ELAC Varro Subwoofers
Unleashing Audiophile-Grade Bass Power
This article is on a completely new lineup of subwoofers from our friends at ELAC called Varro. You might know ELAC from their award-winning, budget-priced speakers first introduced in 2006. Ever since then, they have always had several models of speakers on almost all of the “best of for the money” lists from reviewers all around the world.
ELAC: A Legacy of Engineering Excellence
What you may not know is how much engineering prowess ELAC has as a company, which led to this great new series of Varro subwoofers. ELAC as a company has been around for almost 100 years and was founded in Germany. They invented the moving magnet phono cartridge and were a huge seller of turntables back in the day. Now they have engineering facilities in Orange County, California, and Toronto, Canada, with their largest group headquartered in Kiel, Germany. ELAC uses Klippel analysis, anechoic chambers, outdoor measurements, and real-world listening in the design of their speakers and subwoofers.
ELAC JET Tweeter
Another fun feature is their JET tweeter. It is a patented design of theirs that takes inspiration from the famous Air Motion Transformer by loudspeaker pioneer Dr. Oskar Heil. This lighting-fast driver is flat out to an astonishing 50K with a smooth and effortless character. It is so good you’ll find it used in the best auto sound systems in many well-respected German automobiles.
The Birth of Varro Subwoofers: ELAC's Commitment to Excellence
With such a big success in great value speakers, ELAC had some subwoofers in the past but had not paid as much attention to them as their bookshelf and tower speakers. They did have some really cool software tech, as they were the first company in 2015 to have a subwoofer app and the first to offer auto room EQ on subs. In 2021, they decided to get serious about it to pair the software with even better components and hired a veteran chief engineer from another famous speaker company to begin work on the new line that would eventually become Varro as you see it here.
Cutting-Edge Technology Uniting the Varro Lineup
The Varro subwoofers cover a very wide range of prices, but they also share a whole lot of similar technology. We will first go over the tech they all have in common, then get into each series to help you decide which one might be the best for your home theater or music system.
Meticulously-Crafted Cabinets
All of the Varro subs have extremely well-made cabinets. Every single one has internal cross bracing and special damping material to keep the cabinet from doing anything but letting the woofer do its job. They all have threaded feet that can be spikes or rubber feet with an optional sorbothane foot available in the future.
ELAC's Special Ceramic Magnet
While the drivers differ between models, all Varro subwoofers utilize ELAC's special ceramic magnet. This advanced magnet technology enhances the subwoofers' efficiency and performance, contributing to their exceptional sound reproduction.
BASH Amplifier: Power Meets Precision
All of the Varro subs use a very special amplifier design called a BASH amp. ELAC’s CEO brought BASH to the consumer market and it is now used by several different, well-known speaker companies. They have used it for a few years and Varro gets an updated version of this excellent design. Just about any audiophile will agree a Class AB amplifier will control a woofer better than a full digital amp. The BASH amp mates up to a modulated switch mode power supply to the Class AB amp section. It switches at over 400,000 times a second while tracking the incoming audio signal to deliver only the voltage necessary, plus a little headroom to handle big dynamic peaks. The advantage of this type of design is the power amp for the sub can deliver a tremendous amount of power.
Unleashing the Full Potential with the ELAC App
As we said earlier, ELAC was the first company to have an app for subwoofers, and boy, is it one fantastic app! It's been updated for Varro with better auto EQ and quicker and better Bluetooth connection capabilities. Using the app made it so easy for us in our testing to blend the sub with the main speakers.
The home screen shows the subwoofer volume and preset you are in. One really cool feature is if you have more than one sub, you can control each one individually, but group their relative volume levels. You can actually group up to 8 subs together!
When you go to the setup screen, you’ll be able to fine-tune the crossover if you are using the one in the sub, from 40 to 150 Hz in 1 Hz increments. You have full control of the phase from zero to 360 degrees. You can add up to 20 milliseconds of delay if you wish. You can also set the auto-on function to turn the sub on with different thresholds of signal levels, which can be very handy if you listen at low volumes. We’ve seen some auto-turn-on subs not turn on at very low levels. Then if you like to tweak, you’ll love the parametric EQ screen. You get 8 bands of adjustment up to 200 Hz with full Q and gain control over each one.
