This is a review and detailed measurements of the small Canton Plus GXL.3 wall-mountable speaker. A member in Europe wanted it measured so paid for me to purchase one for testing in US. They are quite hard to find in US but one online store had it. They list the retail price at US $430 but have it on sale for US $170 for a pair.
This is very small speaker looking like outdoor units but it is not:
The application seems to be for wall-mounting for "ambient" or surround use as you can tell from mounting points:
Typical of the class it is a lightweight speaker made out of plastic.
Measurements that you are about to see were performed using the Klippel Near-field Scanner (NFS). This is a robotic measurement system that analyzes the speaker all around and is able (using advanced mathematics and dual scan) to subtract room reflections (so where I measure it doesn't matter). It also measures the speaker at close distance ("near-field") which sharply reduces the impact of room noise. Both of these factors enable testing in ordinary rooms yet results that can be more accurate than an anechoic chamber. In a nutshell, the measurements show the actual sound coming out of the speaker independent of the room.
I performed over 800 measurement which resulted in error rate between 1 and 2%.
Temperature was 62 degrees F. Measurement location is at sea level so you compute the pressure.
Measurements are compliant with latest speaker research into what can predict the speaker preference and is standardized in CEA/CTA-2034 ANSI specifications. Likewise listening tests are performed per research that shows mono listening is much more revealing of differences between speakers than stereo or multichannel.
The grill was not quick to take off so I left it on. Alas even with a flashlight I could not see where the tweeter was. So I eyeballed it and I think I got it a bit wrong. See measurements below.
Canton Plus GXL.3 Measurements
Acoustic measurements can be grouped in a way that can be perceptually analyzed to determine how good a speaker is and how it can be used in a room. This so called spinorama shows us just about everything we need to know about the speaker with respect to tonality and some flaws:
Well this is not good. We are spoiled these days in that many speakers regardless of price attempt to produce a better on-axis response. We have two large resonances as indicated by the severe peaking. And messy crossover integration as far as beam width of the tweeter vs woofer.
Here is our early window reflections:
As you see, the off-axis curves in different colors is wildly different which means this speaker will sound different in different rooms. And equalization would be more difficult.
Predicted in-room response is a bit better but still not ideal:
Maybe some of you are better than me but looking at the above graph I couldn't quickly tell you how the speaker would "sound" given the multiple aberrations.
Impedance graph shows the more severe resonance around 1.2kHz:
Here are the distortion measurements:
Bass distortion is kept in check so it should be able to play loud without falling apart.
Directivity and beamwidth are obviously areas of concern:
I marveled at the beautify of the above graph though!
What looks good to the eye is unfortunately not good for the ear in this case.
Vertical directivity shows my slight error in setting the reference:
You can see that I am a hair above center line of the radiation peak. Regardless, point this tweeter right at you as otherwise you will fall in a ditch in lower treble.
Canton GXL.3 Speaker Listening Tests
I put the GXL.3 in my usual 2-channel system location and propped it up in the back to be level and pointed it at my listening location. Playing the first female track was not satisficing. It was simultaneously tubby and have too much highs. I applied one filter for the top end resonance and another for 1.2 kHz. That helped but still was not good. Right before putting it aside, I decided to also go after the tubbiness in bass:
Oh wow! That made a big difference! The tubbiness disappears and the speaker actually started to sound cleaner and warmer! Likely not asking the little woofer to play these lower notes helped. Once there, I could drive it hard without it showing stress.
While not annoyingly so, there was still high frequency accentuation resulting in lisping (extension of "s" sound in vocals). More filtering and tuning will be needed than what I eyeballed to get this under control.
Conclusions
Out of the box the measurements and subjective listening experience of the GXL.3 are poor. Equalization however had a remarkable effect in getting down to some "good bones" in this speaker. Would it be something I would go and buy even with EQ? No. But if you have it, I suggest trying the above EQ and you can get reasonably good sound out of it.
I cannot recommend the Canton Plus GXL.3 speaker.
------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
This is very small speaker looking like outdoor units but it is not:
The application seems to be for wall-mounting for "ambient" or surround use as you can tell from mounting points:
Typical of the class it is a lightweight speaker made out of plastic.
Measurements that you are about to see were performed using the Klippel Near-field Scanner (NFS). This is a robotic measurement system that analyzes the speaker all around and is able (using advanced mathematics and dual scan) to subtract room reflections (so where I measure it doesn't matter). It also measures the speaker at close distance ("near-field") which sharply reduces the impact of room noise. Both of these factors enable testing in ordinary rooms yet results that can be more accurate than an anechoic chamber. In a nutshell, the measurements show the actual sound coming out of the speaker independent of the room.
I performed over 800 measurement which resulted in error rate between 1 and 2%.
Temperature was 62 degrees F. Measurement location is at sea level so you compute the pressure.
Measurements are compliant with latest speaker research into what can predict the speaker preference and is standardized in CEA/CTA-2034 ANSI specifications. Likewise listening tests are performed per research that shows mono listening is much more revealing of differences between speakers than stereo or multichannel.
The grill was not quick to take off so I left it on. Alas even with a flashlight I could not see where the tweeter was. So I eyeballed it and I think I got it a bit wrong. See measurements below.
Canton Plus GXL.3 Measurements
Acoustic measurements can be grouped in a way that can be perceptually analyzed to determine how good a speaker is and how it can be used in a room. This so called spinorama shows us just about everything we need to know about the speaker with respect to tonality and some flaws:
Well this is not good. We are spoiled these days in that many speakers regardless of price attempt to produce a better on-axis response. We have two large resonances as indicated by the severe peaking. And messy crossover integration as far as beam width of the tweeter vs woofer.
Here is our early window reflections:
As you see, the off-axis curves in different colors is wildly different which means this speaker will sound different in different rooms. And equalization would be more difficult.
Predicted in-room response is a bit better but still not ideal:
Maybe some of you are better than me but looking at the above graph I couldn't quickly tell you how the speaker would "sound" given the multiple aberrations.
Impedance graph shows the more severe resonance around 1.2kHz:
Here are the distortion measurements:
Bass distortion is kept in check so it should be able to play loud without falling apart.
Directivity and beamwidth are obviously areas of concern:
I marveled at the beautify of the above graph though!
What looks good to the eye is unfortunately not good for the ear in this case.Vertical directivity shows my slight error in setting the reference:
You can see that I am a hair above center line of the radiation peak. Regardless, point this tweeter right at you as otherwise you will fall in a ditch in lower treble.
Canton GXL.3 Speaker Listening Tests
I put the GXL.3 in my usual 2-channel system location and propped it up in the back to be level and pointed it at my listening location. Playing the first female track was not satisficing. It was simultaneously tubby and have too much highs. I applied one filter for the top end resonance and another for 1.2 kHz. That helped but still was not good. Right before putting it aside, I decided to also go after the tubbiness in bass:
Oh wow! That made a big difference! The tubbiness disappears and the speaker actually started to sound cleaner and warmer! Likely not asking the little woofer to play these lower notes helped. Once there, I could drive it hard without it showing stress.
While not annoyingly so, there was still high frequency accentuation resulting in lisping (extension of "s" sound in vocals). More filtering and tuning will be needed than what I eyeballed to get this under control.
Conclusions
Out of the box the measurements and subjective listening experience of the GXL.3 are poor. Equalization however had a remarkable effect in getting down to some "good bones" in this speaker. Would it be something I would go and buy even with EQ? No. But if you have it, I suggest trying the above EQ and you can get reasonably good sound out of it.
I cannot recommend the Canton Plus GXL.3 speaker.
------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
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