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Big Sound from a Surprisingly Compact Speaker

If you want to bring your music into your kitchen, or out onto your deck, and you’re considering a portable Bluetooth speaker, you may want something small, yet good sounding. ELAC recently released a compact Bluetooth speaker that sounds like it comes from a manufacturer who truly cares about music! 

ELAC’s Nava100 isn’t designed to fit into your jeans pocket, but it isn’t big either. It fits in your palm at about 6 inches wide by 5” tall and 3” deep. It is designed to sound so big and powerful that you’ll want to take it around your home with you. 

Nava100 is attractive, even elegant. Some BT speakers have a plastic case. Nava100’s case is aluminum, and at 3 pounds it feels like a premium product, solid and high-quality, even before you listen. It’s easy to use, with controls on the top: a Bluetooth pairing button on the left; a play button; volume up/down, and power on/off. It’s available in black with copper accents.  

Adding a design forward twist, ELAC also partnered with New York-based label Adsum to create the Adsum/ELAC Cream Edition, combining audio excellence with minimalist style.

What about battery life? It’s quite good, 15 hours at 25% volume, though it runs about half that time if you blast the volume wide open. ELAC includes a USB A to C charging cable. It takes 4 to 5 hours to full charge. You get a fast charge in an hour or so.  

Why does Nava100 sound so powerful? Well, it’s an ELAC! They’ve been in business for 100 years, since 1926, and built their first consumer audio product, a record player, in 1948. ELAC has been making speakers for over 40 years, bring a reputation for quality and value to the Bluetooth speaker market. 

The solid cabinet helps the sound. Nava100 won’t resonate easily. There is a 3” driver and a pair of bass radiators. Deep bass is one of the big differences between this and similarly priced BT speakers, some of which lack bass. ELAC also put power behind it with a 10-watt amplifier, good for a portable BT speaker. ELAC rates it from 55 Hz to 20k, plus or minus 10db, good for this size.

What did we hear when playing music?  Compared to other BT speakers, Nava100 can play louder than some of the competition. Bass is surprisingly solid and musical - not filling a room like a $2,000 stereo, but good for a small chassis. Voices, especially female singers, sounded smoother and more natural, closer to a human voice. Christine McVie and Stevie Nicks of Fleetwood Mac sounded better than on other small speakers. High-frequency sounds, like cymbals, were crisp and detailed, but not harsh. 

You can use Nava100 in stereo with a second Nava100, with a feature called Dual Play. It’s wireless, no cables needed. Just pair the second one with the first, and you’ve got stereo — without running speaker wire across your countertop or floor. When we played with both speakers in Dual Play mode, the sound got nice and big, with a sense of stereo separation that was pretty sweet.   

Nava100 has Bluetooth 5.3 connectivity. Bluetooth used to have a bad reputation, but with Nava100, you’ll get fast pairing with a stable connection.  It also has a good range and is energy efficient.

So if you want a portable Bluetooth speaker that slips into your pocket, or straps to your bike’s handlebars, you need to look elsewhere. But if you want a stylish, good-sounding speaker in a small footprint, that you can take with you as you walk around the house, and connects to a second one for stereo, consider ELAC Nava100. We recommend it highly. 

Shop all of ELAC's great speakers at skybygramophone.com.