EMP ECA-4 & ECA-44 Compact Satellite Speaker System Review

Introduction

Home theater has hit the mainstream and the majority of the general public has embraced it as a conditional “must have” item to pair up with a new flat panel display in the family room. What seems more critical today however is space efficiency and room décor. Gone are the big heavy CRT tube televisions of yesterday and so are the big box speakers. In my experience I have found most people willing to take the plunge into home theater provided that it met two conditions: affordable and unobtrusive. Bose at one time cornered the market with their “cubed” speaker system. Audiophiles may shiver at the mere mention of the “B” word on Audioholics but you have to pay kudos to them at being the first to launch such a product to the marketplace and defining a new speaker category which helped bring home theater into the mainstream. Since then numerous other brands have offered their solutions to the marketplace often exceeding the performance and value of the Bose, but not at such a comparable size or nifty mounting capability. Enter EMP (a division of RBH Sound). Their approach was to offer the smallest high value package possible without sacrificing performance. The question remaining is will they pass the WAF test while satisfying the audio enthusiast? Read on to find out.

Product Overview

The EMP speakers are housed in an all aluminum cast enclosure and sport a superlative 4” aluminum woofer and 1” soft dome tweeter. They employ binding posts and can be wall or ceiling mounted via their optional rotating bracket system or placed on slim line stands. EMP offers both options as an additional accessory item. Due to their small size, the fact that they are sealed design, they have a relatively low sensitivity rating of 85dB / 1 watt for the ECA-4 and 88dB/ 1 watt for the ECA-44, so I highly recommend pairing this system with a good honest rated 100wpc receiver to get the most out of them in larger listening spaces.

Set-Up & Installation

The review system was installed at my neighbor's house who is quite a music enthusiast but has strict WAF requirements to have no visible boxes messing with the room décor of their living room. It was actually his idea to ceiling mount all speakers but the center channel. I convinced him to mount the ECA-44 center channel on the wall just above his flat panel display using two EMP speaker brackets for better integration with his display.

Installation was a breeze using the EMP EMB speaker brackets which are sold separately in pairs for roughly $80. The mounting brackets are made of quality constructed rigid plastic and come with all of the necessary hardware for installation. The two piece ball and collar bracket system allows you to disengage the bracket in order to install the mounting portion (collar) to any wall or ceiling simply by screwing into the stud. The remaining ball portion is than attached to the back of the speaker and snapped into place in the mounted collar portion. The swivel design allows the speaker to be directed to the optimum listening position and a safety wire completes the installation and ensures if the speaker somehow dislodges from the mount, it won’t come crashing down. While I felt these were quality brackets, $80 is steep and makes a big difference in the overall price of the system. If these are the speakers you're interested in, you'll want to keep this cost in mind as aftermarket brackets likely won't work with these speakers.

Editorial Note: Setting the Right System Crossover Point

Realizing the physical cabinet size, bass alignment and driver compliment severely limit their bass output, I crossed over all of these speakers at 120Hz and fed info below that to the dual RBH Sound TS-10A subwoofers. Its important to note when configuring a system like this with a crossover point above 80Hz, bass starts becoming more directional making it imperative that you select the proper location for the subwoofer(s). In this instance, up front and away from the listening area is the way to go. If you can afford to have dual subs (preferably run in stereo) this will really help smooth out the system bass response for the entire listening area as well as help integrate the splice between the satellite speakers and the subwoofers.

Editorial Note: Placement Guidelines

When installing these speakers, I suggest you take mental note of coverage area and the best way to achieve a direct path of sound to that area. Placing speakers too high will reduce the fidelity and weaken the high frequency reproduction as you will be listening to the speaker too far off axis. Thus if you must place the speakers in such a position, it is highly recommended that you swivel them down towards the listening area ensuring the tweeter is firing directly at the seats. Try to place the front speakers further apart than just the width of the display (if your significant other will allow it). In order to get the biggest possible soundstage and best imaging, they should be about 80-90% apart as the distance between their central plane and the listening area (IE. if you are sitting 10ft from the display, the speakers should be about 8-9 feet apart). The closer you can get the center channel to the display the better to give the illusion that the voices are coming directly from the picture. This is why I convinced my friend NOT to ceiling mount his center channel.

Equipment Used

The receiver utilized was the very potent, high bang for the buck Yamaha RX-V659 paired with the Denon DVD-1930CI Universal DVD player. The speaker cables and A/V interconnects were all Impact Acoustics Sonicwave. The subwoofer(s) were a pair of RBH Sound TS-10A’s and the display was a 46” Sony Bravia LCD.

ECA-4 & ECA-44 Listening Tests

My friend and I have similar musical tastes. We both like fusion jazz and progressive rock. With that in mind, we fired up some meaty tunes and began our evaluation.

