T.H.E. Show SoCal 2025: Active Speakers & DSP Tech Part V

Canvas HiFi

The biggest surprise of the show for me was the Canvas HiFi Soundbar. With a starting price of $5K, this is no ordinary soundbar. But, at the risk of sounding like an audio snob, even pricey soundbars usually sound like soundbars, and the Canvas is simply in a league of its own. (A note on pricing — just six months ago, the Canvas had a starting price of $3,800 when shown at CES. Like most consumer electronics brands, Denmark-based Canvas HiFi has been hit hard by tariffs and the surrounding economic instability.) On the surface, the Canvas is a 2-way, stereo soundbar with an integrated TV mount/stand. If for some reason you don’t intend to use it in conjunction with a TV, you can knock $500 off the price tag and eschew the TV mount/stand. 

From a physical design perspective, the special sauce comes in the form of interchangeable custom grilles that align seamlessly with TVs from 55 to 85 inches. Upgrading from a 65-inch TV to an 85-incher? Just order a new grille to maintain the sleek, custom look. The only downside of the design is that, when used as a TV stand on the floor, the Canvas slants the TV back like an easel. While the aesthetic certainly works with the “Canvas” brand, such a design skews the geometry of the TV’s image. For those who wall-mount their TV, this is a non-issue. In addition to wireless streaming smarts, the Canvas has HDMI eARC along with optical and analog aux inputs. The drivers, manufactured by the Danish/Indonesian firm SB Acoustics, include a pair of 29mm silk dome tweeters, a pair of 6.5-inch paper cone mid-woofers with cast aluminum chassis, and a pair of passive radiators. These are powered by a 4-channel Class D amp with a total of 250 watts. A Burr-Brown DAC sits after the powerful DSP unit, which handles room correction via Canvas’s iOS and Android apps.

The one ingredient that sets the Canvas apart is its built-in BACCH 3D audio processing, also powered by DSP. BACCH 3D (Band-Assembled Crosstalk Cancellation Hierarchy) performs crosstalk cancellation, working like a “digital mattress placed from your nose to the speakers, ensuring your left ear only hears sound from the left speaker, and your right ear only hears sound from the right speaker,” according to Canvas. The result is truly unbelievable 3D imaging and an insanely-wide soundstage that absolutely can’t be coming from a soundbar — even a larger-than-average one — and yet somehow it is. This technology, licensed from BACCH Labs, combines with a DSP crossover and tuning system designed by Canvas CTO Benno Baun Meldgaard, who has designed high-end speakers for brands like Raidho and Gryphon. 

How BACCH Technology Achieves Realism in Music Reproduction  

On “Where Is Love Now” by Nickel Creek, I really couldn’t believe what I was hearing. There was zero sense of the sound being tied to the Canvas itself. Instead, the whole room was filled with a wall-to-wall stereo image. Bass was deeper than expected, and the overall tonal balance was pleasing, if perhaps slightly bright. Canvas’s CSO Jannick Tronsen answered my flood of questions as I tried to wrap my head around the remarkable demo experience. For customers who are willing and able to spend upwards of $5K but who want a solution with zero footprint and nearly zero installation hassle, the Canvas is a game-changer. I hope we can get one in for review.

Ayre Acoustics and Seawave Acoustic

In this room, Colorado’s Ayre Acoustics teamed up with a Korean loudspeaker brand called Seawave Acoustic, which has been in business since the 1980s. After years of success in Asia, the brand is now trying to penetrate the US market and is being imported by a new distribution company called Total Harmonics. 

Ayre contributed the CX-8 C/D Player ($6,000 - $8,500), PX-8 phono preamp ($6,500 - $11,000), KX-8 preamp ($6,500 - $10,500), and VX-8 stereo power amp ($7,000). The turntable was a Technics SL-1210G ($4,300), and the speakers were the Seawave Aletheia III ($18K/pair, plus $3,500/pair for matching stands). The story behind the speakers is fascinating. Seawave’s founder, Bo San, is a Buddhist monk with an extreme DIY attitude — he designs nearly all parts of the speakers himself. The cabinet is made from an aluminum/magnesium silica alloy, with all smelting, molding, and casting done in-house. The stands are made of the same material as the speaker cabinets. The capacitors, inductors, and resistors used in the crossover are also made in-house, as is the diamond-coated beryllium tweeter. The 6.5-inch mid-woofer is made in Germany by Eton. This was my first time hearing Seawave speakers, though I had seen pictures of the company’s larger AM 45 model, which looks like a Dalek from Doctor Who.

I always applaud the bold choice to play banjo music at an audio show, so I was pleased when Ayre’s Jake Forsyth suggested Béla Fleck’s 1984 album Deviation, which we listened to on vinyl. On the tracks “Nuns for Nixon” and “Moontides,” the soundstage exceeded far beyond the outer edges of the speakers themselves. In my notes, I described the sound as electric: energized and totally holographic. On “Ambrose,” which is probably the funkiest banjo track I’ve ever heard, the highs sounded a bit tipped-up, but that made for an exciting listen. There was astonishing output from that small mid-woofer, which sounded blazing-fast. The electric bass and drums felt full-scale, yet they could start and stop on a dime. Actually, they sounded as if they could stop and start on a single atom of nickel on the surface of a dime. 

SVS Theater 

Down in one of the large ballrooms, SVS brought a 5.2.4-channel theater system that was used for T.H.E. Film Festival. I was expecting to see the same 7.4-channel system that the company brought to T.H.E. Lone Star Audio Fest, but the setup in SoCal was a bit different. It used the flagship SVS Ultra Evolution Pinnacle speakers ($5K/pair) for the front left and right channels (crossed over at 40Hz), along with an Ultra Evolution Center ($800 each) for the center channel. A pair of Ultra Evolution Tower speakers ($3K/pair) handled the surround channels, while height channels were reproduced by four Ultra Evolution Elevation speakers ($450 each) placed high up along the side walls. Bass was delivered by a pair of PB17-Ultra subwoofers ($3K each). A Denon AVR-A110 receiver powered the whole shebang — no separate amps were used.

