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Canton Plus GXL.3 Review (speaker)

amirm

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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:

CANTON Plus GLX.3 Review bookshelf speaker.jpg


The application seems to be for wall-mounting for "ambient" or surround use as you can tell from mounting points:

CANTON Plus GLX.3 Review bookshelf speaker wall mount.jpg


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:

CANTON Plus GLX.3 Measurements Spinorama CTA-2034 Spinorama Frequency Response.png


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:

CANTON Plus GLX.3 Measurements Spinorama CTA-2034 Spinorama Early Window Reflections Frequency...png


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:
CANTON Plus GLX.3 Measurements Spinorama CTA-2034 Spinorama Predicted In-room Frequency Response.png


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:
CANTON Plus GLX.3 Measurements Impedance and Phase.png


Here are the distortion measurements:
CANTON Plus GLX.3 Measurements relative distortion.png

CANTON Plus GLX.3 Measurements THD distortion.png


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:

CANTON Plus GLX.3 Measurements horizontal beamwidth.png


CANTON Plus GLX.3 Measurements horizontal directivity.png


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:

CANTON Plus GLX.3 Measurements Vertical directivity.png


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:

CANTON Plus GLX.3 speaker equalization.png


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/
 

Attachments

  • Canton GLX.3 Spinorama.zip
    86.6 KB · Views: 163
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dfuller

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I feel like these might be okay for surround channels in a 5.1 or 7.1 HT setup but definitely not for primary listening.
 
OP
amirm

amirm

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You really want better directivity for surround than what we have here. Here is the Revel:

index.php


That gives you much better vertical coverage than we have here. And of course horizontal is much better as well:

index.php


They cost three times as much though. :)
 

Helicopter

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Thanks for the review Amir. I have been curious about Canton speakers because I see them on Accessories4Less at good prices. Hopefully this one is not representative of their performance overall.
 

MZKM

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I am sure it isn't. This is a tiny little plastic box speaker.
Stereophile measured their $30,000 speaker in 2006, here is the 30° horizontal listening window (anechoic above 300Hz):
1106CVRfig4.jpg


Oddly, in 2010 they measured the smaller $16,000 version and it was better:
610Canfig4.jpg
 

Helicopter

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Oddly, in 2010 they measured the smaller $16,000 version and it was better:
610Canfig4.jpg
Unlabeled, I would have guessed this was JBL FR with the bass bump then pretty transparent. I bet those are not bad, especially for theater.
 

richard12511

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Stereophile measured their $30,000 speaker in 2006, here is the 30° horizontal listening window (anechoic above 300Hz):
1106CVRfig4.jpg


Oddly, in 2010 they measured the smaller $16,000 version and it was better:
610Canfig4.jpg
Looks like they were intentionally going for the smiley curve in the top model. The bass is insane, though. It puts the Salon2 to shame :oops:.

You can never have too much bass!

*Edit: nvm what I said about the bass, my brain thought the 30Hz line was the 20Hz for some reason. Still great bass, but not as epic as I originally thought.
 
Last edited:

JRAudio

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This is a review and detailed measurements of the small Canton Plus GLX.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:

View attachment 97927

The application seems to be for wall-mounting for "ambient" or surround use as you can tell from mounting points:

View attachment 97928

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 GLX.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:

View attachment 97929

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 beamwidth of the tweeter vs woofer.

Here is our early window reflections:

View attachment 97930

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:
View attachment 97931

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:
View attachment 97933

Here are the distortion measurements:
View attachment 97934
View attachment 97935

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:

View attachment 97936

View attachment 97937

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:

View attachment 97938

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 GLX.3 Speaker Listening Tests
I put the GLX.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:

View attachment 97939

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 GLX.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 GLX.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/

Ah! Great to see a 40 kHz bandwidth measurement to check out any possible „hard“ bandwidth limitations. Thank you very much.
 

robos

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I have LE103, its about 20 years old and I could not believe my eyes when I first measured it. It has plastic baffle which resonates strongly @150Hz, elevated treble about +9dB, elevated bass +6db. Simply "tizz&boom", or "ze german zound". Great speakers for garage :)
 

pavuol

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So even with quite a big woofer (130mm) its bass performance suffers without a port..

black & naked :)
plusgxl_3-1.jpg

PS: I spy with my little eye... it is made in Europe!
 
Last edited:

Nango

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This is a review and detailed measurements of the small Canton Plus GLX.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:

View attachment 97927

The application seems to be for wall-mounting for "ambient" or surround use as you can tell from mounting points:

View attachment 97928

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 GLX.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:

View attachment 97929

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 beamwidth of the tweeter vs woofer.

Here is our early window reflections:

View attachment 97930

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:
View attachment 97931

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:
View attachment 97933

Here are the distortion measurements:
View attachment 97934
View attachment 97935

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:

View attachment 97936

View attachment 97937

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:

View attachment 97938

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 GLX.3 Speaker Listening Tests
I put the GLX.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:

View attachment 97939

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 GLX.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 GLX.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/
Oooops @canton, you better send in one pair of your other speakers before your name gets damaged. This german company is a well reknown one with very good reputation in all price ranges.
 

puffreis

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The white and the black ones seem to have different tweeters.

white.jpg
black.jpg

The white ones look primitive.
 

bennybbbx

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thanks for test. the results are really intresting. It have less vertical width as the Kali. I expect more width because the canton bring more room size in records as the kali. (same with rommeq correct or arc correct both). I think now even more, there is something that is not measure in current tests and make a speaker better in stereo width and precision. it can hear very much in a testsong as this. Kali sound not wide. I have buy a iloud mtm and there are 2 measure microphones attach. I wait until i get a microphone bar to put this microphones on this. then i do records of this testsong and upload it. also a version with EQ settings. https://easyupload.io/bbamop .this is original testsong. With my ears can clear hear that the distortion guitar sound smallest on LP6, on canton more wide and on iloud mtm even more wider and more simular to headphone. maybe speaker with large bass/mid have problemes in precision and so stereo width get reduce. I try mfreeformphase to correct the phase of LP6, but i hear not much diffrence. the small stereo width in the testsong stay. transient burst test results of the canton can see here and look better as kali https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...6-defect-canton-look-much-better.17854/page-2 for the mems microphone i find a frequency response
 
Last edited:
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