in. And you never know
sometimes, you know, you just never know
which ones are going to really be a gem
and which ones are going to be a bust
until you start really looking at them.
And sometimes price is not at all a
determining factor. We've had speakers
like that little Sony or the little
Warfdale Diamond model that had really
good drivers. It's just built to a price
point. had little, you know, tiny little
crossover parts on a little board,
lightly constructed cabinet, but the
drivers were really good and they didn't
require a ton of parts. They didn't have
like massive breakups to have to
compensate for. I didn't have to put a
bunch of notch filters on it to correct
for anything. And sometimes you find
those little gems
and it may be a speaker that's only a
couple hundred bucks or something and
you throw two or 30 hundred on top of it
and suddenly you've got a really nice
sounding little speaker. And that's
almost always almost almost always a
better solution than spending a whole
lot more money and buying a a more
expensive speaker. And I get that
criticism sometimes when people watch me
do these upgrades and you think, "Well,
the cost of the upgrade cost as much as
the speaker." Yeah, but the speaker
didn't cost anything anyway, so the
whole thing doesn't cost anything. Um,
let's take one of these speakers.
They're 3.99 and $4.99. If we spent 300
bucks on the upgrade, you're still way
ahead versus what you could have spent
that same money on. You can go out there
and spend money on a on a new speaker
that's a,000 or 1,200 bucks and think,
"Well, I'll just do that instead of
trying to fix this." You're in the same
boat. You've still got a budget level
speaker with budget level parts, with
the same problems, with the same
bottlenecks, the same drawbacks. You
just spent more money on it. You know,
you might have got a prettier box, nicer
drivers, a bigger size speaker and stuff
like that, but you have to get up into
the range of $2 to $3,000 to start
seeing some really good quality parts.
And really high-end parts like what we
put in a lot of this stuff, you rarely
even see in any speaker. I just had a $13,000
$13,000
Dine Audio speaker in here the other
day, and the parts used in it were fair.
Uh, I'd say good to fair. Not really
high-end, nothing crazy. No high-end
wire, no, you know, specialty caps, just
poly caps and air core inductors. That
was it. You know, that's that's typical
of what we see. Um, sometimes in some
brands, we see some pretty good parts
quality being used, but pretty rarely.
And those don't get sent in for upgrades
very often because they've done a lot
with them. But these budget level
speakers, they get sent in all the time.
And so, here's a couple of them that I
kind of have in here at the same time.
And I want to I want to do a little bit
of a side byside and let you guys get a
little comparison on these things. One
is the Pulk Signature Elite ES20.
ES20.
And I kind of chuckle when I see
Signature Elite. I mean, come on. It's a
budget level speaker. It's very budget
level as far as parts and everything in
this thing. So, definitely built to
price point. Uh, and then this ELAC
Debut 3.0, which is the model DB63,
and it's $4.99 a pair. So, $3.99 a pair,
$4.99 a pair.
Kind of in that same range. Let's take a
look first of all at this little Elac
model here. And it looks like what it
has is a carbon fiber u cone on this
woofer. I don't know that it's real
carbon fiber or not, but it has that
look. And it's got this big magnet on
here. So, it must be great. Let me tell
you something right away here. Bigger
magnet does not equal mole bettera. Just
because the magnets's bigger doesn't
mean anything. Take these two woofers
for instance. They could very well have
the same amount of magnetic field
strength on the voice coil, but this one
may have a gap that's tighter. It may be
that the top plate is closer to the
voice coil, making a making a a a more
focused field strength with less magnet.
Whereas, this one could have a bigger
gap around the voice coil, which drops
field strength, and then you have to go
to a bigger magnet to make up for it.
So, as far as the amount of control
that's on this, the amount of strength,
the field strength, you can't judge that
just by the size of the magnet. And then
this one's got a bucking magnet on it,
which is kind of unusual these days that
is designed to eliminate stray fields.
It's it's a way of kind of shielding
this magnet by putting one that's
opposed onto it to cancel out some of
the stray field. Don't see that anymore.
Um, very well, I don't see it very
often. Back when TV screens had old
tubetop TVs that this affected quite a
bit, you saw shielded drivers, but you
rarely see them anymore.
Now, nice looking little woofer on the
on the ELAC stamp steel frame, though.
Yes, that thing's going to ring. These
are really, really cheaply made. Uh the
crossover, it's in the floor of it. I I
took a picture of it. It's got 18 parts
on it, dude. 18 parts on a two-way
speaker. That's a lot of parts to me.