The space was cavernous — Larry McGough of SVS said it was 45 by 25 feet, but it looked bigger to me. (There does not seem to be a consensus on just how large this room was. Our friends at ecoustics reckon it was 76 by 40 feet. Suffice it to say, it was huge.) Despite the size of the space, the whole room was pressurized by those PB17-Ultra subs during high-impact clips from Ready Player One and Godzilla Minus One. McGough said that this was “the most impressed” he had ever been with an SVS system because of the sheer size. A car chase scene from Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation reached near-deafening SPLs, and a helicopter scene from Mission: Impossible – Fallout put the Ultra Evolution Elevation speakers through their paces down to a crossover point of 60Hz. Expecting a consumer-oriented home theater like this to deliver cinema-level sound to such a big room is totally unreasonable, yet there were few noticeable shortcomings. The center-channel speaker was definitely too small for the job, but that is not a knock against it — I was sitting about 20 feet away, and no $800 speaker of that size could be expected to fill a space so big. My only other nitpick is that the height channels were mounted only about ⅔ of the way up the walls, and because the walls were so far from where I was sitting, the height channels sounded more like side surrounds, preventing the complete sense of immersion that Dolby Atmos ought to deliver. McGough says that, in general, he prefers placing the Elevation speakers on side walls rather than on the ceiling because doing so yields a better front-to-back spread. Either way, what this system accomplished in that space was darn impressive, bordering on ridiculous. 

Diptyque Audio & Audia Flight 

I was excited to hear the Diptyque Audio Reference MK II planar magnetic speakers ($60K/pair), which had been described to me as “Magnepans on steroids.” In this room sponsored by The Audio Association, the setup included the Audia Flight FLS 1 preamp ($10K) and a pair of FLS 8 monoblock amplifiers ($12K each), with the popular Grimm MU2 streamer/DAC ($17,500) as the source. Cables were provided by Viablue, with networking gear from Dejitter it. The attractive wood equipment rack and amp stands were from Massif Audio Design. The room setup was less than ideal — curtains were used as sidewalls to close off the listening area, but the room itself was large and asymmetrical. Nevertheless, the system got off to a good start with “Six Blade Knife” by Dire Straits. Immediately, the boxless sound of a panel speaker made itself known, but with great micro and macro dynamics, the latter of which is not typical of a panel design. The bass was quick and precise but not subwoofer deep. On a cover of “Wicked Game” by the Manchester-based singer-songwriter Lusaint, the ethereal vocal track had see-through clarity. The system really started to cook on a track called “Anything & Everything” by Vini Vici & Pixel, which featured electronic synths building in volume over a throbbing and ticking soundscape. When the bass dropped, I was completely shocked. Similar-sized Magnepans could never pump out bass with this kind of visceral slam. It might not have been reaching infrasonic depths, but I don’t think most people would feel anything missing or even consider adding a sub. (Many subwoofers can’t produce bass this clean and laser-fast, so if you do add a sub to panel speakers, make sure it’s a good one.)

On a track called “Christmas Villancicos for 4 Voices: E la don don Verges Maria” by Peter Pontvik & Stockholm Ensemble Villancico, the triangle was reproduced with lifelike overtones, and the countertenor’s voice was eerily three-dimensional. Changing things up dramatically, we then listened to “Sex in a Pan” by Béla Fleck and the Flecktones. Victor Wooten’s groovy bass part sounded fully fleshed-out and super snappy. We ended the listening session with a faster-than-usual version of “Take Five” by Dave Brubeck, from an album called We’re All Together Again for the First Time. The system highlighted the transient attack of the drums and cymbals during the drum solo, which made my inner percussionist very happy indeed. In general, I would say that “Maggies on steroids” is an apt description of the Diptyque Audio speakers, and I left the room hoping to find more opportunities to hear both these speakers and the Audia Flight electronics. 

T.H.E. Show SoCal 2025 Odds and Ends 

I saw some great-looking gear on static display, including the following:

The odd but undeniably charming Tiki Tube Amps built by Desmond Bowe (all custom pieces, built-to-order). 

A stack of colorful REL T9/x SE subwoofers ($1,650 each).

The new Audio Research I/70 integrated amp ($9,950) connected to the attractive, marble-clad Acora Acoustics MRB-1 bookshelf speakers ($8K/pair). 

There were also many rooms that I was unable to cover for one reason or another, even though they clearly had promising sound and/or interesting-looking gear. Some of these systems were among the largest and most expensive at the show. If these systems return next year, I will be sure to report back. In the meantime, I snapped some pictures so we can all drool and dream until T.H.E. Show 2026. Enjoy!

AudioNec speakers from France, powered by Ypsilon electronics from Greece. 

Bayz Audio Counterpoint 2.0 speakers ($200K/pair) powered by Burmester Electronics, including the enormous 159 Mono Amplifiers ($350,000/pair).

YG XV Signature loudspeakers ($498,000/pair) powered by Soul Note electronics. 

Evolution Acoustics SYSTEM THREE loudspeakers ($147,200/pair) driven by Soulution electronics.

Clarisys Audio Studio Plus full-range ribbon loudspeakers ($79K/pair) driven by WestminsterLab electronics. 

Legacy Audio Valor Speaker Overvieww & Listening

Legacy Audio Valor loudspeakers ($92K/pair) powered by Legacy amps. Gene got to spend extensive listening time with the Valor speakers and absolutely loved them. This wraps up our coverage of T.H.E. SHOW 2025.