My Elis8 bundle was delivered last week. I've spent a few hours with the speakers and I have to say that I'm impressed. I have them set up as wet/dry vs. a stereo pair where I have reverb, delays and the looper coming out of one speaker and a dry signal out of the other. I use the Comet60 and Wrecker models set at the edge of breakup and clean up the tone by backing off my guitar volume.
I've seen comments about them being dark and I can see where that comes from. I started with the preset that I use with my Accugrooves which also have a ton of low end and the E8s were a little dark; however, it was easy to dial out with the controls in the amp block. That being said, there is still this underlying "presence" thing going on especially at lower volumes. However, once you start turning them up that "presence" adds more body and feel to the tone.
I wasn't able to play them too loud because the family was home most of the time, but I had about 30 min alone and was able to turn them up to lower practice volumes. The true test will be at our next practice when I can really turn them up. The one positive thing is I spent more time playing than tweaking which is always a good sign.
As recommended, I set the speaker volume at 8 and I'm using the Output level on the FM9 to set the overall volume. For those with E8 experience, how much AXEFX signal can they take before the inputs start clipping? I imagine I will need to turn the Output volume up 3/4 to hear them over our drummer.
I've used JBL, RCF, Atomic (CLR & Reactor), Xitone (early model with Matrix GM50) and Accugrooves (Latte & Robusta) and I think these will become my go to speakers for practice and medium/small gigs. I think it's an apples/oranges to compare these to a stereo pair of 12" speakers but they hold their own especially being an 8" speaker. Honestly, I don't think you can go wrong with the CLR, Matrix, Accugrooves or the Red Sound, they are all outstanding speakers.