Auto EQ: Perfecting Bass Reproduction
ELAC was also the first company to include auto EQ in a speaker and, we have to say, this is an incredibly easy one to set up. It's pretty neat how it works too. You first put your phone with the mic pointed at the woofer in very close proximity to the woofer. This will take a snapshot of what should be coming out of the sub with very little room effect. You then move to your listening position and run the test again, where the ELAC software will compare it to the first measurement and try to get the sub as flat as possible for your listening position.
As a sidebar, if you purchase your ELAC subwoofer from Audio Advice, we will include some tips and tricks we discovered when using the app on how to get the best outcome from the auto EQ system and how to best adjust your AVR to blend the sub into your system.
Once you have your system fine-tuned, there are four presets that basically just change the low end of the curve. Flat is going to be the most accurate with Night rolling off the bottom end some. Music gives the lower end of the bass spectrum an ever-so-slight boost, while theater boosts it a bit more. These are easy to play around with and we wound up using flat and night for most of our testing.
To ensure this processing does not alter the low-frequency audio signal coming in, ELAC uses a dual 28-Bit DSP system with a 147mHz master clock frequency for great accuracy and minimal latency.
Varro Subwoofers: Unveiling Each Series
Now that we've explored the impressive technology shared by all Varro subwoofers, let's take a closer look at each series within the lineup. By understanding the features and specifications of each series, you can determine which Varro subwoofer is the perfect match for your home theater or music system.
Varro Premium Series: Unparalleled Value
The first series in Varro is called Premium. We have a very strong suspicion these are going to be just like the first ELAC bookshelf speakers and become very popular as a great value subwoofer.
All of these use 30 mm thick MDF cabinets with a nice vinyl wrap. These are bass reflex designs with a port on the bottom. Each one is damped and braced based on the driver size used. The Varro models all have a high excursion paper cone driver. The driver itself is extremely lightweight and is treated to improve its stiffness. They all deploy a 2” long-throw voice coil and are coupled to the large ceramic magnet. The models include a 10” PS250BK, a 12” PS350BK, and 15” PS500BK version.
The specs are very impressive as the 3db down points are 27, 24, and 20 Hz measured in an anechoic chamber and 24, 21, and 16 in a room. That is darn good and we are happy to see these published at - 3db. Amplifier power is 250 continuous on the 10”, 350 on the 12”, and 500 on the 15” with double that available for peaks.
These are some of the fastest bass reflex subs we have ever heard with speed to keep up with small driver bookshelf or tower speakers, yet they can produce a tremendous amount of SPL. ELAC’s measured anechoic levels are 107, 108, and 115 db. Now anechoic does gain you some but even so, those are very high levels before distortion for the bargain prices on these models.
The 15” sub with its great cabinet, driver, amp, and app control with EQ is only $999.98 ! For everything you get, that is amazing. You could even get two of them for the price of some smaller single subwoofers and really rock your home theater. The 10” at this time is $649.98 , while the 12” is . As we always say — two subs are better than one — and ELAC is supporting this sentiment with a discount when you purchase two subs at once!
Varro Reference Series: Audiophile-Grade Precision
The next series is called Reference and consists of two models, a 10” RS500SB and a 12” RS700SB. These are both sealed boxes and we spent the most time listening to the 12” version.
When you move up to Reference the solid MDF cabinet gets thicker at 35mm. The external look of the cabinet is much more high-end with rounded edges and a satin-painted finish. The woofer itself is completely different. The cone moves from treated paper to a pretty unique sandwich design. Two treated paper cones go in between an aluminum sandwich using a special gluing process. This is a great idea, as it gives you the benefit that paper drivers have of great transient responses and the rigidity of aluminum which lets the woofer have a longer throw to handle very deep bass and higher output.
The basket for these gets upgraded to a die-cast type with a 2 ½” voice coil and a larger ceramic magnet. But the most unique aspect is its very interesting hexagon shape.
ELAC had done a lot of measurements on woofers that are mounted vertically in a cabinet. They found no matter how great the design was, there is always going to be a tiny amount of sag due to gravity. They came up with what they call Hex Technology for the surround. This type of geometry allows the driver to move more like a true piston which gave them lower measured distortion even at very high levels. Plus, it just looks very serious!
