The ELAC BS 243 performs like a large speaker. In order to make the musical imprint of this compact monitor as true to life as possible, special attention was given to the three-dimensional sound radiation pattern, so that the room is acoustically “energised” in a consistent and harmonised way.
JET tweeter
High definition audio: ELAC’s JET tweeter fascinates listeners with its dynamic and authentic audio, offering lots of headroom with a distinctly wider frequency range than conventional dome tweeters.
The ELAC JET tweeter is one of the most legendary tweeters in the hi-fi trade and has won international renown with its unusual transparent and effortless sound image. The JET tweeter was developed to perfection on the basis of the famous 'Air Motion Transformer' by loudspeaker pioneer Dr Oskar Heil. Its principle: a concertinaed foil membrane is driven by a strong magnet system of neodymium rods.
This 'motor' drives the air considerably faster than the conventional pistonic technique. High sensitivity and extraordiary dynamics are the result. Due to many additional design changes (e.g. new neodymium magnet system) a higher efficiency and a smoother sound pressure level frequency response up to 50 kHz was achieved.
The core of the JET tweeter is the folded foil membrane. With a fold width of only 0.84 mm, a major requirement in the JET production is precision. To guarantee the repetition accuracy and unchanging quality even with high output, this production step has been automised. The folding and fixing of the membrane, however, are executed by hand, since for production steps requiring special dexterity human manual skills are irreplaceable.
Only the glueing and handling are now executed by two SCARA robots. The absolutely reliable precision of the robot in glueing and handling thus ideally supplements the irreplaceable work by hand. Due to continuous improvement, the JET III tweeter now creates an effortless and airy resonance-free image up to 50,000 Hz, and with its linear frequency response is ideally suited for the reproduction of DVD-A and SACD.
Bass Reflex Ports
Flare on both sides, the bass reflex ports prevent unwanted ventilation noises. A special feature are the ELAC proprietary bass ports. As if from the wind tunnel, the double flare port has been designed so as to minimize ventilation noises and to reduce friction losses.
Bass-Control
Closing the bass reflex ports compensates for unfavourable acoustic conditions when speakers are installed, for example, close to a wall. The sound of loudspeakers is heavily influenced by room-acoustics. In some cases the room shape and especially the furnishings offer less than ideal conditions for the optimum set-up of the loudspeakers, sometimes resulting in bass reproduction which is too strong.
When loudspeakers are used close to walls or in small rooms and the bass is too prominent the ELAC Bass Control plug can be used to improve the bass reproduction by reducing the low frequency output.
Just insert one or both of the supplied ELAC Bass Control plugs into the bass ports on your loudspeakers until the bass is at the correct level relative to the midrange and treble.
ELAC vented loudspeakers use bass reflex tubes with different lengths and diameters (45, 59, 60, 62 or 70 mm).
Here is a list of Bass Control plugs and their matching bass reflex tubes:
use 55 mm diameter cylindrical rubber foam plugs with 45 mm bass reflex tubes,
use 70 mm diameter cylindrical rubber foam plugs with 59 / 60 / 62 mm bass reflex tubes, use 60 mm nominal diameter polyurethane foam plugs with 60 mm bass reflex tubes.
use 70 mm nominal diameter polyurethane foam plugs with 70 mm bass reflex tubes.
Bi-Wiring
For those interested in the extra detail of treble and bass performance by using separate wires or amplifiers, the ELAC bi-wiring terminal offers a convenient solution which is easy to access.
High-quality terminals with easily accessible inclined and gilded binding posts are also suitable for larger cable cross sections (16 mm²) as well as for high-quality spade ends (e.g. WBT products).
Crystal drivers
The eye-catching shape of the crystal membrane is far more than just an attractive design: it reinforces the tried-and-proven aluminium sandwich technique, improving its acoustic behaviour.
All woofers and midrange drivers of this series contain the "Crystal Membrane" (patent pending) and their design is based on the well-known "Aluminum-Sandwich AS Technology" which was developed by ELAC a couple of years ago. The crystal-shaped inverse aluminum dome is joined to the paper cone in a special glueing process resulting the desired sandwich construction.
The stamping of the aluminum foil looks like the surface of a large crystal, this is where the term "Crystal Membrane" come from. This stamping stiffens the aluminum dome considerably which diminishes the membrane-internal resonances resulting in less sound coloration and additionally improves the large signal behaviour noticeably.
The voice coil is not only - like usually - joined to the neck of the paper cone (see position "1" in the picture) but also to the bottom of the aluminum dome (position "2"). This design results in the expansion of the transmission range of the respective woofers or midrange drivers by nearly an octave. Therefore the abbreviation "XR" (eXtended Range) has been introduced.
Due to the specially wide double asymmetrical ('DAS') rubber surround, ELAC's TT 180 woofer can handle up to ±15 mm long stroke. This provides maximum level supply and mellow low bass. For a driver this size, such a large displacement represent a unique engineering achievement.
Frame w/ Pin
Designed with attention to detail: the cloth frames are mounted with unbreakable metal pins held by rubber grommets in the cabinet – simple and trouble free. For perfect grille mounting without any distorting noise at music reproduction, ELAC uses nickel-plated brass pins which smoothly slide into the designated rubber bushings at the loudspeaker cabinet.
SPECIFICATIONS:
height x width x depth 285 × 170 × 232 mm
weight 5.2 kg
type 2-way, bass reflex
woofer 1 × 150 mm AS-XR cone
tweeter 1 × JET III
crossover frequency 2,700 Hz
frequency range (IEC 268-5) 41 ... 50,000 Hz
sensitivity 87 dB / 2.83 V / m
suitable for amplifiers 4 ... 8 Ω
recommended amplifier power 30 - 150 W / channel
nominal/peak power handling 60 / 80 W
nominal impedance 4 Ω
minimum impedance 3.6 Ω / 240 Hz
subject to errors and amendment