Canton GLE 407

Diffusori 2,5 vie

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  Produttore

  Canton

  Caratteristiche

  2,5 vie  reflex

  Costo

  720 euro anno 2008

Dal sito:

http://www.hometheatersound.com/equipment/canton_gle405cm_gle407_gle402_as85sc.htm

The GLE series is Canton’s update of their notable LE series. In the GLE models, aluminum drivers replace the LEs’ polypropylene cones, and improved cast baskets increase power handling. Sensitivity is rated 89dB/W/m for the GLE 407 indicating only modest power is required. They’ve also upgraded the series’ 1" silk-dome tweeter, which now has a slightly flared mounting plate to increase its efficiency. The crossover networks have been redesigned to better match the drivers and the redesigned enclosures, to improve the speakers’ linearity and frequency response both on and off axis.

Also part of the system reviewed was Canton’s AS 85 SC powered subwoofer ($549 USD), which has a port and a 9" aluminum driver, both firing from the front, and a 150W amplifier. The GLE 407 tower speaker ($999/pair) and GLE 402 surround speaker ($449/pair) are also bass-reflex models, the 407 with a front port, the 402 with a port on the rear; the GLE 405 CM center-channel speaker ($449) is a sealed design. The system reviewed costs $2446.

The three-driver GLE 407 is unique among the GLE models in being a "2.5-way" design: the crossover sends the midrange signal to the upper 7" driver, and the bass and midrange information to the lower 7" driver. This is claimed to improve the off-axis dispersion -- if my listening was any indication, the off-axis response, in both Dolby Pro Logic II and Dolby Digital 5.1, was impressive.

The GLE 405 CM center and GLE 407 both have W-T-W arrays: the tweeter between the woofers (6" woofers are used in the 405 CM). The tweeter in the GLE 402 surround model is placed above a single 6" woofer. The cabinets were rock-solid, knuckle raps eliciting little more than a dull thunk. The binding posts are interesting: their nonstandard spacing means that they can’t accommodate dual banana plugs, and each post is really two halves separated by a rather large vertical notch. I suppose the notch is designed to accept the finger-thick pins with which some high-end speaker cables are terminated, but it’s so big that the posts can’t really accept any wire smaller than 12AWG without also using large spade lugs or banana plugs.

The seemingly acoustically transparent metal grilles are removable. I know that some audiophiles throw the grilles away, but I’ve grown to enjoy the protection they afford delicate instruments such as speaker cones, especially around small children and pets. Besides, you can still see the drivers in their glorious aluminosity, and the grilles are a critical part of the GLEs’ considerable visual appeal.

Dal sito:

http://www.hometheatersound.com/equipment/canton_gle405cm_gle407_gle402_as85sc.htm

Listening: Music

Although this is a review of a home-theater speaker system, the GLE 407s are blessed with full-range attributes. With a claimed frequency response of 25Hz-30kHz, they should be able to function well as the speakers of a two-channel, music-only system. But add a subwoofer, center and surround speakers, and Dolby Pro Logic II, and you might have a system that, unlike too many home-theater arrays that rely on satellite front-channel speakers, can be musically as well as theatrically pleasing.

I set the AS 85 SC’s crossover at 80Hz and let the Onkyo TSR-800’s bass-management system decide when there was sufficient low-frequency information to kick-start the sub. I put the GLE 407s -- with and without Dolby Pro Logic II -- through a series of CDs, each a stringent test of one or more of a loudspeaker’s critical attributes: Acoustic Alchemy’s Red Dust and Spanish Lace [MCA MCAD-5816], for soundstaging and HF response; Enya’s Watermark [Reprise 26774-2], especially the bridge to "Orinoco Flow," for deep bass; Marti Jones’s Any Kind of Lie [RCA 2040-2-R], for midrange and midbass accuracy; Jellyfish’s Bellybutton [Charisma 2-91400], for midbass accuracy, soundstaging, and high-frequency response; Joe Jackson’s Live 1981-86 [A&M CD 6076 DX 3095], for soundstaging and treble response; and Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks’ Striking It Rich! [MCA MCAD-31187], for midrange accuracy, depth of field, and transparency.

The GLE 407s initially responded with a slight uptilt in high-frequency reproduction, an artifact I’ve often observed in speakers tuned for home-theater applications. Then again, there are so many variables with listening to music in an A/V system that one is never quite sure what line is being crossed where. For instance, because the speakers sit to either side of a cabinet -- there is no practical option for placing them farther out into the room without seriously blocking traffic -- it’s asking a lot for them to throw a deep soundstage with the sort of three-dimensionality that the best speakers can provide when properly positioned in an audio-only environment. That said, the 407s’ soundstage was generously wide, and even wider with Dolby Pro Logic II. However, even after enough listening that anyone would assume would satisfy the so-called "break in" requirement, the 407 never lost that touch of HF prominence. (I’ve always questioned the "break-in" phenomenon -- it seems to me that a properly engineered speaker should be ready to play out of the box without the buyer having to blow too many hours of out-of-phase pink noise through them.) Mind you, the 407 was decidedly not brittle or shrill; it just had the barest hint of HF accentuation. There was no mistaking, however, the system’s bass response. The bridge to Enya’s "Orinoco Flow" contains subterranean bass that has defeated some fairly sophisticated audiophile speakers, which turned clearly pitched notes into a series of muffled chuffs. The Canton AS 85 SC hit every note with admirable clarity and punch.

The GLE system’s high-frequency response, especially in the climbing piano figure in the coda of Joe Jackson’s "Breaking Us in Two," was musical and accurate. There was no trace of the harsh brittleness that some lesser speakers have produced with this track. Similarly, the marvelous percussion bridge in Acoustic Alchemy’s "Mr. Chow" pinged, whanged, and boinged -- there’s a bent saw in there somewhere -- across the top of the soundstage just like the petite xylophone in Jellyfish’s "The Man I Used to Be," with only that slight emphasis of the highs. Midrange reproduction was no less solid. Willie Gillon’s clarinet, in Marti Jones’s "Second Choice," had just the right touch of woody resonance.

In Dan Hicks’s "Canned Music," the voices of Hicks, Naomi Ruth Eisenberg, and Maryanne Price were recorded in a real acoustic space -- as is the whole of Striking It Rich!, a rare treat in the pop canon. Each voice occupies a defined space in the soundstage. If a speaker mishandles the midrange, the voices can wander all over the place; through the 407s, they were rock-solid. Finally, the midbass -- for instance, Don Dixon’s doubled piano and Fender bass in Marti Jones’s "Any Kind of Lie" -- was not only faithfully rendered, but the transition to deep bass, as with Jellyfish’s "The Man I Used to Be," was flawless. Of course, in any system that includes a subwoofer, the transition from the midbass to the deep bass is as much a function of how you set up the sub’s crossover. That said, the handoff between the 407s and the AS 85 SC was as smoothly handled as I could wish.

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