The Reference series also comes with a wireless receiver built into the back of the sub so you can go wireless if needed with the optional ELAC wireless transmitter. This transmitter can actually talk to 3 ELAC subs, making getting multiple subwoofers into your system at the right physical locations super easy.
There are also some very beefy speaker wire connections on the rear should you wish to connect up that way. This is usually done in a high-end two-channel audio system. Some music lovers believe if you run speaker wire from your main amp to the sub, the sub amp will take on more of the sonic character of your amp. When you do this, your main speakers will usually play full range and you would use the crossover in the subwoofer to have it kick in where your mains roll off. It's nice ELAC offers this for that use case with very nice connections and an app that makes it super easy to set up for this situation.
The specs on these are very impressive which carried over to how great we thought the RS700SB sounded.
The 3db down for anechoic is 18hz on the 10” and 17 on the 12”, with the in-room at 15hz and 14hz. Maximum anechoic SPL is 108 and 111 dB. You get bigger BASH amps in these two with 500 continuous on the 10” and 700 on the 12”, double the power available for peaks.
We have to talk about the price of these two. The launch price on these are $1,299.98 and $1,499.98 . We have to say, the 12” with everything you get and how it sounded in our testing makes it one heck of a bargain for someone who is very serious about the way their system sounds on music but also wants deep and explosive bass for home theater.
Varro Dual Reference Series: Maximum Power
The top-of-the-line is the Dual Reference DS1000GB and DS1200GB. These are for users who want maximum SPL while maintaining the speed offered by the Reference series. This extra headroom does offer the advantage of the woofer sounding even more effortless at low to moderate volumes.
The drivers are identical, but you get two mounted on the sides of a high gloss cabinet with angled side walls. The cabinet gets a little thicker at 36mm here with bracing and damping design for this driver configuration. These maintain the nice speaker level inputs like the Reference and add balanced audio inputs as well.
The amp power, as you might expect, moves up to 1000 and 1200 watts continuously with double that for peaks. These do not go any lower in frequency than the Reference models but do offer the ability to play far louder with 115 db and 118db anechoic peaks measured. As we said earlier, this does give them a slightly more effortless feel at lower to moderate levels too.
ELAC Varro Subwoofer Performance
We played a lot of material on the RS700SB. For home theater use, it was fantastic delivering very deep explosive bass. The room we had it in was roughly 19 by 15 with 10 ft ceilings and just the one sub filled the space well. Although with its price, two would be even nicer.
However, what impressed us the most was how well we could get it to integrate with speakers that are so fast and phase accurate, mating up a sub is usually a challenge. We tested it in a 21’ by 14’ by 9’ ceiling height room on the long wall with a pair of JBL 4367 speakers. These are super fast and accurate but do roll-off in this room at about 50 hz. We wired these up with a stereo McIntosh preamp using the second set of outputs, letting the JBL’s naturally roll off, and used the RS700’s crossover. It was so nice to be able to fine-tune the crossover and levels using the app. Once we had it dialed in, the only thing you could sense was the music went lower in the deep bass, which is fantastic. There was no feeling of a different sounding source for the deep bass as it blended in perfectly with the JBLS.
Some of the tracks we used were the crazy deep bass in Yello’s “Oh Yeah,” “Long After You’ve Gone” by Chris Jones, and the classic “Thanks to You” by Boz Scaggs. On all of these, it just sounded like the speakers now had a far more deep bass extension which is exactly what you want out of a great subwoofer. When we transitioned away from deep bass demo-type material to just regular jazz and rock, we still loved the way the music seemed to add an extra octave while blending in so well.
Choosing the Perfect Varro Subwoofer for Your System
To sum things up, ELAC has really hit the mark with these new Varro subwoofers. The Premium series offers outstanding value for the money while the Reference and Dual Reference offer both home theater slam and hardcore audiophile-level bass accuracy with the Reference being the better value in our minds. We invite you to reach out to our team of passionate audio experts to help you decide which model might be the best match to complement your home theater or home audio system.
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