Floor Loudspeaker Reviews

Canton Elektronik GmbH is a family-owned manufacturer of loudspeakers based in Weilrod, Germany. Founded in 1972—the name is from Latin and German: "Can" from the Latin "cantare," "to sing"; "Ton" from the German for "sound"—Canton is now well past its 50th anniversary. The largest manufacturer of perfectionist speakers in Germany, Canton is still based in the small township where it began, with manufacturing facilities in the Czech Republic.

John Atkinson reviewed the Canton Reference 7K in September 2021, and Ken Micallef followed up. The 7K ended up in Class A, Restricted Extreme LF, of Stereophile's Recommended Components list. Now that Canton has significantly revised its Reference Series, it's time to take another look and listen.

Which new Reference-series speaker should I audition? I provided Jay Rein of importer-distributor Bluebird Music with the dimensions of my new listening room and asked him to choose the model he felt would be the best fit. In other words, I proceeded as customers with knowledgeable dealers should proceed. Jay recommended the Reference 5 ($11,000/pair), sharing that it was his favorite model in the series. Canton Head of Marketing Moritz Jung told me the same thing. The Reference 5 comes with an impressive 10-year warranty.

When I started gathering Canton intel, one of the first things that struck me was the breadth of the company's offerings. I counted 21 floorstanding models in seven named series. I may have missed a couple. I didn't count standmounts, wall-mounts, subwoofers, center channels, or speakers intended as surrounds. Canton has something for everyone, from that first parental graduation present on up to the most experienced audiophiles. Bluebird Music's Jay Rein commented: "Yes, there is a huge amount of choice. Canton offers solutions for music lovers of all stripes, no matter how they take their music. Their philosophy is to make anyone who wants music happy."

Canton's current Reference Series is, as the name implies, their top of the lineup (footnote 1). There are five models, designated simply, with numbers: 1, 2, 3, 5, and 7. The Reference 7 is the smallest and least expensive, moving up in size and budget to the Reference 1. I auditioned the Reference 5, a three-way floorstander that weighs 79.3lb. Height is 39.7", width is 11.8", and depth is 18.1"—so, a substantial cabinet but not huge. Canton likes ceramic-diaphragm drivers, and these speakers come with a single 1" Black Ceramic dome tweeter, single 6.85" Black Ceramic Tungsten midrange driver, and two 6.85" Black Ceramic Tungsten woofers.

Canton designs and constructs all their drivers in-house. This has resulted in a sustained development process that separates this company from the pack. In 2015, Canton started using blends of ceramic, tungsten, and titanium in the manufacture of their speaker diaphragms. The material employed in the Reference Series, in tweeters, midrange drivers, and woofers, is described by Canton as "Black Ceramic" (BC). Starting with an aluminum cone, some of the molecular content is converted into a ceramic structure. From a Canton white paper: "A specialized electrochemical oxidation process binds oxygen molecules on both sides, creating a ceramic structure." The midrange and woofer diaphragms add tungsten to the mix; the resulting ceramic material maintains the advantages of ceramics with less brittleness. Canton refers to these as "Black Ceramic Tungsten" (BCT) cones.

The result, Rein told me, is "a cone material that is extremely stiff and extremely light. They are easily controlled by the amplifier. The result is speed and accuracy in musical reproduction. Canton's ceramic drivers have desired speed and accuracy but with some damping that keeps the high frequencies sounding sweet and natural."

Canton drivers feature what the company calls "Triple Curved Cone" (TCC): "The profile of the diaphragm consists of three consecutive radii that differ from each other. This gives the driver a much stiffer construction and reduces distortion. The TCC driver also offers improved dispersion characteristics, and a higher bandwidth."

Each driver is in its own enclosure. The tweeter features an "Isolated mid-high frequency wave-guide grille" and an "Ultra-light single wire voice coil." From a low extension frequency of 21Hz, the crossover hands off to the midrange driver at 160Hz. The midrange driver covers a large frequency band, from 160Hz up to 3kHz. From there, the tweeter takes over and extends to a rated 40kHz. Users should have flexibility in choice of amplification. Measurements will reveal more.

Another proprietary aspect of Canton's crossovers is what the company calls "Displacement Control," DC for short. Technical Director Frank Göbl described it as "An innovative solution that extends the bass range of the speakers. By employing specialized high-pass filters to control excursion, Canton effectively shifts the lower cutoff frequency of the drivers down by an entire octave, achieving a significantly deeper and more linear crossover to the midrange driver. This supports the midrange drivers' critical role in achieving broadband performance." Application of this circuitry increases impedance below 20Hz.

A significant external change from the K-series Reference models, including the 7K JA reviewed, is rounder cabinets. The new Reference Series speakers have fully rounded forms; there are no sharp angles anywhere, including the front and rear baffles. The prior Ref K models had flat front baffles and tapered sides.

These rounded cabinets are achieved with bentwood—laminated ply. Distributor Jay Rein observed, "Cabinet material is so important in the high end, and nobody offers shaped laminated ply at anywhere near our price." This is how the rims of grand pianos are constructed—very strong and inert. In this reviewer's opinion, the visual aesthetic of the Reference Series models is top-notch, and I would expect that measurements will reveal excellent dispersion behavior due to the absence of sharp edges.

The review pair was finished in smooth "Piano" white, contrasting the black drivers. Magnetically attachable black grilles are included, curved to match the cabinets.

Canton Reference Series speakers sit on a two-part support: "Bass-Guides" occupy the space between the traditional bottom plate and the bottom of the speaker cabinet. Göbl explained: "This design integrates the bass-reflex port into the enclosure, operating on a combined front-firing and back-firing principle. Airflow is guided through a channel recessed in the base plate, directing it to the front and rear of the enclosure. This ensures remarkably stable bass resonance, regardless of the speaker's placement in the room." This is similar in function and design to the more expensive TAD Grand Evolution loudspeaker I reviewed and may be unique in this price range. The base plates (and the rest of the speaker) are supported by adjustable feet with discs, not spikes.

The speaker taps at the rear are high-quality WBT Nextgen, in biwirable pairs; gold-plated bridges are provided for those who do not employ biwiring. Next to the speaker terminals is another significant feature, new to the Reference Series: two sets of physical taps that, by joining them with similar bridges, allow for independently boosting or cutting the tweeter and midrange output by 1.5dB. More on this in a moment.

Musical chairs
Bookshelf speakers they ain't, but the Canton Ref 5s are manageable in size and weight compared to some other speakers and amps I have wrangled recently. The two boxes arrived without incident, strapped to a pallet. Using my cloth-covered handcart, I was able to roll them into position in my listening room without having to hire my son and a homie as an informal hi-fi moving company. The Reference 5s ended up fairly close to the sweet spot for my reference system speakers: about 3.5' from the front wall, 7' apart, and 8' from my listening chair.

The Reference 5s arrived here from a dealer fully broken in, so I didn't have to go through that strange phenomenon specific to reviewers in which we worry whether a component is sounding as it was intended to sound, or whether it is in need of further break-in. What makes this especially challenging is that the sound of some speakers continues to change well after the manufacturer-stated break-in period has passed—at what point do we conclude that it sounds like itself?

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Footnote 1: Although the new, even higher-end Alpha series is likely to be out by the time this review is published.—Jim Austin