Herb Reichert of Stereophile was sitting beside Andrew Jones in an ELAC room at an audio show when he noticed the curtains behind the left speaker blowing in the wind from its port. He tapped Jones on the shoulder and pointed, and both of them laughed. ELAC makes two kinds of speaker. Its affordable Debut and UniFi ranges aim for an honest, even sound, and Andrew Robinson measured the Debut 3.0 bookshelf and called it "an incredibly neutral speaker." Its upmarket ranges carry the JET tweeter, a folded sheet of film that squeezes air out of its pleats like an accordion, several times faster than the film itself moves. Reichert hears the result as "quiet, fatigue-free detail and apparently low distortion." ELAC suits listeners who want a balanced, honest speaker at a modest price, with a JET model to move up to later.

The Debut 3.0 bookshelf is the way in. ELAC's advice, which Robinson followed, is to keep the speakers a foot or two from the side walls, space them as far apart as you sit from them, then adjust the toe-in. He also added a subwoofer. The Debut Reference DBR62 is the step up, and Phil of Darko Audio, who owns the regular DB62, concluded "If you like the DB62, you're going to LOVE the Reference version." Robinson's tip is to "let the debut reference bookshelf loudspeakers be the cheapest part of your system," and his came alive with a Naim Uniti Atom. The UniFi 2.0 UB52 puts the tweeter at the center of the midrange driver, and Steve Guttenberg says that if imaging has never made sense to you, "with this speaker you will get imaging." Some ELACs want a bit more power. The UniFi Reference UBR62 measured 83.3 dB in Erin Hardison's tests, and he moved up to his bigger Parasound integrated to drive it.

ELAC started with sound under water. Electroacustic GmbH opened in Kiel on September 1, 1926, and its early work was sonar. After the war it built sewing machines, auto parts and audio gear. Its first consumer product was the PW1 record player of 1948, and Alan Sircom of Hi-Fi+ says turntables made ELAC's name from then until the 1980s. The first ELAC loudspeaker came only in 1984, the 4Pi omnidirectional tweeter in 1985 and the JET in 1993. On a visit to Kiel, Sven Bilén of SoundStage! learned that folding a JET III diaphragm by hand once took nearly half an hour, and that the fifth-generation JET V takes a third of that. ELAC's second reputation dates from 2015, when Jones, who had designed speakers at Pioneer and TAD, launched the Debut B6, and Reichert reviewed it favorably in Stereophile the next April. ELAC revived the Miracord name of its 1950s and 60s turntables for its 90th anniversary, and the Miracord 90 Anniversary won an EISA Award.