That tells me they're having to correct
for a lot of amplitude issues with the drivers.
drivers.
So, it makes me think, oh boy, they they
those drivers may not have been very
well behaved. So, they had to put a lot
of parts on there. And the little caps
look like little polyester film, maybe
some polyropylene caps, tiny little
caps, low voltage rated caps, a couple
of air core inductors, some iron core
inductors, an electrolytic cap, and all
sandcast resistors. So definitely what
we consider budget level stuff. Cabinet
looks okay. It's got square edges on the
front of it, which is something I hate.
the cheesy binding post with the steel
nuts and steel terminals on the back of
it. It's like
just the cheapest thing they can put on
Uh in fact, let's just set this one down
for a moment here and get it out of the way
way
so we can look at the pulk bottle which
is similar in the way it's made. Lightly constructed.
constructed.
Yes, it has a cheesy crossover. Now, on
the tweeter, there's a there's a couple
of little polyropylene caps on the
tweeter, an aircore inductor, steel
little sandcast resistors. Uh there's
one electrolytic cap probably in the
woofer circuit. It's got a little iron
core inductor on the woofer circuit and
it too has steel nuts and stuff on it in
the signal path. It's like,
okay, it it's built to a price point. uh
little polyropylene cone. Um little uh
little dome tweeter there. In a way, I'm
not seeing a lot of big differences here
in value on how things are made, but
there is a clue here to me that maybe
these drivers in the Pulk are a little
better behaved uh because the parts
count is fairly low compared to the
Elac. Uh both of them have nice face
plates that snap on or screw on after
everything else is put together that
kind of hides the the woofer frame which
is kind of you know they don't want you
to see this tacky stamp steel frame. So
they put these nice beauty rings on
there that snap around it and finish it
out and make it look really nice. And
these are really cheaply made if you're
having lots of them made at a time. So,
let's take a look at a little side by
side and look at the measurements on
these things and get a little bit of a
comparison. And then we're going to dive
into it a little more and think about
which one of these actually offers an opportunity
opportunity
with a little bit of money to really go
to another level because one of them is
not too bad and one of them is not that
great. So let's take a look at the
measured responses on these and let's
look at them in a kind of a side by side
or one under the other I guess. Let's
look at the ELAC onis frequency response
and then right below it let's look at
the pulk onaxis frequency response. Now
obviously the pulk is a little bit
smoother in its overall response but
there's a little bump at about 700 htz
and it's definitely a little bit of a
bump there. Uh we also have a a bit of a
bump in the on axis response of the
ELAC, but it's more of a broad bump.
It's a little taller. In fact, that
whole range humps up there from about
700 hertz and holds it for quite a ways
and then at the top end it just drops
off. It loses top end extension. Now,
some of these bumps that we could be
seeing here could very well be caused by
this rough edge or sharp edge on the
inside of the wolfer through hole. That
typically causes a peak or a dip in that
area. It causes a response to move
around a little bit right there because
it's defraction off the inside of that.
If we look at the the elac, let's take a
look at it. And it also has sharp edges
on the inside of it. So sometimes just a
little thing goes a long way um to
create a smoother response if they would
just have a little bit of attention to
detail. So overall the the uh the pulk
has a little bit smoother response.
Let's look at the horizontal off-axis.
Um horizontal off-axis on both of these
look fair. I would say um the pulk is a
little more linear in the way it drops
off. It's a little broader in one area,
but overall I'm not seeing anything
there that would make me think, oh boy,
one or oh boy, the other. It's kind of
the same vertical off-axis. Let's look
at the the uh the ELAC vertical off-axis
and the Pulk vertical off-axis. You can
see the ELAC has a little better
integration of the drivers going up.
It's maintaining a smooth vertical
response, whereas the Pulk is starting
to drop out a little bit. Uh just above
the crossover region up there, just a
little bit. Neither are really bad. The
pulk one even still is not that bad.
Let's look at the impedance plots. The
impedance of the ELAC and the impedance
of the PULK underneath it.
The ELAC dips to 4.4 ohms and the Pulk
dips down to 3.9 ohms. So, both pretty
much 4 ohm loads. Um, the ELAC is a
little more balanced. I mean, I'm sorry,
the the Pulk is a little more balanced.
