Aurum Cantus speakers

[Piranesi]

There is available near me a pristine pair of these speakers:

Aurum Cantus is a respected OEM, but there are vanishingly few reviews of their self-branded speakers online. What few reviews there are tend to be very positive, although subjective.

As for this particular speaker, other than being very pretty, the overall design looks fairly sensible. I enjoy the wide horizontal dispersion true ribbon tweeters tend to have, so that's a plus in my book.

These look to be the drivers used:

Home

Aurum Cantus AC165/50C2C 6-1/2" MidwooferThe Aurum Cantus AC165/50CK 6-1/2" non-woven carbon fiber sandwich cone midwoofer offers incredible performance and value. The tailored response of the speaker's exotic yet supremely engineered cone selection delivers the signature Aurum Cantus...

www.parts-express.com

APR2.2 - Aluminum-Ribbon-Tweeter - Penglai Aurum Cantus Audio Co., Ltd.

Penglai Aurum Cantus Audio Co., Ltd.

aucantus.com

Would anyone have any comments on these? Should I pull the trigger?

 

[hex168]

It's a gamble. Aurum Cantus makes excellent drivers. Can they properly design a 6.5" to ribbon tweeter crossover? Crossing a 6.5" at 3200 Hz to a driver with very different directivity at crossover is a difficult thing to pull off.

 

[PatentLawyer]

Agree with @hex168. That midwoof/tweeter transition is questionable.

 

[fun]

I have a pair of V3M as front, V4C as center and Leisure 2 SE as surround. I have 4 ceiling speakers of another brand for a 5.1.4 Atmos/Auro setup. The AC are very well built, and sound very good in general after EQ-ing with Denon AVR.

I have had them since 2000s at the time I really like the sound of ribbon, but didn't know anything about audio science until the last few years. The only measurements I can find is for V2M by Stereophile. They looks fine, but not great. With some knowledge in audio science thru this forum and Toole's book, I have two theoretical concerns with the speakers:

• Directivity control as mentioned by the posters above (The well-regarded BMR has a small midwoofer to bridge the woofer and ribbon tweeter)
• Distortion of the ribbon and woofer around the crossover region (one potential issue I can hear is harshness when opera soprano is singing hard )

I am considering "side grading" to well-measured speakers like R3 to see whether there is any audible improvements.

 

[Piranesi]

Here's the V2M measurements you mentioned:

They're quite encouraging- Aurum Cantus look like they know what they're doing. The even dispersion would benefit well from EQ. These have a 5.25 inch woofer though.
Like others have mentioned, I guess it's uncertain if they've managed to integrate their ribbon tweeter well to a 6.5 inch midwoofer.

 

[raindance]

I've had the Aurum Cantus Leisure 2SE speakers as well as a pair of Ascend Sierra 2's. The ribbon in the Ascends was open and airy sounding and the one in the Leisure 2SE was very dark and laid back to the point of sounding dull at my normal listening distance (8-10 feet). Up close in extreme nearfield the Leisure 2's sounded decent. This is going from auditory memories which aren't reliable, but these are my impressions.

I've heard others say the Leisure 2's sound open and airy, so maybe there's a consistency issue (they both measured identical, so it wasn't a blown ribbon).

But they're beautifully made and amazing to look at and I've always wanted to try another pair. However, I suspect I'll be trying the Sierra 2 EX first.