Audio Video News

Stereo Speaker Systems

Canton Chrono 70 Loudspeaker: $1,995/pair

In early 2021, the 50-year-old German brand Canton made its way back to the States after a decade-long hiatus. Among the first wave of products to arrive on these shores is the impressive looking — and sounding — Chrono 70 floorstander, the smallest of three towers in the Chrono series and one of the few speakers made in Europe, not China. The speaker is a rear-ported two-and-a-half-way design that mates an aluminum-manganese tweeter with two 6-inch aluminum woofers in a stately 37-inch-tall cabinet offered in black or white.

Running through his arsenal of demo tracks, reviewer Michael Trei confirmed the Chrono 70’s ability to produce deep, tuneful bass while shrugging off massive orchestral crescendos. On the Philip Glass score for Mishima, the 70’s conveyed a spacious soundstage while preserving the tonal clarity and fine detail of the track’s percussive elements. And when it was time to crank it up and get the party started, Trei loved how effortlessly and cleanly the speakers handled “Tied Up” by Yello while maintaining a neutral tonal balance. Whether you’re looking for a set of floorstanding speakers for music or want to build a surround-sound system around them, the Canton Chrono 70 is a speaker that, as Trei put it, punches way above its weight class.

AT A GLANCE
Plus
Impressive bass output
Plays loudly without stress
Matching center, surround, and Atmos speakers available
Minus
No wood finish option
Needs to be pulled out into the room for best sound

Full Review Here (posted 2/2/22)

Perlisten Audio R5t Loudspeaker and D15s Subwoofer: $7,000 (tower), $5,000 subwoofer

If you haven’t heard of Perlisten Audio, you’re not alone. Short for Perceptual Listening, the brand was launched by a group of audio industry veterans in early 2021 so it hasn’t been around all that long. Despite its young age, the Wisconsin-based startup has managed to amass an impressive lineup of speakers, all engineered in the U.S. and built in China. Though our experience is limited to the R5t tower speaker and D15s powered subwoofer, it’s clear that this company is off to a great start.

The R5t is a modified two-way design featuring a vertical array of three 1.1-inch drivers with one woofer above and one below. Perlisten calls the arrangement a DPC-Array (DPC for Directivity Pattern Control) in which the operating range of the top and bottom tweeters is limited to improve sound quality. Bottom line: it works. The D15s subwoofer we paired with the R5t towers is a THX Dominus Certified design that mates a 15-inch woofer with a 2,000-watt (peak) amplifier in a 20-inch cube built to deliver the goods in spaces as large as 6,500 cubic feet.

Not known for mincing his words, veteran reviewer Tom Norton praised the R5t towers for their “transparency, lack of coloration, and ability to throw a wide and convincing soundstage.” And when he called the subwoofer into action, Norton found himself in awe of the “superb dynamic range” he experienced. All of which says, this is a speaker combo that’s worth your attention.

AT A GLANCE
Plus
Clean, uncolored sound (R5t)
Surprisingly powerful bass (R5t)
Excellent build quality (R5t)
Stunningly dynamic performance (D15s)
Excellent build quality (D15s)
Minus
Pricey (both)
Not the best option for very large rooms (R5t)

Full Review Here (posted 5/11/22)

Home Theater Speaker Systems

Monolith By Monoprice Encore T6 Speaker System: $1,410 (as tested)

The hits just keep coming from Monoprice, the one-time accessory company that has evolved into a full-on maker of quality A/V gear. The five-piece T6 speaker system delivers a remarkably high level of performance for the remarkably reasonable price of $1,400, which gets you two sizable tower speakers, a center-channel speaker, and a pair of two-way surround speakers — all tonally matched. We were so impressed with the system (which we actually reviewed in late 2021), that we named it our Top Value Pick of the Year for 2021.

Whether listening to music on SACD or watching movies on Blu-ray, reviewer Dan Kumin was impressed, even captivated by what he heard. He went so far as to describe a multichannel recording of the San Francisco Symphony performing Aaron Copland’s “Symphony for Organ” as “thrillingly real” and deemed the tower speakers capable of producing respectable bass and playing lower than several similar sized towers he has ears-on experience with. For movies or even live sports, Kumin marveled at the system’s “highly cohesive front stage” and “wonderfully enveloping” sound.

While he missed having a dedicated subwoofer to reproduce the lowest of lows for “real cinematic impact,” Kumin remained impressed with the T6 towers’ ability to render the bus/train crash scene in the remastered version of 1993’s The Fugitive with satisfying impact: “I suspect they'll come close enough to keep a significant segment of listeners happy.” Performance-minded shoppers who are on a budget can hardly go wrong with the T6 ensemble, especially when you consider Monoprice’s 30-day money-back guarantee.

AT A GLANCE
Plus
Very accurate, natural tonal balance
Impressive bass extension
Remarkable center-channel off-axis consistency and timbral match with towers
Minus
Towers are sensitive to placement
Some non-linearities at loudest playback levels
Generic looks (grilles-on)

Full Review Here (posted 1/12/22)

Elac Uni-Fi Reference UBR62 Surround Speaker System: $3,100 (as tested)

Germany’s Elac made a brilliant return to the U.S. market in 2016 with a series of excellent speakers designed by the Andrew Jones, who had previously worked for Pioneer and its one-time high-end speaker division TAD (Technical Audio Devices Laboratories). As it turns out, the Uni-Fi Reference UBR62 surround speaker system is the last system Jones designed before leaving the company, following a highly successful run. Once again, Jones has left his mark.

The five-piece system we reviewed comprises four UBR62 bookshelf speakers and a matching UCR-52 center-channel speaker — all built around a coincident midrange-tweeter that positions a 1-inch soft-dome tweeter at the apex of a 5.25-inch midrange driver where the dust cap usually sits. Two UBR62 speakers would make for a nice stereo setup but in a multichannel theater setting you’ll want to add a subwoofer to this ensemble, which is why we tested the quintet with a pair of SVS PB-3000 subwoofers. In both cases, the results were impressive.

With stereo music, the ease and sweetness of the Elac speakers “invited extended listening,” observed reviewer Tom Norton, while the subwoofer-supported sound from a pair of UBR62’s was “consistently open, natural, and detailed.” Sonics were even more impressive with multichannel music on Blu-ray. When playing movies in a 5.1 configuration with the two subwoofers in play, the system did a stellar job handling Blade Runner 2049’s detailed soundtrack and brilliant Hans Zimmer score. As Norton put it, “The Elac speakers blended in perfectly with the SVS subs to produce a unified, organic whole.”

AT A GLANCE
Plus
Clean-sounding dialogue
Silky detail
Big, open presentation
Minus
Limited deep bass (without sub)

Full Review Here (posted 3/23/22)

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