Gadgetory

hello an welcome today we will travel back in time about 25 years and we will have a look at a classic from germany from that period: the Canton Carat 920 DC the appendix "DC" stands for "displacement control", there was also a normal 920 and a 930 it should play more controlled with bass and with less distortion and was recommended to me by a friend of mine who is really a hifi enthusiast on a high level also when looking at some fromer press, back then audio magazines were still competent they provided measurements. if looking at some modern magazines they mostly consist of ads only here from "Hifi Vision" yeah, the measurement nearly linear, they also gave it an "excellent" rating really the fewest speakers were given an "excellent" rating, rather very good, good or satisfactory even speakers that were way more expensive back then these cost 1000DM and they were chosen as "reference" in the class below 1000DM I thought we will have a listen to them how such a speaker would sound today I don't have anything comparable except the Nubert NuPro A-300 of course this is a little bit unfair, I will play them from my old and also vintage Pioneer amplifier it doesn't even reach 50 or 60W or something like that the speakers themselves are rated with 70W of nominal power maximum power 100W, frequency response is provided as 3... what is written here? 30khz down to 33hz, of course no idea within which dB-range but I have already taken down the grill here. you can see it's a two-way system. bassreflex, hidden here is the port of course I also tried to measure them on my own, but taken with a grain of salt as it's a nearfield measurement and also compared to the Nubert Nupro A-300 shown in grey here you can see that both do not play perfectly linear, at least not in my own measurement but the Cantons appear a bit more boosted in the bass region, while the Nuberts reach deeper but you can also see that the Nuberts have some bump in the presence region the Cantons seem to play smoother in this area of course the Nuberts are electronically equalized, particularly in the bass region probably the Cantons won't be able to keep up here you can also see it from the measurement, but overall it's a nice smiley response although the measurements from that time show a really flat response which was also what they emphasized about the Cantons: being a very neutral sounding small bookshelf speaker. you are already listening through an artificial binaural head of course you have to listen through headphones. the recording gain will remain constant whole the time. this is simply important to me to also provide you an as realistic as possible sound level impression so please put up your headphones, I will set them up and then we will simply switch between both I will start with the Cantons, playing some tracks then swap them and do the same with the Nuberts and afterwards I will cut everything together so we can hear the differences better the first track is from Steve Nichol, a Soulpersona production and before I'd also like to show you some settings of the amplifier it is now playing with neutral settings - CD direct but as the speakers won't reach as deep as the Nuberts, which obviously are artificially pushed in the bass region I thought I will play them with loudness while turning bass and treble down at the same time to retrieve some lower bass without affecting the overall sound too much like I said, this is with CD direct with loudness this lower bass part comes out better I will turn volume up so that you can hear the difference better CD direct and I set loudness to such a level that we get around 85dB, 90dB maximum at listening position this is already quite a decent listening loudness and let's start with the next track another aspect I would like to demonstrate you is the dispersion of both speakers. unfortunately this topic is often neglected, but how do they sound if you are not sitting exactly on axis for that purpose we will play another track, namely "Analog" from Soulpersona and Princess Freesia and then we will sit more to the side, even more to the side and will listen again so let's go! yeah, they are remarkable speakers, especially for that age they were released 1993, I was just on the verge of my school leaving exams of course I would like to hear your opinion about them maybe I should have played them with neutral settings, I am really not sure to tell the truth so this is with loudness and bass and treble turned down neutral mids come a bit better through, also presence region becomes more emphasized let's turn volume a bit higher loudness like I said, I turned treble down, because otherwise with neutral bass and treble it would sound like this again neutral not easy, let me know your opinion anyway, you can meanwhile find them below 100€ on ebay or want ads and so on they are more or less classics I would say and they even sound great today maybe with a better amplifier, where you can adjust the sound more acourately I am just missing some lower bass punch, like from the Nuberts although that was already quite exaggerated, in this room it sounded nearly artificial overall I liked the Canton more, you could also notice off axis they sounded simply smoother this is not the strenght of the Nuberts, this is also my only point of criticism with them they really sound great if you have placed them directly in front of you but as soon as you are not sitting within the sweet spot or if you place them apart the sound is not right anymore this is where the Canton really shine, and I am quite impressed thanks to my hifi-friend, he knows who I am talking about I am really impressed by them, very decent loudspeakers but as I already said, you would maybe need some additional equalizing maybe even directly at listening position, with Equalizer Apo or something in case you are streaming from a PC, so that you can optimize the sound even further please tell me your opinion about them, they are really great speakers. I hope you liked this video and see you in the next one, bye bye! thanks for watching