This is a review and detailed measurements of the Kanto YU6 powered speaker. It was kindly sent to me by a member and costs US $499 on Amazon including Prime shipping.
The YU6 comes in different finishes, all of which look pretty attractive. The sample I have is black:
As you see, you have a front volume control which is great for a desktop monitor. A remote control is also provided which is even more convenient to use as it also lets you select many other options including different inputs:
I don't think I had seen a powered monitor with phono input before! Very nicely done as far as inputs and feature set.
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 1000 measurement which resulted in error rate of roughly 1%.
Reference axis for measurements was the center of the tweeter. Grill was not used in either measurements or listening tests.
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.
Kanto YU6 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:
Response above 1 kHz is pretty good. Below that we have a peak that is most likely a resonance and a wide dip. Looking at the near-field measurements of the drivers we instantly see the reason for that peak:
We see the same indications in the CSD/waterfall display:
Due to decent directivity off-axis response looks similar to on axis:
Combined, we can predict the far-field response of the speaker in a room:
Same story as the on-axis response.
Horizontal beam width is decent but narrows at higher frequencies so you would want to point the speaker at your ear:
Or not if the highs bother you too much.
Same measurement in contour style shows decent results:
Vertically story is typical of 2-way speakers. Stay close to the tweeter axis (tilt the speaker up if you have to):
Distortion story is very good at 86 dBSPL and even at 96 if you ignore the very low frequencies:
Kanto YU6 Listening Tests
First impression was reasonable with the highs stand out a bit. So I brought out the EQ and went after both the resonance and bass dip:
Compensating for low frequency shortfalls with EQ based on anechoic measurements is tricky as the room interferes. Here, the deficiency was enough that I managed to make some correction but any more adherence to the measurements didn't translate as well across different types of music. So at the end, I stayed with the above simple one filter. Once there, music was more balanced and bass that now could be heard properly.
I was extremely impressed with the dynamic ability of this speaker. You could crank it up with seemingly no limit! Vast majority of powered speakers are underamplified. Not the YU6. I could detect no limiting kicking and the sound would get as loud as I possibly wanted it in near-field listening. There was plenty of bass to boot. I have learned to detest amplifier limit in powered speakers more than frequency response errors. I can fix the response with EQ. I can't do anything about the amplifier running out of the juice and creating all kinds of noises.
Conclusions
The YU6 has two simple issues that are easily fixed using EQ. Once there, you have a powerful little speaker that plays well with incredible functionality. On the latter front, it goes way past what professional monitors provide with such niceties as remote control.
I am going to recommend the Kanto YU6.
------------
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/
The YU6 comes in different finishes, all of which look pretty attractive. The sample I have is black:
As you see, you have a front volume control which is great for a desktop monitor. A remote control is also provided which is even more convenient to use as it also lets you select many other options including different inputs:
I don't think I had seen a powered monitor with phono input before! Very nicely done as far as inputs and feature set.
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 1000 measurement which resulted in error rate of roughly 1%.
Reference axis for measurements was the center of the tweeter. Grill was not used in either measurements or listening tests.
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.
Kanto YU6 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:
Response above 1 kHz is pretty good. Below that we have a peak that is most likely a resonance and a wide dip. Looking at the near-field measurements of the drivers we instantly see the reason for that peak:
We see the same indications in the CSD/waterfall display:
Due to decent directivity off-axis response looks similar to on axis:
Combined, we can predict the far-field response of the speaker in a room:
Same story as the on-axis response.
Horizontal beam width is decent but narrows at higher frequencies so you would want to point the speaker at your ear:
Or not if the highs bother you too much.
Same measurement in contour style shows decent results:
Vertically story is typical of 2-way speakers. Stay close to the tweeter axis (tilt the speaker up if you have to):
Distortion story is very good at 86 dBSPL and even at 96 if you ignore the very low frequencies:
Kanto YU6 Listening Tests
First impression was reasonable with the highs stand out a bit. So I brought out the EQ and went after both the resonance and bass dip:
Compensating for low frequency shortfalls with EQ based on anechoic measurements is tricky as the room interferes. Here, the deficiency was enough that I managed to make some correction but any more adherence to the measurements didn't translate as well across different types of music. So at the end, I stayed with the above simple one filter. Once there, music was more balanced and bass that now could be heard properly.
I was extremely impressed with the dynamic ability of this speaker. You could crank it up with seemingly no limit! Vast majority of powered speakers are underamplified. Not the YU6. I could detect no limiting kicking and the sound would get as loud as I possibly wanted it in near-field listening. There was plenty of bass to boot. I have learned to detest amplifier limit in powered speakers more than frequency response errors. I can fix the response with EQ. I can't do anything about the amplifier running out of the juice and creating all kinds of noises.
Conclusions
The YU6 has two simple issues that are easily fixed using EQ. Once there, you have a powerful little speaker that plays well with incredible functionality. On the latter front, it goes way past what professional monitors provide with such niceties as remote control.
I am going to recommend the Kanto YU6.
------------
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/
