Elipson Horus 6B Active BT

Elipson is by no means the first hi-fi brand to ‘actify’ a pair of its existing passive loudspeakers by integrating an amplifier, DAC and a wealth of connections into the cabinet, and it certainly won’t be the last. But it is one of the few to do so without significantly upping the asking price to account for all that extra technology. 

The Horus 6B standmounts (£349) arrived at the entry level of the French company’s comprehensive passive speaker lineup in early 2023, and now we have the suitably named Horus 6B Active BT powered versions, priced at just £50 more. The compact bookshelf speakers can act as a music system all on their own, courtesy of their built-in aptX HD Bluetooth 5.0 receiver, or be connected to an external music source in a more versatile audio – or indeed AV – setup.

The Horus 6B Active BT welcome pretty much any source with open arms. The ‘standard’ RCA analogue line-level connection can accommodate CD players, music streamers, or turntables with built-in phono stages - the Elipson also goes the extra mile to cater for less well-equipped turntables by including a moving-magnet phono preamp. Optical and coaxial inputs are onboard to accept digital sources, too, with an onboard DAC ready to convert those incoming digital signals to the analogue waveform the speaker architecture can understand. Finally, there are even the less common USB-C and HDMI ARC sockets to facilitate hooking up a computer/laptop and TV, respectively.

It is difficult to imagine a more complete proposition for the money on paper - so how does that perception play out in practice?

SOUND QUALITY

In short, pretty well. I’ve had the pleasure of Elipson speakers’ company in the past, and the Horus 6B Active BT sound recognisably ‘Elipson’ – spacious, coherent and impeccably organised. They are keen to let you hear as much of your music as is feasibly possible at this level, and happy to present it in a polished, even-handed and laid-back manner that’s easy to digest.

I connect my Cambridge Audio CXN V2 streamer to the speakers’ RCA input and stream Root and Crown by Young Jesus via TIDAL. Before long I’m enjoying the dulcet delivery of John Rossiter’s poetic vocal, which has ample headroom in the Elipsons’ soundstage to soar in its hymn-like fashion. The melodic acoustic guitar that drips in on either side comes through with presence and purpose, as does the accordion as it wheezes away in the background. Even when the track reaches its sonically densest, instruments don’t want for space - the Elipson give every element the room and clarity to be heard and easily distinguished from the others. 

Over to Kiasmos’s Looped, and, again, the speakers admirably keep track of the building layers of synth lines and piano patterns as they snowball, the soundstage never feeling congested or overwhelmed.

The instruments themselves, whether real or synthetic, are delivered with texture and a well-judged, pleasing smoothness that doesn’t sacrifice tactility or lucidity. It’s all very pleasant-sounding, and that sonic character is more or less consistent when the speakers’ DAC is brought into play - though naturally you can  expect some of that smoothness (and openness) to give way when music is played over Bluetooth.

Moving attention towards the bass registers with Billie Eilish’s BIRDS OF A FEATHER, the Horus 6B Active BT doesn’t possess the quantity or depth of bass to do justice to the track’s sub-bass electronic undertow – not surprising for a speaker of this size and price – it has the low-end agility to carry the beat that’s centre-stage of the production. And, as in the Kiasmos track, the substance to communicate the ‘thump’ of the bassline too. It’s nicely integrated with (and doesn’t overpower) the rest of the frequency information.

You may want a little more bass power if the speakers take on soundbar duties for movie night. The speakers’ clarity and space, not to mention the volume levels on offer, do wonders for news and drama programmes - but there is only so much bass impact they will lend to Christopher Nolan’s latest blockbuster. The Horus 6B Active BT’s bass output can be boosted by connecting an external subwoofer to the dedicated output, though - and their floorstanding siblings, the Horus 11F Active BT floorstanders (£899), house an extra mid/bass driver that, alongside the extra cabinet volume, will almost certainly deliver greater bass output.

