Low divorce acceleration factor. Snappy and tight. Excellent 3D soundstage. More volume and bass extension than expected. Airy, open top end. Adds no character. The sound you get will depend on what drives them.

Need 100 watts or so of solid state power to sound right. Looks wont impress your non-audiophile friends.

Every time we listen to a small speaker that sounds decent, we remark "wow, thats great bass for a small speaker". I was in the audio business for a number of years, and had this experience many times. But with the elac 310's, it was rather unbelievable that such deep notes were coming from such minute boxes. They should more realistically be compared to similarly priced towers in their price range. They also play surprisingly loud. They may look like a lifestyle product, but this is merely coincidental. The small woofer in a small extruded aluminum cabinet allows for an exceedingly tight sound. It is also very close to being a point source, so imaging is excellent. Top end is amazingly transparent, and seems to extend forever. These speakers are for the listener who wants no mistakes. They are a true high end product, if properly driven. Im using the roksan Kandy cd player and integrated amp, and I play it whenever Im home.

Similar Products Used:

Energy veritas, paradigm reference, morel, totem, vandersteen, dynaudio.

Very clean treble, compact foot-print, stylish design, bi-wire.

Bass? Not magnetically shielded.

I've owned these speakers for more than 3 years, I knew they were good - seen many reviews from all over the world. The famous Japanese "Hi-Vi Magazine" still talks about it every now and then - that is more than 2 years since they made their first review on it. The JET tweeters delivers very clean treble, anyone who have auditioned them would agree that the same sound belongs to speakers that are priced 5 times more. Lot of the reviews that I have read talks about the exceptional bass they deliver when considering their compact sizes. But frankly, I didn't find the bass any particularly impressive. Yet, I'm not sure if it was the CL310 were to blame, or was it because of my amp - which is a rather old AURA VA-50II. I am still conviced (hoping?) that the CL310 could be better, and I need someone who could give me some advice on which amp I should try. I have seen Elac using Arcam amps for their demos - are they good match? My current config is: Sony DVP-S7700 Tara Labs Prism Bi-wire Speaker Cables AURA VA-50II Been thinking of the following upgrades: Arcam A32 Classe CAP-101 Would appreciate it if anyone could advice. Thanks!

Similar Products Used:

Celestion DL-8II, KEF Uni-Q Series, JBL Control Series.

I could not believe my ears.. After listening to many speakers, I fell in love with these Elacs'. Of course with the fair price consideration. Clarity is fantastic. And the spaciousness -- you can feel the depth of the stage sound. Pretty low bass, but not as low as I prefered (18Hz)

Slight discoloration at higher Dbs. Lower bass is also not too tempting.

For one who love to own a high end speakers with a little budget in mind, I would suggest you to look no further. After intensive search for a pair of high end speakers at a fair price, these Elac speakers will do the job for you. Durability is very important as you want to have the same listening pleasures in years to come. Just get a pair of these babes and the rest is history.

After living for 2 weeks now with these amazing little speakers from ELAC i only can say: FANTASTIC!!!I never,never heard such a great sound stage from speakers from this size. Full and deep dry clean bass,the sweetest high i ever heard and a terrific midrange. Also a wonderfull definition of all instruments.
You have to power these little wonders with a real good class A amplifier with
enough juice.Valve amplifiers are not recommanded due to the impedance behaviour.Also i found out that a very good pair of speaker cables are necessary to get the best out of the CL-310's. I use Croneberg 5mm2 cable.

I was looking for a pair of speakers that did not sound as if there were boxes. These little speakers accomplish this task in spades, mostl likley because there is hardly a cabinet to speak of. I assume ELAC was also able to enginerr our any cabinet colorations with the use of extremely rigig aluminum. The imaging and soundstage are fantastic.

Could do with more base at lower volumes, but they do reach lower than many floorstanders at which I looked at. In this size range I reckon perhaps ProAc Tablettes may have done a better job with bass, but ProAc's seems to suit tubes best and I have a pair of Audiolab 8000M's

This is a fantastic speaker, not just for it's size but compared to any speaker in it's price range. The fact that it's smaller than most mini-system speakers is all that more astonishing. It makes guest's jaws drop and has a high WAP (Wife Approval Factor). This speaker will keep you up late night listening to everything in your collection. The treble and midrange are sweet.

The are a very focused speaker and although slight off cener listening is still highly enjoyable, the sound does change drastically if you move too far. I also reckon the stands could be a bit shorter.