These Elacs are very talented speakers for the money
View online review whf.cm/DebutB52
E lac’s Debut 2.0 B5.2 speakers are brilliant performers for the money – so much so that they have nabbed multiple What Hi-Fi? Award trophies in a row, once again retaining the budget-speaker crown in 2023.
Elac changed almost everything about the newer Debut speakers. The cabinet has a similar volume to before but its proportions are around 2cm different in all directions. They are now taller (34cm), narrower (18cm) and deeper (23cm) in a bid to look smarter and be less visually obtrusive. To our eyes, these changes have worked, helping to make the Debut B5.2s look more modern.
The 13cm mid/bass unit is thoroughly revised too, using a new blend of aramid fibres for the cone, combined with a different shape to improve stiffness and damping. That the dust cap is now convex rather than concave will strike most people as a minor detail, but it has benefits at the top end of the driver’s operating range – the crossover is at 2.2kHz – and helps integration with the tweeter.
The tweeter is now a wide-surround design with improved dispersion and a top-end response that extends to a claimed 35kHz. The old one topped out at a mere 20kHz, so we are expecting a lot more top-end sparkle and openness than before.
These new drivers positively demand a better foundation to work from, and Elac’s engineers have obliged with a more rigid, braced MDF enclosure. This is claimed to display fewer resonances and add less distortion to the sound than that found on the previous model. Connection to the amplifier is through a pair of solid single-wire terminals.
The bass reflex port has moved to the front panel to make the speakers less sensitive to their proximity to the rear wall, which makes placement easier. And indeed these speakers prove unfussy about placement. They work best a little out into the room, around 30cm, but will still deliver relatively balanced results if not optimally placed, producing a wide, solid soundstage with little work.
The B5.2 aren’t quite as forgiving of partnering electronics as, say, the Q Acoustics 3020i, due to a presentation that leans more towards analysis than war
