Introduction

More and more people these days have flat panel displays (plasma or LCD based) in their homes. A flat panel display has many appealing factors, most notably the minimum amount of space that it occupies and the fact that you can easily hang it on the wall. And let's not forget the coolness factor!

Speaker manufacturers seem to notice the popularity of flat panel displays, and many come up with designs that complement these displays nicely, especially in the style department. The Movie CD 2.22 speaker system from Canton, the largest speaker manufacturer in Germany, is an example of such a design.

The Movie CD 2.22 system is comprised of two slim tower speakers (CD-100), a small center channel speaker (CD-50), two tiny satellite speakers (CD-10), and a powered subwoofer (AS-22-SC).

Except for the subwoofer, essentially this is an all aluminum speaker system. Everything about these speakers is aluminum: the drivers, the enclosures, the grilles. And they are not shy in displaying it. Their silver-aluminum finish intentionally showcases the metallic theme of the system. Some people might be put off by the cold metallic appearance, but to me, it looks cool and contemporary. If you have room with contemporary décor, chances are you will be comfortable putting this system in there. Moreover, the finish of the CD 2.22 system matches with many of the plasma or LCD sets that are currently available.

The footprint of this system is very small, and therefore, it should also be appealing for someone with tight space constraints.

System Features

Except for the subwoofer, the speakers in the Movie CD 2.22 system employ the same type of proprietary drivers: 0.6" aluminum tweeter and 3" aluminum mid/woofer. Each of the CD-100 tower and CD-50 center channel speakers has two pairs of woofers with the tweeter in the middle of these pairs.

The so-called "two-and-one-half-way" crossover circuit is used in these speakers. Canton claims that this crossover design prevents the problematic mid-bass cancellations that hinder performance in typical multi-woofer speakers. In this design, one pair of the woofers handles both bass and midrange frequencies, while the other pair is responsible only for bass reproduction. The CD-100 uses bass-reflex design with a port in front (covered by the grille), while the CD-50 uses an acoustic suspension design.

The CD-100 is designed to stand on the floor, and it comes with a round aluminum base footing to be attached to the speaker to provide stability (see picture, top right). It, as well as the CD-50 and CD-10, are magnetically shielded.

The CD-50 center channel offers some flexibility for its placement. It can be put on top of a television, as I did in this review, or hung on the wall using the brackets provided. If you wish, you can also use CD-50 as your surround speaker. Photos of the CD-50 are shown below.

The smallest member of the Movie CD 2.22 system is the CD-10 satellite speaker, which has a tweeter and a woofer in the acoustic suspension design. Due to its small size, this speaker is very flexible to place. You can put it on a stand, a shelf, or hang it on the wall. Wall brackets are included should you choose the latter. Canton also makes the matching stand for it in case you decide to have it on the floor. For this review, I just put it on a rather high wall shelf. The CD-10 is shown below.

The CD-100, CD-50, and CD-10 have metal speaker terminals in unusual diagonal configuration (see pictures). These terminals can accept bare wire, spade, or pin connectors, but not banana plugs. The terminals are located in a small rectangular well, so that they are flush with the speaker body when they are tightened. Because of the way the terminals are housed, bare wire is the best and the easiest to use with these speakers. You may find that the space surrounding the terminals is too tight for use with spade or pin connectors. Banana plugs would be a good solution for this type of layout, but I was informed that their exclusion is for safety reasons (banana plugs can easily be plugged into European electricity wall outlets).

The AS 22 SC powered subwoofer employs a 9" cellulose/graphite driver in a compact front-ported enclosure. The 70-Watt (nominal) amplifier that powers this subwoofer and the usual subwoofer controls are located on the back. The AS 22 SC has both line- and speaker-level inputs and outputs. The controls on the back include the power on-off-standby switch, phase switch (0 or 180 degrees), volume level, and crossover frequency knob (continuously adjustable 50 Hz - 150 Hz). The SC in the name of the subwoofer comes from Canton's exclusive SC technology, which is a special circuit to suppress subsonic frequencies and to extend the low frequency range of the subwoofer. This circuit provides compensation for the acoustic characteristics of the housing and driver, adjusting the amplifier's response curve for optimum linearity. The AS 22 SC subwoofer is actually available in several finishes (black, beech, silver), but the one packaged with the Movie CD 2.22 system is the silver finish, which matches with the rest of the system.

The build quality of the Movie CD 2.22 speaker system is good overall. The five speakers in the CD 2.22 system feel quite rigid, and because of the material used, they feel heavier than their sizes suggest.

Listening Impressions

As the name implies, the Movie CD 2.22 system is designed primarily for home theater use. So that was how I set up the system during most of my evaluation. The CD-100 speakers as the front left and right were placed equidistance from my listening position and from each other, which is about 10 ft. The CD-50 center channel was laid horizontally facing ear level slightly below my projection screen, also about the same distance as the CD-100 from my seat. And the CD-10 satellites were put on shelves about 2 ft higher than ear level and slightly behind the listening position at a distance of about 5 ft. The AS 22 SC subwoofer was placed near one of the front corners of the room. Bass management was done in my surround processor with a fixed 80 Hz crossover between the satellites and the subwoofer. Some self-made test tones as well as my AVIA disc were used to calibrate the system.

