Morel Elate Ltd Edition three-way components

Supplied in what looks a little like a case for a high end sniper rifle, these are a very high quality set of loudspeakers indeed. Made as an especially desirable limited edition of only 500 sets, each distributor in the world was to be given only ten. The UK distributors are so well hooked into the top end of the discerning ice trade that they quickly sold their allocation and then begged for that of another territory. In fact, Morel have had to admit that the UK is better at finding lovers of high end speaker systems than other places and the Flagship guys have had even more of the 500, beating the rest of Europe! Comprising the MT-24LE Acuflex„¢ coated soft dome tweeter and the CDM-88LE dome midrange with the same coating and the SW 6LE woofer with the Accuset MX-22.2LE passive crossover. The passive can be used single-wire with jumpers, bi-wired or else bi-amplified with a separate amp to run the woofer and the mid-high section. The woofers are made of two layers of carbon fibre with a Rohacell layer between them. The mid and HF drivers’ magnets are double Neodymium types, so very strong, while the woofers’ magnets are hybrid Neodymium/Ferrite but still six times more powerful than regular Ferrite-alone types. The voice coils are external to the magnets so are three times the ‘normal’ size. These coils are Hexatech„¢ Aluminium and are lighter and yet more efficient due to small air gaps and allow faster transient response.  The woofer has a ‘Controlled Acoustic Resistance’ air filter on its base to attempt to mimic the effects of it being mounted in an enclosure as such speakers are normally mounted ‘free-air’ or without the acoustic support of an enclosure. The chassis is shaped to best allow airflow around it and the magnet structure is shielded to prevent flux from interfering with the rest of your system’s wiring. All very advanced stuff.
Elate SW 6LE woofer
– Carbon fibre/Rohacell composite cone
– Power Handling: 200w RMS /1,000w transient
– Efficiency 1w/1m: 88dB
– Frequency Response: 25Hz to 4kHz
– Crossover Point: 380Hz @12dB per Octave
– Voice Coil Diameter: 75mm (3in)
– Voice Coil Height: 16mm (0.62in)
– Aluminium voice coil former
– Hexatech Aluminium voice coil wire for less gaps in the coil’s cross section
– Neodymium Ferrite hybrid rear vented magnet
– Flux density: 0.8T
– Voice coil inductance @ 1kHz: 0.44MH
– Suspension compliance CMS: 0.560
– FS: 50Hz
– Max linear excursion/Xmax: 10mm, +/-5mm
– QES: 0.44
– QT: 0.37
– QMS: 2.21
– Moving Mass: 16.5g
– VAS: 11 litres
– Piston Area SD: 119cm2
– Mounting Depth: 61mm
CDM 88LE mid
– Acuflex coated soft silk dome
– Power Handling: 100w RMS /300w transient
– Efficiency 1w/1m: 89dB
– Frequency Response: 450Hz to 7kHz
– Crossover: 3,00Hz, 6dB per Octave to 3,800Hz @ 6/12dB per Octave variable
– Voice Coil Diameter: 54mm (2.1in)
– Aluminium voice coil former
– Hexatech Aluminium voice coil wire for less gaps in the coil’s cross section
– Neodymium rear vented magnet
– FS: 280Hz
– Unit diameter: 88mm
– Mounting Depth: 21mm
MT-24LE tweeter
– Acuflex coated soft silk dome
– Power Handling: 130w RMS /250w transient
– Efficiency 1w/1m: 90dB
– Frequency Response: 1,400Hz to 25kHz
– Crossover Point: 3,800Hz, 6/12dB per Octave variable
– Voice Coil Diameter: 28mm (1.1in)
– Aluminium voice coil former
– Hexatech Aluminium voice coil wire for less gaps in the coil’s cross section
– Double Neodymium H-type magnet
– FS: 700Hz
– Unit diameter: 45mm
– Mounting Depth: 20mm
Review by Adam Rayner
These speakers are not the type you posh into any old wooden box and plonk upon a known good amplifier to test them. I waited until I could hear a serious install with them in as the speakers are the most important part of any system for me. Yes, Lee Thomas’ Astra van has an amazing array of amplifiers from the Audison Thesis line and even the new and already fabled Audio Wave people and also runs on a very posh top end Pioneer competition unit but it is the speakers that enable the awesome performance to be heard.
Now just lately I have been lucky enough to hear some absolutely astonishingly expensive equipment with a pair of speakers priced at £50,000. Another set with a CD system for £150,000 made by Steinway with Lyngdorf. Yet these speakers at a ‘mere’ 31,750 are able to raise that utterly audiophile result. The incredible speed and accuracy of really serious reproduction. The cabin in the Astra has been designed with sonic performance alone in mind and to hell with it being left big enough for tall passengers. It’s crafted to fit Lee like a glove and has extensive sound treatment fabric surfaces to damp the resonances off the glass.
As a result it sounds like a studio control room in Lee’s car. The speakers are thus bizarrely amazing value for you top end pound as you can spend many many thousands more on the top end from say Rainbow. I haven’t heard any of their seven grand speaker systems and this one was run actively, so I also cannot really hand-on-heart give you an opinion of the very sophisticated and adjustable passive crossovers’ performance.
However, I sat in the van (it was at the CAS event and we were in a separate and much quieter car parking area) and sweltered so as not to have the air con interfere. Lee played me various things and explained that he was running two of the Morel Ultimo 12 woofers I so loved, each on an Audison Thesis amp making his bass system alone worth £9,200 before installation costs!
The Audiowave amplifiers are bloody breathtakingly fast and sweet as they fed perfection into the Elates and they simply served it up. I can honestly say that while the sound-cabin utter impracticality and van environment makes the Astra van look a bit sad next to mark Tuner’s Euro-winning BMW EMMA car, the sound is simply better from the Elates which actually cost a bit less than the top-nutter price Pioneer ODR speakers.
Breath-takingly beautiful and so accurate it slapped me very hard with a very old and ancient clich�. Just how bloody OLD is the Graceland Album by Paul Simon? I bought it, played it to death and have played it a bit down the years. I knew it was well produced but I sat there astonished and jaw agape as I heard detail and extra bits going on that I simply had never ever picked out before. It is a very highly wrung and pure production and a real surprise after decades!
So beautiful to hear, sexy to receive in the gun case and just fabulous even versus other mad end type products, it can be no surprise at all to find that the Morel Elate Limited Edition three way component speakers score highly enough to garner a terribly rare Talk Audio State Of The Art award.
As they say in Israel, Mazel-Tov!
Overall 9.6
Sound Quality 10
Build Quality 10
Power Handling 10
Efficiency 9
Value For Money 9