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Canton Reference 2023 - is it now Reference grade?

Ahe interesting opinions, as there's always a summary for each of these famous brands, I try to not get obssessed with any of the models they produced, but clearly there's always a model worth invest in, either by accident or because of nothing is certain nature of how the world works. And seriously I dont' really like any previous Canton models at all, but the new Reference 9 might be a go for me. I'm surprised you express negative points on the brands like ATC, PMC, Spendor, I'm indeed very keen and eyeing on the Spendor Classic 4/5, most probably can even do it in 2.1 home theater way, with the sub switch off ocassionally.
Unfortunately the English brands seem to be stuck in the past. I can't comment on their longevity or after sales support but most of these brands are making speakers from the 80s or in the case of B&W the 90s. As an amateur past speaker designer I'd want to enjoy the last 20 years of innovation. They do look nice though.
 
Unfortunately the English brands seem to be stuck in the past. I can't comment on their longevity or after sales support but most of these brands are making speakers from the 80s or in the case of B&W the 90s. As an amateur past speaker designer I'd want to enjoy the last 20 years of innovation. They do look nice though.
Yes, exactly!!! When I look at the B&W design, with the tweeters planted on top of the speaker, with all the corners, edges and refractions.... and when I then find exactly this in the very mediocre, wild frequency response plots, I think that the B&W people don't necessarily care about good sound.... The main thing is that tradition is preserved and business is booming - even with the twentieth iteration of a completely misguided 80s / 90s design. The look is “classic” and people just buy it......
 
Yes, exactly!!! When I look at the B&W design, with the tweeters planted on top of the speaker, with all the corners, edges and refractions.... and when I then find exactly this in the very mediocre, wild frequency response plots, I think that the B&W people don't necessarily care about good sound.... The main thing is that tradition is preserved and business is booming - even with the twentieth iteration of a completely misguided 80s / 90s design. The look is “classic” and people just buy it......
Actually bowers and Wilkins tweeter design is not bad. It is it’s on housing which is resonant free and the reason why they mounted it outside the cabinet is to avoid the woofers or midranges frequencies inside the cabin to vibrate the tweeter housing itself. Advantage here is very large horizontal dispersion without having to worry about baffle diffraction to the left and right and top of the tweeter, due to the absence of a baffle.
 
Unfortunately the English brands seem to be stuck in the past. I can't comment on their longevity or after sales support but most of these brands are making speakers from the 80s or in the case of B&W the 90s. As an amateur past speaker designer I'd want to enjoy the last 20 years of innovation. They do look nice though.
Design-wise and as objects, I really wish KEF got back to the IQ rounded shapes with the newer drivers in their R series.
 
Bumping up the old thread. Anyone with 2.2 DC reference model that could share their experience/measurements? Speakers are going for 6K+ new or 5K gently used 2 year so the question is if this brings them in value play or not? Think of other 5-6K speakers (when on sale). I can see Revel 228s at best and some KEF Reference 5. Not many of used Perlistens out there but have seen a pair in that range for R7t.
 
Bumping up the old thread. Anyone with 2.2 DC reference model that could share their experience/measurements? Speakers are going for 6K+ new or 5K gently used 2 year so the question is if this brings them in value play or not? Think of other 5-6K speakers (when on sale). I can see Revel 228s at best and some KEF Reference 5. Not many of used Perlistens out there but have seen a pair in that range for R7t.
I am wondering where is 2.2 DC sold new ?! Those things are phased out ages ago. That being said I remember seeing them very high up in ranking by audio and stereoplay in comparison to the Revel 228be’s. I think they were ranked higher than reference 5 too. Objectively canton is not very popular here. However more than half of the people who argue here that’s it’s bad, had not listened to any speaker better than a KEF r7 or a Q acoustics concept 500. You may pick up the used one if it’s under 5k.

Having heard the revels and having a reference 3 myself, I can vouch 2.2 is a monster compared to both these. At 5k, it’s a pretty good deal
 
At cheaper price I can say that I'll use my cheaper Canton gle90 over my more expensive Revel f36 any day of the week.

Many of these floorstanders do things which you can't dream any bookshelves to be able to do (not my vids)

 
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At cheaper price I can say that I'll use my cheaper Canton gle90 over my more expensive Revel f36 any day of the week.

