New review of Canton Reference 7K speaker with measurments...

[MarcT]

Just posted today in Stereophile, a mostly positive review. I am not qualified to comment on the measurements, so I'd be interested in any thoughts. It seems like they could sound a touch bright. Has anyone heard them?

At a msrp of $6995 per pair USD, does this seem like a reasonable option to consider at that price point?

https://www.stereophile.com/content/canton-reference-7k-loudspeaker

 

[BrokenEnglishGuy]

Why too much mid bass? artificial way to get more bass extension through the port ?

 

[abdo123]

View attachment 149753
Why too much mid bass? artificial way to get more bass extension through the port ?

all stereophile measurements have that bass hump

 

[BrokenEnglishGuy]

all stereophile measurements have that bass hump

Not that prominent

 

[MarcT]

I was wondering if one could think about this as sort of a poor man's B&W 800 series contender. Aesthetics are often a big factor for people considering speakers in this price range, and the Reference 7K seems at least as good looking, if not better, than the B&W's to me. Here are the prices for the new B&W 800 D4 models:

801 D4U: $35,000
802 D4: $26,000
803 D4: $20,000
804 D4: $12,500
805 D4: $8,000
HTM81 D4: $7,500
HTM82 D4: $5,500
FS-805 D4: $1,200

As you can see, the similarly sized 804 costs $12,500 and the stand mount 805 costs $8000, not including stands.

 

[thewas]

A quite decent loudspeaker, especially horizontal and vertical radiation seem surprisingly good:

The bass bump is as said partially an artefact of the way Stereoplay adds nearfield bass measurements, but a part is also real as the measurements of the German Stereoplay magazine show (can't post them here due to copyright reasons, but interested can buy the PDF here). If I had to nitpick something from those Stereoplay measurements, it would be the relatively high distortion level of the tweeter between 2-3 kHz (as on all newer Canton loudspeakers).

 

[thewas]

I was wondering if one could think about this as sort of a poor man's B&W 800 series contender. Aesthetics are often a big factor for people considering speakers in this price range, and the Reference 7K seems at least as good looking, if not better, than the B&W's to me. Here are the prices for the new B&W 800 D4 models:

801 D4U: $35,000
802 D4: $26,000
803 D4: $20,000
804 D4: $12,500
805 D4: $8,000
HTM81 D4: $7,500
HTM82 D4: $5,500
FS-805 D4: $1,200

As you can see, the similarly sized 804 costs $12,500 and the stand mount 805 costs $8000, not including stands.

In Germany the street price difference is even bigger as many Canton models are sold at almost half of the list price, also if you don't need the curved enclosures you can get the same ceramic coated drivers (but 3 instead of 2 woofers) and smaller bass hump https://audiovision.de/canton-a45-set-test/ for only 3000€ pair price https://www.canton.de/en/products/online-exclusive/a-45?number=03861

 

[BrokenEnglishGuy]

A quite decent loudspeaker, especially horizontal and vertical radiation seem surprisingly good:

View attachment 149757

View attachment 149758

The bass bump is as said partially an artefact of the way Stereoplay adds nearfield bass measurements, but a part is also real as the measurements of the German Stereoplay magazine show (can't post them here due to copyright reasons, but interested can buy the PDF here). If I had to nitpick something from those Stereoplay measurements, it would be the relatively high distortion level of the tweeter between 2-3 kHz (as on all newer Canton loudspeakers).

Sadly canton doesn't share any measurements
yeah i can't see the graph and i don't want buy the pdf but i can see a bump in the mid bass, that is not something very reference ..

The R700 from stereophile look good as that canton and cost much less

 

[MarcT]

In Germany the street price difference is even bigger as many Canton models are sold at almost half of the list price, also if you don't need the curved enclosures you can get the same drivers (but 3 instead of 2 woofers) for only 3000€ pair price https://www.canton.de/en/products/online-exclusive/a-45?number=03861

Yeah, Accessories for Less had those A45 at a great price for a good while. Maybe I should have jumped on them.

And Focal also recently took an almost 25% price increase. Are Focal and B&W worth the price premium you pay over something like the Canton Reference series?

 

[thewas]

And Focal also recently took an almost 25% price increase. Are Focal and B&W worth the price premium you pay over something like the Canton Reference series?

