Canton Karat Reference 2 DC
We were pleased when we first hooked up the Canton Karat
Reference 2 DC speakers (review coming soon) and experienced
Canton's latest offering. We were even more pleased
when we were able to sit down with Frank Gobl, Head
of Development and Research, and discuss the technical
details behind the Canton design. Considering the number
of people attending the show, Frank took a fair amount
of his precious time to discuss the concepts that drive
their designs. For example, Canton's approach to cabinet
design is everything but conventional. Their Trapazoidal
design eliminates parallel surfaces, helping to reduce
standing wave resonance. They also do a tremendous job
of implementing a passive radiator with their massive
woofer. The passive radiator allows Canton to produce
a 70mm (almost 3 inches!) peak to peak driver excursion
which produces tight, deep and accurate bass. It also
reduces the cabinet size which would otherwise require
a huge port in order to tune the cabinet comparably.
We also learned that the resonance fequency of the passive
radiator is 10 Hz which is below the audible range,
and therefore does not interfere with the performance
of the speaker as do some port designs. Canton Electronics
is also among the few companies we've heard that effectively
implements a metal dome tweeter. Their success is attributed
to the use of two different alloys that make up the
dome. Frank tells us the advange of this tweeter design
is that the dome can be careful shaped in order to eliminate
ringing within the audio frequency band. Our personal
experience with this tweeter is that it's able to accurately
produce high frequencies without sounding bright or
harsh.
Canton manufactures a variety of different speakers from affordable to high-end. But what we like most about this company so far is their engineering-based principals used to design and manufacturer all of their products. We look forward to reviewing many of their speakers. Stay tuned as the Canton Karat Reference 2 speaker review is only weeks away.
