Elemental Designs A6.t Tower Speaker Review

By Jim Robbins  -  November 2011
jim XdotX robbins XatX gmail XdotX com

Price : $500 per pair
System Design : 3Way Tower Speaker
Frequency Response : 40 - 22KHz +/- 3dB
Weight Per Speaker : 51lb
H x W x D : 41” x 9.5” x 12.5”
http://www.edesignaudio.com/product_info.php?cPath=2_42&products_id=972

I was doing some subwoofer shopping recently and decided to drop in at Elemental Designs in Newton, IA.  It was well worth the 1.5 hour drive for the round trip as I got to demo some great subs and they even let me borrow a pair of the A6.t tower speakers for a review.  They guys at eD are great to work with and were happy to take extra time for the Demo, even though my wife and I stayed well past their closing time. 

The A6.t speakers are a simple and classic design.  There’s nothing too fancy about the layout or appearance, but I do like the height and weight.  They were physically stable and the elevated base added a bit of class.  With the grill off, they looked like black drivers in a black box.  I don’t think the grill-off look appeals to many, but my wife happens to like that look better!  Yeah, she’s a bit crazy, but that’s why I like her.  There is a lower port on the front for the bass drivers, and on the back, a standard set of binding posts and another port near the top.  All in all, I like the look of the speakers even though they come standard in matte black.  I am pretty sure eD will customize the finish for an upcharge if you want. At the $500 price point, the goal is probably not just the way it looks, but the quality sound for the money.  Here are a few shots of the speakers for your viewing pleasure.  We threw in Bernard, our ceramic companion, to help show the scale.

Pics are about 1mb and scaled to 1920x2880 or 2880x1920.

My wife and I had these speakers set up with a lower end Yamaha receiver for just over a week in the first phase of the testing.  Our sources include the cheapo Dynex TV and a Logitech squeezebox.  They were replacing some bookshelf sized Paradigm Mini Monitors so I think we had a decent base for comparison.  The first thing that was clear was the bass response.  It was much more full range than the Mini Monitors, and lacked nothing on the low end.  When looking at the specs, they go down to 40hz, and in practice, it’s absolutely true.  Dialog on TV shows seemed pretty clear.  The high end seemed to lack a little bit, but I never much cared for the particular sound that the Yamaha receiver puts out with any speaker really, so I moved them to some better hardware for detailed music listening tests.

In the second phase of testing, we set the A6.ts in place of my Infinity Kappa 400 speakers in the theater room as seen above.  The Kappa 400s retailed for over 4 times the price of these, so we tried to keep that in mind as we listened.  My wife is a Josh Groban fan, and she like the vocals, but it seemed to be just not quite as clear on the high end as we were used to.  I thought it had a good solid midrange, but agreed with her on the high end.  Again, keep in mind what our reference speakers are and their relative price point.  We tried out some other vocal / instrumental tracks from Rani Arbo and then from The Civil Wars, and again, we both agreed that the midrange was good, but we just missed something on the high end.  We decided to do with some music that had more bass in it, so we tried some various dance/techno songs, including tracks from Morgan Page.  This is the point in the review where you see the focus of these speakers… BASS!!!  Yes, the low end on these speakers is fantastic; very clear and punchy.  Honestly, I hate to say it, but they bested the Kappa speakers in the low frequency audio.  I looked over to my wife and she was enjoying it quite well, but made a comment about the bass being forward and overpowering the vocals.  She was right, but perhaps the clean, pumping bass was skewing my thoughts and I had a huge smile on my face.  I decided to crank the speakers up past reasonable listening levels to see what they could do.  With the trusty SPL meter in hand, I elevated the volume to past 100dB.  We were both shocked by the force of the sound, and also, there was no hashing on the midrange or high end.  They seemed to excel the harder we pushed them.  I know that my Kappa speakers would have had a far too piercing high end at this volume, so I was very pleased with the performance the A6.ts.  Coming from what was originally a subwoofer based company, it was no surprise to see that bass was their focus.  This called for further bass testing.  The music was stopped and in came War of the Worlds.  For those unfamiliar with this movie, there is a scene where an alien ship emerges from the ground and produces a lot of very low bass.  This is a perfect test for subwoofer performance, but the A6.t speakers were begging for it.  My wife had left when I put the movie on, as the 100dB music was enough audio for her for the day.  With the room absent the wife, I skipped around and played the few favorite scenes over and over.  I was really quite impressed again with the bass and the force from these speakers.  Honestly, the typical subwoofer from any HTiB system, or even dedicated subs from the Big Box retail stores won’t sound this good on the low end.  That’s really a sad statement on the part of consumer electronics these days, but really good for those owning a set of the A6.t speakers.  Certainly, adding a sub from eD or another big name subwoofer maker is my recommendation for home theater, but as stand-alone speakers, they are very impressive on the low-end.

In summary, the A6.t tower speakers from Elemental Designs excel for bass, are solid in the mid-range, and lack some detail and finesse on the high end.  For the $500 price tag, you can find other speakers that are more detailed on the high end and a little cleaner in the middle.  However, you won’t find anything that has clean, low bass for this or perhaps even double the price.  If you sit around listening to instrumental music all day, then they probably aren’t for you.  But if you want something more full range, then the A6.ts will fit the five $100 bills nicely.  Lots of bass, classic look, great at high volumes, affordability…  If those are high on your priority list, then the A6.t is most certainly your best bet!

Has my article helped you at all?  Please dontate via Dwolla!  I prefer Dwolla because it only costs a quarter for the transaction fee!  You will notice there are no ads and junk, but an honest review and several detailed images instead.  This isn't your typical review, and it's what I wish all reviews were.  Donating a buck or two sure does help me to buy more gear for more reviews. ...and I certainly won't turn down larger donations.  :-)  Or, you can use paypal if you must, I won't turn that down either...   Thanks!!