DTS CD: Porcupine Tree – In Absentia

Although this multi channel recording tends to be a bit bright and fatiguing, the musical content is quite good and you really get a good adrenaline rush when you crank it up. Track #3 “Lips of Ashes” is a great acoustical melodic song that you simply can’t grow tired of. I sat back for a listen, closing my eyes to focus my brain on capturing all of the nuances. Although the main and surround speakers were placed above head, I still enjoyed a good sense of envelopment. Vocal intelligibility was good and the system as a whole sounded tonally consistent. Track #5 “Gravity Eyelids” starts out deceivingly calm and then builds momentum quickly taking on a more heavy metal feeling. I decided to push the system hard to see what it could do. As I turned up the volume, the EMP speakers didn’t falter. They instead gave it their all sounding quite clean despite the edginess in the recording. These speakers were definitely rocking and defying my expectations of what a system of this size and price class should sound like. Granted having dual subs really helped out here, but the fact that they were holding their own here was quite impressive. Although the soundstage wasn’t as immense as a larger box speaker system such as the RBH Sound TK series, the experience was still nonetheless enjoyable and significantly better than I’ve heard from “cubed” speakers costing a great deal more.

DVD-A: Beatles – Love

I wanted to hear what a high quality multi channel recording would sound like on this speaker system. So I selected the Beatles Love DVD-A disc. Track #1 “Because” is one of my favorites as it really exemplifies the uncanny melodic nature of the Beatles that few if any bands today can match. Hearing all of the Beatles harmonize around you is quite a mind blowing experience. The voices were a bit distance and unfocused but Ii know the poor room acoustics (vaulted ceilings) and the fact that the speakers were placed high above the listening area factored heavily into what I was hearing. Turning the volume up certainly resulted in a highly enjoyable surround experience but I couldn’t help to wonder how this system would have sounded in a smaller room with all the speakers placed at ear height. The snare drum in Track #5 “I am the Walrus” really popped into the musical landscape and it seemed the little EMP system really liked to be played loudly. The snapping sound emanating from the left front speaker in track #12 “Blackbird/Yesterday” sounded lively though somewhat compressed as expected while the cymbals in Track #14 “Tomorrow Never Knows” had a fair amount of width dynamic presence to them. As I turned the volume up, they sounded a bit spitty, but the room again was factoring into this experience. Track #26 “All You Need is Love” really woke up the room and commanded my attention. The dual subs were thumping well and the ECA-4s were doing their job to deliver the power and conviction of Lennon’s vocals. I do miss the intimacy of a good quality pair of much larger box speakers, but considering their virtually invisibility in the room, I’d say giving up a bit of fidelity for aesthetics is a compromise most people conscientious of this are willing to make

Conclusion

My neighbor was in sonic bliss as he never heard music sound this good in his home. In fact he continually commented to me that no matter what source material he threw at the system (ie. Led Zepplin, Grover Washington, to George Jones) it reproduced it with sonic ease. I was happy to put him back in touch with his favorite tunes.

It’s important to realize however that these speakers work best as a system in conjunction with a subwoofer or two. By themselves in a two channel scenario, they will sound thin and small but properly setup as a 5.1 or 7.1 surround sound system, they will result in a very enjoyable theatrical experience in small to medium sized rooms that won’t draw attention to themselves. The EMP ECA-4 / ECA -44 speaker system is a must have solution for any application requiring a compact clutter free and inconspicuously mounted installation. EMP is a company to keep a close eye on as they continue to add new products to their already high value offerings. Stay tuned for the announcement of their new $479 subwoofer coming soon.

Recommendation

For a limited time, EMP is extending 50% off their MSRP which makes this system even more attractive and a very uncommon value at this price point. So basically $500 gets you 2 pairs of ECA-4s, and 1 ECA-44 (the equivalent of the RBH Sound CT MM-4s and C-4s, respectively). I recommend pairing this system with two small but potent subs such as the Yamaha YST-FSW150 and you’ve got a “cubed speaker system” killer for under $1k. Highly recommended!

About EMP

The Score Card

The scoring below is based on each piece of equipment doing the duty it is designed for. The numbers are weighed heavily with respect to the individual cost of each unit, thus giving a rating roughly equal to:

Performance × Price Factor/Value = Rating

Audioholics.com note: The ratings indicated below are based on subjective listening and objective testing of the product in question. The rating scale is based on performance/value ratio. If you notice better performing products in future reviews that have lower numbers in certain areas, be aware that the value factor is most likely the culprit. Other Audioholics reviewers may rate products solely based on performance, and each reviewer has his/her own system for ratings.

Audioholics Rating Scale

• — Excellent
• — Very Good
• — Good
• — Fair
• — Poor

Metric	Rating
Build Quality
Appearance
Treble Extension
Treble Smoothness
Midrange Accuracy
Bass Extension
Bass Accuracy
Dynamic Range
Performance
Value