Such questions have no general answer as value perception and definition is a personal thing, for me from purely rational point no, on the other hand if I had a lot of money I would still buy a beautiful Focal Utopia Be or B&W 801 D4 without a second thought.

 

[theyellowspecial]

It's certainly a physically attractive speaker.

 

[Trell]

Just posted today in Stereophile, a mostly positive review. I am not qualified to comment on the measurements, so I'd be interested in any thoughts. It seems like they could sound a touch bright. Has anyone heard them?

At a msrp of $6995 per pair USD, does this seem like a reasonable option to consider at that price point?

https://www.stereophile.com/content/canton-reference-7k-loudspeaker

View attachment 149740

Canton has silently changed the specs on their home page (this or last year) so that woofers/midranges that before was listed as 7" (180 mm) is now 6.8" (174 mm), so the specs given in the review is not correct. This is done for some other model lines as well, even some that are discontinued.

https://www.canton.de/en/products/reference-k/reference-7-k

 

[Crosstalk]

After the broken guys argument about the midbass, I went once again to the store to decide between r11 and wherever are my options. Side by side, this literally was on another league compared to the kef r11. Bass on both sounded good, the canton had no hump on midbass whatsoever like in that graph. Kef on the the other half had a prominent dip in upper freq and lacked the speed of the canton. It was like listening to two different levels of fidelity altogether. To my ears listening on end for 1 hour with loads to songs, canton sounded like a Genelec monitor on steroids. Honestly I wish I could push my budget to get it over the r11. Price difference is around 1k and to me if I could push it I would definitely get it. I am trying to think it over until the weekend. Kef has more on the face vocals.

 

[thewas]

Bass is unfortunately very much room and placement dependent so deciding about it in a different room must not necessarily show which will better in yours. To get it a deep and smooth bass without large peaks and dips you anyway need many trials and measurements in your room and in almost all cases also room correction (EQ).

 

[Crosstalk]

Bass is unfortunately very much room and placement dependent so deciding about it in a different room must not necessarily show which will better in yours. To get it a deep and smooth bass without large peaks and dips you anyway need many trials and measurements in your room and in almost all cases also room correction (EQ).

I don’t want to use any DSP in the chain, it kills the purpose of having hi quality electronics before the DSP as it alters and may be even lowers SNR produced by excellent DACs like a topping d90. I would rather treat the room to the max and let every part of the gear work it’s best. I understand your point though. What DSP you had in mind ?

 

[MrSoul4470]

Unless you have a fully treated professional room for listening, you basically can't avoid using a DSP. And even in the best recording studios they still use DSPs. Their advantages just absolutely surpass their disadvantages. There is really nothing to worry about.

 

[BoredErica]

I don’t want to use any DSP in the chain, it kills the purpose of having hi quality electronics before the DSP as it alters and may be even lowers SNR produced by excellent DACs like a topping d90. I would rather treat the room to the max and let every part of the gear work it’s best. I understand your point though. What DSP you had in mind ?

What difference does it make if SNR decreases if you can't hear a difference, vs problems you can hear that can be fixed by dsp?

 

[Crosstalk]

What difference does it make if SNR decreases if you can't hear a difference, vs problems you can hear that can be fixed by dsp?

Then why do we need a dac like d90 or an amp like the topping pa5 if that much snr doesn’t make any difference ? We should be then be then happy with a something around 90db as theoretically that’s already a territory where we are already good.

 

[BoredErica]

Then why do we need a dac like d90 or an amp like the topping pa5 if that much snr doesn’t make any difference ? We should be then be then happy with a something around 90db as theoretically that’s already a territory where we are already good.

Exactly. You don't need a TOTL dac or amp. Maybe a bit higher if you need dac with low noise for amp with high gain if you can't use a preamp. Or an amp with high enough power or if you're worried about the small fr increase at 20khz buy some more expensive amp.

If we're talking about bumping up SNR higher and higher with no special needs, then no, it's not necessary.

 

[thewas]

I don’t want to use any DSP in the chain, it kills the purpose of having hi quality electronics before the DSP as it alters and may be even lowers SNR produced by excellent DACs like a topping d90. I would rather treat the room to the max and let every part of the gear work it’s best. I understand your point though. What DSP you had in mind ?

Like others wrote you don't need to worry with decent electronics and the advantages of room corrections are on the contrary audible. Depends on your source, if you use a PC as player you don't need extra hardware, if not something like a Minidsp.