The Elipson system is very listenable indeed, although a knock-on effect of their easy-going nature is a sense of over-politeness. A shortage of drive and dynamic punch behind the Billie Eilish track inspires fainter foot-tapping than usual - and all the ambient elements of the Kiasmos piece, while easy to follow, aren’t all that musically coordinated with one another (particularly when listening at lower volumes). If you like your music upbeat and hard-hitting above all else, these won’t be the speakers for you.

LIVING WITH THE ELIPSON HORUS 6B ACTIVE BT

What will universally appeal, however, is their generous suite of connections, which are all housed at the rear of one speaker alongside the mains power socket and a set of simple playback controls – handy in case you temporarily misplace the supplied remote control. That primary speaker connects to its partner using a supplied 2m-long interspeaker cable. Plug in your sources with your own cables, and that’s installation more or less wrapped up in the time it takes for bread to become toast.

Just take an extra moment to consider positioning. The manual suggests bringing the speakers slightly out from a rear wall and toeing them in towards the listening position, and it’s true this placement produces optimal tonal balance and imaging in my living room. It isn’t the end of the world if practicalities dictate they be shoved against a back wall, mind - that’s the beauty of their front-loaded bass-reflex port.

Expectations where build and aesthetics are concerned align with the asking price – you get a relatively tall, slim and deep MDF cabinet finished in either light wood, walnut or black, with the visual choice of either a discreet cloth grille or, when that grille is removed, an exposed shimmer-pattern baffle where the 25mm silk-dome neodymium tweeter, 13cm paper/glass fibre mid/bass driver and aforementioned port are on full display. Either way, they draw about as much attention as an off-white-painted wall, and are plenty smart enough if you ask me.

I’m not sure how, but Elipson has even found the budget to manufacture a decently built, hand-sized remote control, which has the perfect number of input, volume and playback buttons for the job.

CONCLUSION

The Horus 6B Active BT have a name fit for the Egyptian Gods – and a sound too, presuming Ihy, the son of Horus and the primary God of music in ancient Egyptian mythology, likes his music smooth, precise and nicely detailed. No, they aren’t natural-born party-starters, but compromises elsewhere are few and far between, and non-existent where connectivity is concerned.

So, I’m ready to answer: bargains of the century or too good to be true? On a scale of those extremes, I’m sliding the Elipson Horus 6B Active BT closer to the former than the latter.

LISTENING NOTES

Young Jesus Root and Crown TIDAL
A commanding, simply arranged hymn-like song from the indie rocker that can reveal most of what you’ll ever need to know about a setup’s midrange quality. Its clarity, subtlety and how textured and dynamically expressive it is – it can lay that all bare.

Billie Eilish BIRDS OF A FEATHER
The second single from Eilish’s latest album HIT ME HARD AND SOFT is uncharacteristically romantic for the American pop artist, but its upbeat tempo and use of various bass frequencies make it a great track for gauging a product’s drive and low-end response.

‍Kiasmos Looped
‍Combining weighty, resonant piano chords, skittering percussion and soft ambient electronica, Looped gives systems a lot of textures to sink their teeth into, and overlapping musical strands to make rhythmic sense of. They shouldn’t feel disjointed, or congested within a soundstage.

Powered speakers this affordable and flexible are hard to come by, but they make a lot of sense for someone who is after a simple, discrete stereo setup that can play music from a phone, laptop or hi-fi source and is just as happy to step in to boost your TV audio.

While a built-in Bluetooth receiver allows the Elipson to function as a music system unaccompanied, its physical connections open the doors to a range of music sources. You could, for example, hook up a budget turntable such as the Pro-Ject E1 or JBL Spinner BT, the latter of which can stream spinning records wirelessly to the Elipson speakers via the high-quality aptX HD Bluetooth codec. 

Want to connect a music streamer so you can stream from the likes of Spotify in higher quality than what Bluetooth transmission offers? The affordable, compact Bluesound Node Nano is just the thing.