Loudspeakers

Not long after the French company returned to the speaker market, the Planet L was the first Elipson speaker that we looked at all the way back in HFC 350. Since then, it has remained part of the range while Elipson has bolstered its offering with more conventional models. With this year marking the 80th anniversary of the company, the Planet L has been tweaked to become the Gold Edition.

The key aspects of the Planet L remain unchanged. It’s a 29cm diameter sphere that takes inspiration from the designs that the company built for French TV and radio in the Fifties and Sixties. Key to making its shape work is minimising the number of holes in it. With this in mind, Elipson employs a concentric driver. The 165mm mid/bass uses a paper cone and the 25mm soft dome tweeter is mounted in its centre.

The crossover has been treated to a selection of higher spec components in the signal path. These include a new inductor with larger section conductor to lower series resistance partnered with polypropylene MKP capacitors and metal oxide-type resistors. The critical measurements have not changed, though, and this remains a fairly easy speaker to drive.

The Gold Edition is finished in a selection of new colours, which all have planetary themes to them. Black stays black, but white becomes Mercury Ice, red is Mars Lava and green is… well… Uranus Cloud. All are fronted with a striking gold grille and support ring (although none of the other stands and accessories are available in this finish). The result is going to vary on personal taste, but it’s beautifully made and finished even judged at the slightly higher price.

Sound quality
One of the reasons the Planet L has enjoyed a long and fruitful life is that it really is rather good. Once you get your head around the fact that the looks are not a gimmick, you can start to enjoy some of the benefits of what it can actually do. The key attribute is a spectacular disappearing act. Place the Elipson with any degree of care and the combination of the compact and inert cabinet and those concentric drivers means it disappears from the soundstage it creates. Close your eyes and listen, and it is remarkably tricky to determine where the two speakers are in the wider performance in front of you. This means that Fink’s Beauty In Your Wake is delivered with an impressive sense of a mechanical interface to it.

The concentric driver works a charm as well. For the vast majority of time you listen to it, the Elipson sounds like a single very well sorted and supremely talented driver rather than two. This imbues it with a natural and largely unembellished tonality that helps voices and instruments sound as they should. Where the revised crossover makes itself felt is even when you lean on the speaker with faster and more complicated music, it hangs together beautifully delivering 1982 by A Certain Ratio with a real sense of drive and engagement.

There are still limits, though. The bass extension is respectable, but your £1,000 will secure rivals with more weight and impact. The Planet L Gold Edition will also harden up a little if you really push it, but you have to be listening at uncivilised volumes for this to be an issue. At less ballistic levels, however, it’s impressively refined and manages to be forgiving of less-than-perfect recordings.

Conclusion
Crucially, any rival I can think of at this sort of price with more low-end shove or cohesion when you push it hard cannot match the lack of colouration and imaging on offer here and certainly won’t look like set-dressing on a Seventies sci-fi show while it does so. This is an interesting update that makes a talented speaker that little bit better. Elipson’s present to itself is truly a gift to us all. ES    

DETAILS
Product: Elipson Planet L Gold Edition
Type: Standmount loudspeaker

FEATURES
● 25mm soft dome tweeter
● 165mm mid/bass driver
● Quoted sensitivity: 90dB/1W/1m (8ohm)