Elipson - Next Media

TEST
Style system
Performing
In The Round
French company Elipson combines
Gallic good looks with a performance that
quite tickled our own spherical objects.
Elipson
Music Center &
Planet L loudspeakers
Price: $1999 / $1199
E
lipson’s Planet L spherical speakers
make quite the design statement in
any room. These are no mini spheres;
they’re big old eyeballs, as many a
visitor to S+I HQ called them — the sphere
diameter is 29cm, and they seem even bigger.
When combined with their accompanying
silver cylinder-section of a Music Center (sic),
you have a complete and simple system. There
is much detail to talk about here, which may
make things sound clever and complex, and
you can certainly option it up with additional
equipment, as did we. But this remains one
for the aesthetes, in terms of having just
that beautifully-styled cake-tin control unit
combining built-in amplification with CD
player, digital radio and streaming sources,
and then those spherical speakers with their
surprisingly heavy stands that hide the cables
within. You can clear out the rest of the
house, and relax. Because while things may
look fab, this is not a triumph of design over
performance. The sphere is a good shape for
hi-fi. Things are great all over.
Equipment
The speakers can sit on a flat surface using
the supplied table rings, but look rather more
impressive on stands, wall brackets or ceiling
mounts. (See our Verdict panel for pricing of
these optional extras.) For this review we bolted
them to their exceedingly heavy floorstands.
OK, a long list of abilities to be described for
the Music Center. It has both FM and digital
radio with a DAB+ tuner; these (unusually and
pleasingly) share a single antenna connection,
for which a string antenna is provided. It has a
slot-loading CD player on the front, and it’s easy
to add additional sources using any of the three
auxiliary inputs (two with full-size RCA sockets,
one a minijack), or the optical digital input, or
the USB slot which can read from a stick or a
hard-drive. A small and light remote is well
stocked with buttons to control everything.
Then there are wireless options — the
Music Center comes with a dongle for the
USB socket of a computer, while there’s an
optional dongle for an Apple device such as
iPhone, iPod or iPad. Either of these will then
stream your music direct and cable free, not
to mention doing so at full and uncompressed
CD quality (assuming your source material is
of such lofty bitrate). Remember that if you
send music from your computer this way,
you’ll no longer have audible audio available
from the computer itself.
There are also outputs available on the
Music Center — pre-outs if you wish to use a
more powerful amplifier, a headphone socket
that is rather trickily positioned around the
back, and a subwoofer output.
Performance
We almost immediately made use of that
subwoofer output. The clarity of the Planet L
speakers was clear from the first hour of music
we played; they’re punchy and dynamic,
revealing of detail and capable of excellent
soundstage picture painting. There’s some
bass there, the specifications saying 48Hz to
20kHz within a -3dB envelope, but the spheres
simply didn’t have quite enough of the bottom
octaves for our tastes, even after experimenting
with different positioning to make the most of
their rear ports.
The addition of a subwoofer balanced out
the spectrum (you can set the Music Center’s
bass filter from 100Hz to 200Hz), and the
combination achieved brilliant imaging and
soundstaging in particular, as well as a rich
and genuine hi-fi sound that should impress
all who hear it, and indeed knock out those not
used to such niceties of sonic reproduction.
We cranked Zeppelin, we zoned out to
Keith Jarrett’s Köln Concert, we sampled
the new Muppets Green Album and had our
dopamine levels very much maxed by Hayley
55
Style system
TEST
“These are no mini
spheres; they’re big old
eyeballs, as many a
visitor to S+I HQ
called them — the
sphere diameter is 29cm”
William’s vocal with Weezer on Rainbow
Connection. The quoted power of the Music
Center is 120W of Class-D ICEpower into four
ohms, or 60W into eight ohms (the Planet Ls
are quoted at six ohms), and things sounded
great; we also upgraded amplification via the
preouts, and found the Planet L’s revelled in
the extra headroom made available.
As for the individual sources, the CD
player was the most straightforward, with its
lovely slot-loading mech gliding the CD into
place, with all necessary control from the wellprovisioned remote. Replay via the USB socket
was very old-school — only MP3 and WMA
files, no support for AAC or lossless, certainly
no high-res music here.
For the two radio sources we tried the
supplied antenna string without success in
our north Sydney location — too weak for
even strong FM stations and barely a lock with
DAB; we gave it a roof aerial connection which
yielded reception for both, though a mono
button would be useful for weaker FM
stations. There are 25 presets available
for favourite stations.
We used the optical input from
an Apple TV and were thereby able
to play our whole iTunes collection
with iPad control, an excellent
experience. Another way to do this,
at the cost of a little battery life, would
be to use the optional ‘Well’ dongle in
your iPad, iPhone or iPod and stream
your music wirelessly and losslessly. For us
the apparently simple pairing procedure for
the Well wouldn’t work first time; we got
more specific instructions from distributor
Audio Dynamics and did later get it to work;
persistence required.
No such problems with the included big
USB dongle plugged into our laptop, which
sounded great and confirmed Elipson’s
claim of uncompressed music emerging at
the other end. If you’re following the manual
here, note that some computer terms have
suffered in translation from the French — for
‘Configuration Panel’ read ‘Control Panel’; for
‘Material’, read ‘Hardware’.
Conclusion
Aside from our preference of adding a
subwoofer, and a little trouble with the optional
‘Well’ for iDevices, we thoroughly enjoyed the
six weeks we spent with the Elipson system. It
provides genuine hi-fi results in a style-laden
package, whether you run them minimalist
for great and clean results, or play around as
we did, ending up with them taking an optical
digital feed from a computer-fed asynchronous
DAC, out of the Music Center’s pre-outs into
a big pre-power amp combo and back to the
Planet Ls via the subwoofer. A few more cables
than most buyers will desire! But it proves
the versatility of this system, as well as its
natural beauty. Jez Ford
56
Verdict
Elipson Music Center /
Planet L loudspeakers
Price: $1999 / $1199
ElIPSon Music Center
Power: 2 x 120W ICEpower (Class-D)
quoted into 4 ohms, 2x 60W into 8 ohm,
no distortion specs quoted
Display: LCD, adjustable/automatic
brightness
Sources: DAB+/FM radio, CD
Inputs: 3 x auxiliary (2 x RCA phono,
1 x minijack), optical digital, antenna,
USB Outputs: stereo preout, subwoofer
(filtered), headphone minijack
USB playback: MP3, WMA
Wireless ‘Well’ playback: 16-bit
44.1kHz from provided USB dongle or
optional Apple dock connector
Optional floorstand: $149
Dimensions: 330mm diameter x 73mm
height
Weight: 6kg
Warranty: Two years
Epsilon Planet L
Type: bass reflex two-way coaxial drivers
Drivers: 25mm fabric-dome tweeter,
6.5-inch paper-cone mid/bass
Quoted response: 48-20,000Hz (no
envelope quoted)
Stands: Table-ring provided, stands $299,
wallbrackets $229, ceiling mounts
$149 each
Colours: black, white, red
Dimensions: 290mm diameter
Weight: 6kg
Warranty: Five years
Contact: Audio Dynamics
Tel: 03 9882 0372
Web: www.audiodynamics.com.au
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