Many of these floorstanders do things which you can't dream any bookshelves to be able to do
To me if you are listening only in one spot, the directivity advantage is BS. It only matters if you move out of that spot. How does your focal compare against the canton? If gle amazed you then you shiuld try their current reference series. Imo, they are just perfect
 
To me if you are listening only in one spot, the directivity advantage is BS. It only matters if you move out of that spot. How does your focal compare against the canton? If gle amazed you then you shiuld try their current reference series. Imo, they are just perfect
Focal? Never tried. Anyway, GLE90 doesn't have any of the same drivers as this old LE109 does, according to a German magazine the dispersion of the treble on the 90 is not poor. Nobody complains when we watch movies, and I don't use a center speaker at all.

I'm not saying GLE amazed me but it's tons of bang for the buck. It also works closer to a wall which the Revel certainly doesn't, that one has a huge distorsion in male vocals. Possibly the speaker works when it's further away from the wall (or needs EQ like Amirs F35 test shows at 102hz), but this is an example of a more expensive speaker that does not do its job better. It doesn't go as deep nor is at as detailed as GLE90.

I almost bought Canton Townus 90 recently but I don't assume automatically that it's better because it's more expensive. GLE90 are suited for most music and works tremendously for cinema as the vocals are very clean. It's a bit midrange and detail focused, although the bass is deep and dry I get a sense that it's playing a bit lower than it should be. I don't at all recognize the talk that Canton has midrange distorstion but then again, more expensive is not always better.

Townus 90 (salesperson said they are not worth the original price, I would have paid 1000e if they had shipped them. Instead he recommended some Audiovector speaker instead...I have no experience with the brand).
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To me if you are listening only in one spot, the directivity advantage is BS.
Only if you listen in an anechoic space, otherwise you also hear reflected sounds and then directivity definetely matters.
 
I am wondering where is 2.2 DC sold new ?! Those things are phased out ages ago. That being said I remember seeing them very high up in ranking by audio and stereoplay in comparison to the Revel 228be’s. I think they were ranked higher than reference 5 too. Objectively canton is not very popular here. However more than half of the people who argue here that’s it’s bad, had not listened to any speaker better than a KEF r7 or a Q acoustics concept 500. You may pick up the used one if it’s under 5k.

Having heard the revels and having a reference 3 myself, I can vouch 2.2 is a monster compared to both these. At 5k, it’s a pretty good deal
Thanks. They still have couple of new ones in Germany. Not sure when they stoped production, but some last units apparently still available. Design is 2010 so a bit dated, but price is tempting for this big speaker with dual 10s. If 2.2 DC is a great speaker, it might be comparable (to some extent at least) to Revel 328s that are EUR 12K when on sale - so half price. I am mostly into HT so lower extension and higher SPL for towers would come in handy.

Problem is could not find measurements and can't audition so buying 2.2 DC would be a soft of a kamikaze move. Also have pretty good big German towers already so was hoping someone might have their in room measurements to help out a bit with at least some level of comparison.
 
Just to add - spoke to German vendor and they are saying that their products are made by Canton on order and therefore not items left over from 2015 production when apparently last run for general orders was done. Never trust the vendor they say - but they do have 3 finishes so kind of makes sense.
 
Only if you listen in an anechoic space, otherwise you also hear reflected sounds and then directivity definetely matters.
The sound that reaches your left and right ear at one spot, has direct and reflected sound. Assume the cumulative sound that you hear or the mic pics up at that spot has a 6db 3500hz peak. If you reduce that 3500hz by 6db that peak will be vanished at that spot.

On a good directivity speaker and bad bad directivity speaker, you cannot split and undertand which part of the 6db is contributed by the direct and which part by reflected.

Good directivity is good if you want a wider sweet spot, or your friends have to hear a similar(still won’t be exact as yours) at their spots
 
On a good directivity speaker and bad bad directivity speaker, you cannot split and undertand which part of the 6db is contributed by the direct and which part by reflected.
That is incorrect, as like Toole says our hearing mechanism acts very different than a microphone measuring just an amplitude. Ear transfer functions for different angles change, also reflected sound comes with a delay and is processed differently by our brain. This can be tested by equalizing two loudspeakers with different directivities to the same frequency response at the listening position, they still will sound different to someone at that position. If you want to read more details why directivity matters and you cannot just correct it by EQ there is an overview from quotes from Toole in my the first link of my signature.
 
