ELAC Adante SUB3070

There are not many knobs to play with; actually there is only one, which is a master volume knob. The sub is entirely controlled by ELAC’s own app (available for Android and iOS). Pairing is a matter of two seconds, and the app is very intuitive. During the two months with the SUB3070, it happened couple of times to me that the sub, although paired, stopped reacting to the app’s controls. The easy fix was to restart the app and the sub.

 The app has 3 screens. The starting one where you can control the sub’s volume and one of its predefined modes. The Flat one is default, the Cinema mode has a gentle boost centered at 80Hz, the Music mode does the same centered at 40Hz, and the Night mode attenuates the sub’s output by 3dB. These equalizations are effective yet subtle and do not step in the way of music. The other two screen control parametric equalization and advanced settings. You can choose whether to do everything manually or rely on automatics. In the latter case, after starting the auto-calibration, the SUB3070 sends two sweeps to the room – one to measure the nearfield response and calibrate the microphone in your smartphone, and another one to measure the response in your listening position. Only your phone is needed, no additional measurement hardware. Be careful. The SUB3070 gives -3dB output at 18Hz and the sweeps are LOUD! After that, the subwoofer auto-generates necessary compensations and shows the screen with before/after measurements and the corrections applied. I must admit that, with other subwoofers, I always had a bad experience when allowing them to auto-calibrate. Usually, I ended up with overboosted bass. This ELAC works flawlessly, however, and the result is much deeper and cleaner bass in the room in only 10 seconds. Still, the audiophile inner self whispers “tweak the bass further”. That’s why manual parametric screen is available for setting up to 8 filters, each with centre frequency (20-200Hz), continuously selectable bandwidth (Q factor), and amplitude controls (+/-10dB). Separate settings for low pass, phase, and delay are available. The phase can be fine tune by 1 degree, and I guarantee that, after an hour of listening to some bass-heavy material and moving the phase slider by tiny increments to find the ‘perfectly-in-phase’ single point, you will leave the rest for the next day. The delay is an absolutely amazing function in case that you understood well what I wrote in the first three paragraphs of this review. This way the SUB3070 can be electronically moved further away from the listening position (in one millisecond increments), until its transient response is perfectly aligned with main speakers. Very few subwoofers offer such a level of matching. As far as the frequency response corrections are concerned, I recommend cutting instead of boosting. Cutting with a high Q by several decibels can help tightening the bass. If you need to boost, do it with a low broad Q and do not boost more than 0.5-1.0dB.

I acknowledge my full responsibility for not reporting to you how much better Pink Floyd, Patricia Barber, Diana Krall, Dire Straits, Yello, and other obligatory recordings sounded. However, the purpose of this review was to bring your attention to one of the most accomplished subwoofers out there. On top of that, this subwoofer measures great, looks great, and is affordable.