The ELAC has a little higher impedance
up top, but neither neither are bad at
all. And the the pulk is actually really
good in that regard. Now, here's the
biggie. The spectral decay. This is what
usually tells you more about how a
speaker is really going to sound than
anything else. And both of them in this
regard are in pretty good shape. I don't
see anything that's going to be
glaringly bad. Um, let's look at the u
at the ELAC up top and the Pulk right
below it. You can see the pulk has a
little more stored energy down low. And
right there at that 750 or 700 hertz
bump that we saw earlier in the
frequency response, we see some stored
energy right there. Whereas in the ELAC,
we see that it drops off pretty
smoothly. In fact, um in the ELAC, we
see a little bit of resonance at 4500
hertz, but neither of them are that bad.
Um both of them look really good in that
regard. So, is one a little better than
the other? Um, if you started doing
listening comparisons, you know, that
that elac may have a little bit more
brightness to it because of that hump at
700 htz. Uh, that's right in the upper
harmonics of a vocal that's going to
push things a little forward, a little
more in your face. If you were looking
for something a little softer, a little
more laid-back, the Pulk would
definitely be a little better candidate.
Um, but overall I'm not seeing, you
know, one big thing over another that
makes me think, oh, this one speaker is
going to be so much better than the
other or blah blah blah. They're both
budget level speakers. Neither of these
are going to stand out as being a
high-end speaker in any way whatsoever.
Um, but which of these then could I do
something with? Which of these has
something to work with? Now, to me,
there was one big determinant factor in deciding
deciding
whether or not I could do anything with
either of these two models, and it
really came down to what I'm seeing
right here on this Elac speaker.
how you get that thing out?
This thing is glued in. There isn't a
screw holding that thing in. And you're
not just going to push this out from the
backside. This thing's glued in. This is
like one of those toasters you get when
the toaster goes out. You just throw it
away and get another one. This isn't
designed for upgrades, repairs. I mean,
these are cheaply made. They're even
they're even just gluing this thing in
because that's probably cheaper than
putting screws in it. And what the heck,
they're never going to take this thing
apart anyway if it just goes out.
They'll just send out another one. Um
cuz they're really cheaply made. Keep in
mind that they have to produce the pair
of these speakers for about 1/5if of
what they retail for. Um, and the ELAC
then it's um it was $4.99 a pair. So,
you know, they they got to build the
pair of these for under a hundred bucks.
So, there's not much there. And they cut
cost almost everywhere they can. I can't
do anything with that speaker, you know.
And it it may be that it sounds okay for
some people. For people like myself, ah,
I couldn't listen to it for more than a
few minutes. It's it's a budget level
speaker. I'm I'm not used to listening
to speakers at that level. Um, so for
me, the fact that I can't do anything
with it is pretty much a bust. Now,
the Pulk on the other hand, I could
easily remove the drivers in this one.
Once this face plate was taken off, I
could get in and remove the crossover
and and I could I could go in and and
wire this thing out the port, which is
kind of an interesting port. It's got a
big flared little flare in the middle of
it, and then it's got a back on it so
that you could butt this up against the
wall. on that little flare that's in the
middle of it there, uh, is supposed to
keep the sound spreading out into every
direction and, not just out the port all
in one direction and just reflecting
right off of the back wall or something
like that. So, it's an interesting
little design. Um,
you know, if you're placing it further
out in the room, you may want to unscrew
this thing and just take it completely
off. May have a better overall sound.
But I started looking at this thing and
I think, okay,
this one I can work on like what can I
do with this thing? You know, what
what's possible with it? And uh the only
thing that really stands out to me that
that was a problem was that spot there
at 700 hertz. There's a little bit of a
hump there. And that would be audible,
but it's not bad. It's not real audible.
Um so this is one of those where I send
all the information to the customer and
I say, "Here's your options. Here's what
we can do. You know, I can just map this
thing out and just supply better parts.
It would measure exactly the same, but
the newer parts, some tube connectors in
the back, all of this would bring the
resolution levels, the detail levels,
the imaging would open up and be more
layered and clear because these parts
smear the crap out of the signal, and it
it eats up spatial cues, which makes the
sound stage seem flat just right between
the speakers. it it eats up the depth
that may actually be in the signal or in
the actual music itself. This this level
of parts, it eats it up. So, I could
just map this out and replicate the
exact same thing. Or I could go in and
work on it and see if I could do
something with that little hump. And the
customer said, "Yeah, he'd like for me
to see what I can do with it. maybe uh
fix that little peak there and maybe I
can take it to another level. So, okay,
I'll give it a shot. I mean, the folks
at Poke did a great job, but
I might can take it to another step.
