Elac 300 BS 312 (Pair)

Elac BS 312 Bookshelf Speakers (Pair) share a lot in common with many ELAC designs, especially as the company has long promulgated the use of deceptively big sounding small speakers; this time, ELAC uses its JET 5 version of the Air Motion Transformer coupled with a 115mm AS-XR cone (also made in house by ELAC) and the rear-ported, single-wired loudspeaker is diminutive, uses a extruded aluminium cabinet and is best used on the dedicated stands designed to fit a range of ELAC standmounts. Its small, surprisingly heavy and very well made. And none of this gets over precisely what the BS 312 is capable of, if you view this from a surface perspective.

Look closer. That JET 5 tweeter is a folded ribbon design, which works by folding the ribbon through a series of neodymium bar magnets. This is a high-precision process that is only possible in the hands of a specialist (a fraction of a millimetre out in one of the folds and the tweeter is virtually useless; its a job that requires a steady hand, a keen eye and infinite patience)” although the process is aided by robots. This manages to combine efficiency, power handling and break-up far outside the audible spectrum (around 50kHz) ” the kind of trifecta of tweeter goodness. Variants on Oskar Heils device are relatively uncommon ” Adam, Audiovector, Burmester, Mark & Daniel and more recently MartinLogan and Yacht Audio join ELAC on the AMT trail, and a few of those do so by buying JET 3 tweeters from ELAC (he said quietly).

Theres another key aspect of the sound of the BS 312s. They are fast. Blisteringly fast. Lets temper that. Blisteringly fast as in they have excellent transient response” not they have a treble that could peel paint. They are extremely balanced loudspeakers in fact, and that JET 5 tweeter is a very smooth operator. No, the BS 312 merely plays sounds accurately and honestly. This came across best with Teardrop” by Massive Attack and especially Where is my Mind” by the Pixies, both of which can sound dynamic, or shrill. With the BS 312, they sounded dynamic.