EXTENDED REVIEW: The Canton is one of Germany's greatest hifi pride, where it's about telling the whole and true truth. Whether it's Beethoven, Wagner or Rammstein who is on the rhythmic playlist, the music will be reproduced to the smallest detail. No shortcuts are accepted, which is a truth that only becomes more pronounced the higher up in the price ranges that come. We have previously known Canton's cheaper speakers, and several of them have impressed us. But it is in the high-end class that the Canton thrives the best.
With a price of over SEK 100,000 for a pair, Reference 3K is definitely high-end. A class where you expect the speakers to wake up dead artists from the grave to give private and intimate concerts where music history is painted on a holographic screen and the sense of time and space is almost solved. Everything but amazing sound is a flop, it requires flawless dynamics, almost endless amounts of sound colours witout any distorion down to the deepest bases. Something you should get because you have burned the household's savings money and a part of the pension on a couple of speakers to achieve the high level!
Enormous stuff
Reference 3K is not the largest model - the honour goes to the mighty Reference 1K - but it is still large stretches 1150mm above sea level and houses two 220mm (8.5-inch) bass drivers. The weight of 56kg per speaker means that one is the strongest advise of trying to handle them on their own.
The first thing that strikes me is the massive cabinet. It is obviously solidly built, and acoustically optimised with an arched front plate that counteracts diffractions in high frequencies. On a flat front plate, short noise waves travel back and forth along the surface and collide with each other causing phase distortions. The wider the front, the worse it will be, so on such a large speaker it is an advantage if the front bends off. The walls are 50mm thick and consist of several layers to prevent resonances.
If you think I'm talking about the cabinet in a technical and mechanical way, it's because they raise such feelings. The whole design is built for the sake of purpose, and available in piano black or piano white lacquer.
Construction
The diaphragms in the base and middle register elements are mainly made of ceramic treated tungsten. It will provide an optimal stiffness to weight ratio and additionally extra damping on the inside. Everything for the sake of music, so that the tones can flow as unaffected as possible.The treble is also made of ceramic.
The split filters use circuit boards with a little self-resonance and the internal cabling is minimised. The cables themselves are specially developed for the Reference K series.
In addition to the rear terminals there are two link terminals that can be connected in different ways to provide more or less treble or midrange, according to listener preferences. In our rather subdued rooms, they work best in neutral mode.
About location
Reference 3K goes deep into the base, but Canton promises that they are not so violently difficult in terms of placement relative to back and side walls. Much thanks to the bass reflex port that has a special waveguide that spreads the sound waves better and reduces turbulence in the mouth of the base port.
When dealing with such a large speaker, which goes so deeply in the base, it is still important to work with the location. It's about getting as tight a bass as possible combined with an optimal stereo perspective. Close to the wall can be a lot of bass - maybe a bit too much and too daring - but a flater stereo perspective. Long on the floor often provides a thinner base but a larger and deeper sound image.
In our test room, which measures approximately 7 x 4.5 meters, the speakers work best around 1.1 m from each side wall, measured from the centre of the treble element, and with the front plate 1.7 meters from the back wall. If you want an optimal starting point to work in your own room.
One, swipe, turn!
Time for music. The speakers are connected to Ayre's electronics: the digital media player and QX-5 Twenty digital converter are connected to the KX-R Twenty power amplifier and the 2x200 watts potent power amplifier VX-R Twenty. Sure, quite crazy, I know. But yozy so that combination sounds! And when you test expensive speakers you want to hear what they really do with optimal equipment.
Speakers turn out to be absolutely awesome with classical music. I mentioned Wagner, and then it is the opera "Valkyrian" that applies.And the way in which speakers fill the room with tones from the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in the strictest way is really a chapter by themselves. The "Valkyrierite", the most famous part that we recognise from countless films, almost makes us feel welcome. The speakers do not give the least signs of hesitation, trumpets, trombones, and eagles are banging out of them, while the tubers and pukors thrive in the deep bass register. Lighter wind instruments and cymbals hover in the top and spread outwards in the two-dimensional plane. The music becomes alive like with a few other speakers, it sounds like a military invasion is taking place in the room.
