Audio Video News

Canton, the 31-year-old German loudspeaker company known for stylish, high-performance products, has joined the ever growing chorus of manufacturers offering slender, wall-mountable models specifically designed to complement flat-panel TVs. Canton's new CD300 Series loudspeakers combine technology derived from the company's high-end Karat line of loudspeakers with the sleeker, brushed aluminum look (a.k.a. "lifestyle design") of the CD100 series.

The current introduction includes two models: the CD300 floor-standing tower speaker and the shorter CD360F which uses the same driver configuration but is adapted for either vertical or horizontal wall mounting. Although the visual design of both models - slender, brushed aluminum enclosures with silvery grilles - is intended to create a dramatic, eye-catching appearance in any listening room (with or without a flat-panel TV), Canton touts the fact that just as much attention was paid to the overall sound quality of the new speakers.

Both the CD300 and the CD360F are two-and-a-half-way systems with a total of four 4-inch aluminum cone drivers plus a single, highly advanced version of Canton's ADT-25 one-inch aluminum-manganese tweeter. Two of the 4-inch drivers are dedicated to exclusively reproducing low-frequency signals while the remaining pair of 4-inch drivers cover both the midrange and bass regions. Canton claims this arrangement provides the equivalent surface area of an 8-inch woofer yet allows for the use of a much narrower, and theoretically more aesthetically pleasing, cabinet. (If you don't believe it, you try fitting an 8-inch woofer in a cabinet that's less than five inches wide and just a tad over six inches deep. Yeah, we didn't think you could do it...) The four identical 4-inch drivers in each model are derivatives of the mid-range drivers found in Canton's high-end Karat and Ergo speakers lines, although the motor structure was redesigned slightly to accommodate the need for wider frequency output demands in the new series.

Canton's ADT-25 tweeter is a special one-piece design that uses the large surface area of the tweeter dome to radiate heat away from the voice coil. A special narrow voice-coil gap - made possible by quality control technicians who adjust the centering of each voice coil using test signals to lock them in place perfectly - helps increase the intensity of the magnetic field. All together, Canton says this tweeter technology results in higher output levels, high linearity, and excellent efficiency.

The 48-inch tall floor-standing CD300 is constructed of extruded aluminum with pressure-cast aluminum end-caps and a circular base. Bass performance is extended by the use of a bass-reflex design with a single front-panel port. Canton spent extra time modeling the flare of this port and notes that it resulted in a 6-dB improvement in system headroom. The wall-mountable CD360F uses the same driver complement in a sealed cabinet that's 23.5 inches long and only four inches deep. Canton states that the CD360F performs equally well horizontally or vertically, making it an ideal choice for use as a center channel under a flat-panel TV or as wall-mounted mains or rears.