Surrounds

When Canton approached us to review the ERGO lineup, I jumped at the opportunity to try some direct radiating surrounds in my Home Theater. For the last several years, I have been using dipoles as side surrounds and some rather large direct radiators for the rear channels. My current home theater is larger (19'x15') than my previous setup, and I was curious what difference directs would make for surrounds now that I can get some distance away from them.

For surrounds, Canton uses the 601s, which are basically a flattened out version of the 602 monitors. These speakers are designed to be mounted directly on the wall with a single screw similar to how you would mount a clock. My one complaint about the design is that it is that if you have thick speaker wire, it is a little hard to fit between the cabinet and the wall. I managed to get around this by using a slightly longer screw, tilting the speaker down slightly, allowing the wire to go though the larger gap at the top of the speaker. In a careful implementation you would have the speaker wire come though the wall exactly behind the binding posts, so this would not be a concern. The binding posts used by the 601s are slightly smaller than the other speakers reviewed, but are still just as functional.

I am able to report that I really like the sound of the direct radiators used as surround speakers. I had been using dipolar surrounds for so many years I forgot how much more detailed the direct radiators can be. They do draw a little more attention to themselves in comparison to my dipoles, but I sort of like that (at least for this week).  Watching a couple of scary movies a weekend or so ago, I really felt like things were crawling around on the walls behind me, creating a truly immersive, yet horrifying, experience.

Subwoofer

The sub is compact, at less than 20" in all directions. Lifting the sub tells a different story, weighing over 50 lbs, and it is good lift getting it out of the box and into position.  The Sub has a 12" driver and is powered by 200 watt switching amplifier.  The cabinet features the same craftsmanship and materials as the other ERGO speakers, including the shielded MDF construction and metal grille.  The back panel has a multitude of connections, including high and low level inputs and outputs, volume control, crossover frequencies and phase, an on/auto power selector, and a room compensation circuit.  The room compensation circuit changes the low frequency characteristics of the sub to better match the user's room.

The Sound

I have been using the ERGO series for a few months in my home theater which doubles as a multi-channel music system. During that time, countless CD and DVDs have traversed the system, from two-channel audio like Reianna and Diana Krall, DVD-Audio from the Corrs to Queensryche, and movies from An American Hunting to Man on Fire. Heck, I would even admit I watched Aeon Flux thought this system, which isn't the best movie, but has an amazing 5.1 sound track and makes for excellent demo material.

Canton and I do slightly disagree on placement of the ERGO speakers. Canton would claim that the speakers should NOT be toed in under any circumstances, as they are designed to be flat 15 degrees off axis. So by not toeing in the speaker, you would end up with a better frequency response. I, on the other hand, spent the first couple of days moving the speakers around and trying them in different positions, and discovered I preferred them toed in just slightly such that they would cross about two feet behind the listener. What I found was a tradeoff between imagining and frequency response. While toeing the speakers in completely seemed to cause the speakers to be just a little bit too bright, leaving them pointed straight down the room seemed to rob imaging. Somewhere in between seemed to work best in my room, but I have a large amount of sound dampening material on my walls, especially where first reflections would occur. So my room probably doesn't represent the typical room Canton expected the speakers to land in. If you buy speakers from Canton, I would encourage you to try a few different placement options to see what suits your room best.

The benefits of a timbre-matched speaker setup with home theater movies or multi-channel music had been discussed here before, so I will save you the details. In panning around the room with pink noise, the setup is almost perfectly matched, including the center channel which is surprising seeing as it is placed about 9" lower than the tweeters in the 609s.

The ERGO speakers sound very natural. They don't accentuate or take away from any particular source material. For the most part, this is exactly what we are looking for in a speaker but it certainly won't hide any flaws in the source material either. What they do best is just allow the listener to hear what was recorded.

In jazz recordings, when I hear the musicians take a breath or fingers move across a string of a instrument, it is like the performer is in the room with me. Action movies clearly demonstrate the strengths of the sub, which I felt sounded tight and punchy. For two or multi-channel music listening sessions, the sub blended well with the rest of the ERGO speakers.

Conclusions

At Secrets, we have quite a diverse staff. Some of our members are obsessed about every little tweak to their system to achieve that last bit of performance regardless of the cost. Other members of our staff spend hours obsessing about how to get the best bang for the buck on a penny-pinching budget. This leads to diverse reading for our readership, as one writer explains how a new $1,000 power cable has transformed his system into a new level of previously un-obtainable performance, and another claims you spend too much money if you invest more than a $200 on a DVD player. These opinions are completely accurate in the minds of the writers. A big part of being an audio or home theater enthusiast is expressing your passion about your hobby and at Secret's we clearly try to do that, although most of us to have a tendency to lean towards the side of value for your money.

To sum up my feelings about the Canton ERGO speakers, I go back to the introduction. If you are worried about every dollar and are looking for the highest price to performance ratio, the Canton ERGOs might not be for you. However, if you are like me and aspire to own a Porsche because you enjoy the art of the car as much as the driving experiences, the ERGOs should be exactly what you are looking for. To drive this point home, I don't intend for the ERGO speakers to leave my Home Theater for at least the forseeable future, so now I can concentrate on getting that Porsche.
 

- Sandy Bird -

Associated Equipment:

Anthem Statement D1
Additional Amplifier: B&K ST2140
DVD-Audio Player: Panasonic RP-91, Samsung DVD-HD1000
DVD Player/Scaler/Media Store: HTPC
Speakers 1: Mirage OM-6, OM-R2
Speakers 2: B&W 705/HTM7

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