Even electronic, rhythmic music makes the speakers easy to play.The new song "Anocha" of the odd hip-hop phenomenon Arca is a kind of crossing between hip and classical music, with Spanish songs in the midst of a wonderful big and open soundscape and a heavy, beautiful bass.
The Canton speakers produce everything in a particularly cool way and present it in a giant soundtrack. The loudest loudspeakers of the speakers are the vast landscape that effortlessly fills the room, completely free from masking puckles or swirls.
Arcas Spanish-singing voice appears weightless, floating and beautiful. The transition from midrange to treble is completely seamless, the stereo perspective is as cast, and despite the height of the speakers, it is possible to sit quite so close without losing the perspective. This is because the treble element is at the earpiece below the middle register. In practice, you can sit as close to Reference 3K as the much smaller Audiovector SR3 Avantgarde Arreté and Sonus Faber Olympica III.
A comparison
If you compare, Olympica III is not as airy in the harmonics. The smaller Sonus faber speakers focus more on the middle register, giving the music a darker tone.
Reference 3K may not be the same focus on the centre as the Sonos, the width and depth of the sound image is superior to the Germans. This is repeated with Daft Punk's cool debut song "Lose Yourself to Dance", where Canton unfolds the sound image an extra snap. Again, Pharell Williams's voice is probably a little bit better planted in the middle of Sonus fabs, but the Canton fills the room in a completely different way.
Reference 3K is also more linear from the middle base to the bottom so that bass instruments breathe better. The Bastrumman makes the less of the bass guitar, there is more weight further down and everything sounds more unobtrusive, especially at high volume.
The significantly more compact Audiovector SR3 Avantgarde Arreté has even more air at the top thanks to the bandwidths, but Reference 3K breaks them when it's about weight in the bass register. In the price range around SEK100,000, there are not many who beat the Canton when everything is added together, because they are so good at everything.
German to German
Soundly wakes Reference 3K memories from the ELAC FS 509 VX JET, another German high-end speaker we tested in 2012. They have the same strength, thus a giant sound image with extreme openness and precision, but the Canton speakers are even more benefiting from their big bass, while we thought the FS 509 was a bit restrained in the middle base.
Whatever music I put on, the speakers respond to both massaging my senses and letting me dance. As long as the recording is good, please note. An overcompressed pop production gets nothing for free here.
About amplifier
The Canton K3 speakers don’t need colossal expensive amplifier combination to let brilliantly. They are light enough to work with an integrated amplifier like Hegel Voice, as long as you keep the noise level below what the neighbours think is acceptable.
We also got an aha experience with the Hegel P30 preamplifier along with the Hegel H20 power amplifier and even more meat on the legs with the McIntosh MA7000.
If you have acoustic problems, the Arcam SR250 with Dirac space correction can also make wonders. But with the Ayre plant we came even closer to the music, heard more details and sat almost spellbound. Speakers deliver a high degree of what they receive.
Conclusion
Canton Reference 3K is a large speaker, with an equally magnificent sound. It is not afraid to thrive when it comes to and massage the entire body with sound waves!
But it also sounds as good at low volume, which is not the case with all major speakers.
The bass is deep and beautiful, it's super fast and the sound image is presented in a holographic and comprehensive way.
The music style does not matter, Reference 3K does not care if you like classical, flamenco, metal or hip hop.
There are speakers that have even more airy harmonics, and there are those who have an even more centred centre in the soundtrack, but when you put everything together, Reference 3K is a pair of speakers that sounds amazing almost anything you do. Add that they are easier to place than the size implies that the case should be done.
Canton Reference 3K is a large speaker, with an equally magnificent sound. It is not afraid to thrive when it comes to and massage the entire body with sound waves!
...........Geir Gråbein Nordby