Let's see. First thing I do then is I
measure the drivers independently. And
here's the frequency response of the
drivers independently. You can see the
woofer and the tweeter. And I'm looking
at that thinking, I can see where that
little hump is there at 700 Hz. that
might need a little bit of a notch
filter to get that out of it right
there. Um, but I don't really see any
other problems with it. Everything else
looks looks pretty workable. The tweeter
has a really good range. It plays down
pretty low. There's a little bit of a
dipped area in the tweeter's response,
but I have tricks to fix that, too. So,
um, I went to work on it and I designed
a a new crossover for this thing. In
fact, let's look at um let's look at the
old frequency response and the new
frequency response right below it. As
you can see, I balanced things out a
little bit more. So, it's definitely a
little smoother. And I was able to notch
that little hump out of it. I had a kind
of a very non-aggressive notch filter.
That's a very narrow area that was just
for that that one little spot. And it I
only used a 12 ohm resistor in line with
it. So, I'm not shunting a whole lot to
ground, but I'm shunting some to ground
right there, and I'm knocking that
brightness out of it. So, overall, the
frequency response now looks looks
fantastic. Um, let's look at the
crossover response. You can see there,
uh, it crosses just below 2,000 hertz.
That was no issue with that tweeter.
And, um, all of that looked good. It was
tough trying to get the woofer up to
play up higher and not get into
problems. it it kept going to give me a
peak at at about a thousand hertz every
time I tried to push it up a little
higher. Um, but I was able to work with
it and get something that that worked
pretty well. Looking at the horizontal
off-axis looks very much like it did before.
before.
And the vertical offaxis looks very
similar to what it did before, too. I
improved things there just a little bit.
In fact, let's look at the old vertical
offaxis and the new vertical offaxis.
And you can see it's it's improved
slightly. Uh the impedance is a little
bit different uh because of uh the parts
I had to put on it. The little notch
filter that I put in there. And I don't
remember if I marked the Oh, yeah.
Lowest impedance was still 3.9 ohms. So
I didn't make it any any lower of an
impedance even with that little notch
filter in there cuz that notch was a
little higher up where the crossover was
starting to add resistance. So the
overall impedance is about the same.
Let's look at the spectral decay though.
Look at the original Spectral Decay and
the new Spectral Decay. And you can see
I cleaned it up a little bit. It's a
little cleaner overall. And the Spectral
Decay overall looks great. I mean, it
really does. It looks really good. Um,
for a budget level speaker, um, even for
less money, I would take the Pulk if it
were me over even over the Elac. And
with an upgrade to these parts
qualities, you know what I'm the little
package I'm going to put together is not
going to be a whole lot of money. With a
set of tube connectors and new high
quality wiring, we get this old PVC
jacketed little tiny wire out of the
path with these push-on connectors. You
can solder the new wire right to the
drivers. All of that's going to clean up
the signal path. I might even throw a
little Sonic Cap upgrade option in there
as well in case you want to really take
it to a higher level. that'll make this
into a pretty nice sounding little
little monitor that's going to beat up
on probably everything else PULK offers
in those higher price points. Um, it's
just going to have that much better
clarity and detail. Parts matter. Parts
matter. Parts matter. We've talked about
that a bunch of times and we've proved
that over and over. And in this case,
it's going to be uh a no-brainer. you
know, if you own this speaker and you
want to take it to another level and
you're a DIY kind of guy and you also I
got to keep that in mind and so do you
guys. Um the the people that order these
upgrades love doing a project like, "Oh
man, this is a fun project. I get to
build something. I get to put it
together and I get to install it in my
speakers and it makes all this
improvement." It's it's it's a fun
project, but you have to be the kind of
person that wants to have one of those
projects and enjoys one of those
projects. If you're one of those guys
that you don't want to work on anything,
you don't have time to work on anything,
you're just going to buy a speaker, then
I wouldn't even buy these to be honest
with you. In fact, I would just skip
past a lot of the budget speakers. Just
give me a call. We'll step you up into
some really high-end speakers if you're
one of those guys that does not like to
turn a screw on anything and you want it
done. But if you're one of those guys
that looks for bargains and wants to
take something that was, you know, a sir
and turn it into a purse. Sometimes
you can do that. And this is one of
those times where I think with the
upgrade, this little Pulk would be a
pretty great sounding little speaker.
So, I hope you guys enjoyed the little
comparison today and the little upgrade
that I did on the Pulk. If you have any
questions, drop them in the comment
section below. If you haven't subscribed
to our channel, please subscribe to our
channel. Trying to get that up to
100,000 subscribers this year.
Hopefully, we're getting closer. And hit
that thumbs up button down there under
it. I appreciate all of that and we'll
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