That is incorrect, as like Toole says our hearing mechanism acts very different than a microphone measuring just an amplitude. Ear transfer functions for different angles change, also reflected sound comes with a delay and is processed differently by our brain. This can be tested by equalizing two loudspeakers with different directivities to the same frequency response at the listening position, they still will sound different to someone at that position. If you want to read more details why directivity matters and you cannot just correct it by EQ there is an overview from quotes from Toole in my the first link of my signature.
It gets a bit more complicated than that. You can’t really EQ two different speakers to the same EQ response at a large scale. Perhaps some that are very similar? And EQ is something really complex so can’t be just equalised to EQ.

Directivity can’t really be corrected as property of the speaker. But can be compensated for with positioning to some extent.

How our brains process the whole thing is not yet a thing of science. Just people taking stabs at it. Once we get audio chip in our heads, we might understand more about how it all works.
 
You can’t really EQ two different speakers to the same EQ response at a large scale. Perhaps some that are very similar?
If they are similarly sized you can, otherwise you equalize them for lets see 60-10000 kHz and even if you play just signals in that range you will hear the difference.

Directivity can’t really be corrected as property of the speaker. But can be compensated for with positioning to some extent.
Can you explain what you mean with this?
 
That is incorrect, as like Toole says our hearing mechanism acts very different than a microphone measuring just an amplitude. Ear transfer functions for different angles change, also reflected sound comes with a delay and is processed differently by our brain. This can be tested by equalizing two loudspeakers with different directivities to the same frequency response at the listening position, they still will sound different to someone at that position. If you want to read more details why directivity matters and you cannot just correct it by EQ there is an overview from quotes from Toole in my the first link of my signature.
I have read that earlier and I was 100 percent sure you will ask me to read that !

Agree directivity cannot be eq’ed. I never said t otherwise. However what I said is you can eq a speaker with poor directivity and get what you want but only problem is it will be limited to that particular spot which you are targeting. Simple. Tooles book doesn’t deny this.
 
Agree directivity cannot be eq’ed. I never said t otherwise. However what I said is you can eq a speaker with poor directivity and get what you want but only problem is it will be limited to that particular spot which you are targeting. Simple. Tooles book doesn’t deny this.
Absolutely not, as I explained above and you can also read in the link I mentioned a loudspeaker with poor directivity will also not sound the same as a good one even if equalised to the same response at the listening position, as Toole says:
"Equalization can address frequency response issues, but cannot fix directivity issues. Consider getting better loudspeakers. Equalizing flawed loudspeakers to match this room curve does not guarantee anything in terms of sound quality."
"The most common flaws in loudspeakers are resonances (which frequently are not visible in room curves) and irregular directivity (which cannot be corrected by equalization). The only solution to both problems is better loudspeakers, the evidence of which is in comprehensive anechoic data."


I have more than 20 pairs of loudspeakers in my collection and am experimenting with equalisation for more than 20 years now, unfortunately an EQ cannot make a poor directivity loudpeaker sounding as a good one, unless you are listening under anechoic conditions.
 
Hello everyone!

I have Canton Reference 5K, in my opinion they are very, very good speakers, before that I had Neumann KH120 and KH310 monitors for a long time. Canton reference needs a very long break-in period, maybe 2-3 months and they are very picky when it comes to the right amplifier, I have had very expensive and large AB amplifiers, but so far the best results have been with Purifi 7040 amplifiers, I am very happy with this combination.


Can anyone help me?
Can anyone explain to me what a DC filter circuit should look like with Canton? I wanted to try and get around this circuit.
Thank you very much!
 
, as Toole says:
"Equalization can address frequency response issues, but cannot fix directivity issues.
Yes it can. Given a spot to sit, if I hear the response off at that spot, I can equalize and get away with it. Directivity on the other hand can only be fixed if the speaker is redesigned to have even dispersion. It only matters if the listener wants to leave that sweet spot and still have the same tonality.

I have a Kef reference series speakers and several others who has horrible directivity and I have tried equalizing many of it.

What I mentioned is what I exeperineced. Equalizing a poor directivity speaker makes it worse outside your target listening spot, however given one spot it’s pretty much fixable in terms of tonality.

Audiophiles won’t care about the directivity for this reason, as many sit at the same spot for listening and none other than them most of the times in their family would care about sound.

It’s safe to buy speakers with poor directivity if the rest of its attributes as interesting to him. I heard the new canton references and to my ears they are miles ahead of the KEFs that I have. However if you measure them, they won’t match probably to the Kef.
 
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