Even though home theater is the primary application of the system, nevertheless I felt that my task as a reviewer would not be complete if I didn't test its stereo performance, because users would likely use this system to listen to stereo music every once in a while, even if only casually. Therefore, my impression on its stereo music performance is also given. For two-channel stereo tests, I listened extensively to the two CD-100 towers in conjunction with the AS 22 SC subwoofer, although occasionally I moved the CD-10 satellites up front in place of the CD-100 for comparison.

In two-channel application, these speakers displayed nice performance in many respects, although they might not be for the consumption of serious listeners. I found that stereo listening through the CD-100 was quite pleasant, but there was a slight sense of artificiality in the sound of music, especially in the high frequency range. Their midrange was also a little too thick for my taste, and this reduced the fluidity and lushness in the overall sound. Actually, the smaller CD-10 was better in this sense, because it didn't display such midrange characteristics.

The difference in the crossover design between these two speakers might explain the difference in the results that I got. But to put it in perspective, these speakers are not primarily designed to cater serious two-channel audiophiles. So mentioning those flaws was a bit nitpick on my part. One of the nice things of the speakers was the sound they produced did not add hard edges to the music, so I could listen to them for a long time without listening-fatigue. Also they imaged effortlessly and were capable of depicting a believable soundstage. The most important thing was regardless of whether I used the CD-100 or CD-10 as the stereo satellites, there was no noticeable hole in the frequency response of the system. Such frequency response holes are common in many small satellite/subwoofer systems. I guess, in terms of stereo applications, casual listening is as much as most users would do in such a system, and the last few aspects I mentioned above indicated that these speakers are more than suitable for it.

In my home theater, the Movie CD 2.22 system had a lot to like. It did pretty much what a good home theater speaker system should, that is reproducing dialog and sound effects in a believable manner and bringing the sense of immediacy with the what was going on in the scenes. The Movie CD 2.22 was not flawless, but the flaws that the system exhibited were not of the types that I would consider as distracting. For example, I noticed a slight lack of transparency in the overall sound, but this didn't affect my movie-watching enjoyment. The sense of ambience could also use some improvement, but unless you do comparison with a better system like I did, you probably wouldn't notice it.

The timbre match of the speakers in the CD 2.22 system was excellent, giving a sense of seamless side-to-side and front-to-back sound transition when called for. The CD-50 center channel, even though small, delivered dialog with good intelligibility. In terms of performance, the CD-50 still couldn't beat my reference at its price point, the Onix Rocket ELT Center Channel in terms of clarity and dialog naturality, but nevertheless it was no slouch in those departments and its size was more manageable and also it offered more flexible mounting options.

The tiny CD-10 speakers were more than capable for surround tasks. Moreover, their small size actually gives them an advantage for surround application, as mounting them is a relatively easy endeavor.

The AS 22 SC subwoofer blended nicely with the rest of the system. It added weight to the overall sound, giving an impression that the system was larger than it was. By itself, it was quite a capable performer. It was able to play sufficiently loud before it started to sound boomy and distorted. At normal volume levels, the bass it produced was relatively clean and had good definition. It didn't have the quickness and punchiness of the Rocket UFW-10 or the low extension of the Hsu Research VTF-3R, both of which I have reviewed not so long ago, but of course, it is less expensive. However, it was fully capable of augmenting the other speakers in the CD 2.22 system nicely. In my room, the AS 22 SC was able to produce useful bass down to about 30 Hz.

The overall performance of the Movie CD 2.22 system was quite satisfying. I watched several movies from various genres during my evaluation, ranging from drama such as House of Sand and Fog to full action such as Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, and I could safely say that the Movie CD 2.22 system was quite comfortable handling any of those soundtracks. Never for once did I get the impression that I was listening to a small speaker package during the audition. And that's a big achievement!

Conclusions

Designing speakers to satisfy multiple goals is not easy. But Canton pulls it off nicely with the Movie CD 2.22 system, which is designed to meet specific size, appearance, and performance targets. Appearance-wise, this system will provide a good match to most flat-panel displays currently in the market. Even if you don't use it with flat panel displays, its appearance is quite attractive by itself, and it doesn't take a lot of space to accommodate it (perhaps the main feature). The Movie CD 2.22 system is also solidly built, and most importantly, it offers good home theater performance that is larger than its relatively small size. If you are in the market for a slim home theater speaker package for around $2000, you need to check this system out. Its strong performance and its distinctive look might win you over.

 

 - Yongki Go -

Associated Equipment for This Review:

CD playback: Shanling CD-S100
DVD playback: Toshiba SD-4700
Preamplifier: Adcom GFP-750, Lexicon DC-1
Amplifier: Parasound HCA-855A, Sherbourn 7/2100A, Classe CA-100
Other speakers: Rocket ELT-1 speaker system
Cables: MIT Terminator 4 interconnects, MIT Terminator 2 speaker cables, Cardas Crosslink speaker cables, Audioquest GR-8 speaker cables, Audioquest Jade subwoofer cable.