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This ultimate group test looks at the more affordable end of the speaker market. The least expensive pair costs exactly $799, and the most costly is $1599. The smallest from Castle are genuine miniatures with relatively small (around 130mm) bass/mid drive units, and are almost certain to benefit from close-to-wall sitting. Such placement means the speaker is working into a ‘half-space' rather than ‘full space', and the mid-bass is therefore boosted by a good chunk – around 6dB across the octave from 50Hz to 100Hz. The downside is that wall reflections usually cause unevenness and some coloration up in the midband.
The Canton and KEF standmounts have roughly double the enclosure volume and use the next size up (c165mm) in main drivers, so they're bound to have more bass output and/or sensitivity.
However, for sheer material value for money it's hard to argue with the floorstander from Mordaunt-Short, which aren't much more expensive than the standmounts, even without considering the additional cost of stands. Furthermore, unlike some other cheap floorstanders, Mordaunt take the trouble to provide good floor coupling with an extended footprint to ensure good stability.
Although brands like KEF, Castle and Mordaunt-Short will be familiar enough to most readers, the others may be less familiar. Long established Canton is Germany's largest hi-fi speaker brand, though it has only quite recently become available.
Canton 602¦$1290¦
¦ www.canohm.com.au
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For: Attractive quality real wood veneer.
Against: Balance is a little dry, bass can lack punch.
Conclusion: The sound is beautifully open and neutral.
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Opening the Ergo 602's carton brought on a very real feeling of déjà vu. Way back in the 1980s, Canton made some speakers that looked exactly the same. What we found with that earlier model remains mysterious, since in those days computers were primitive devices, disks were floppy, and hard disk drives hadn't yet made it into this particular household. But Canton describes the Ergos as its "timeless classics", where the presentation remains more or less constant while the engineering continues to evolve. In loudspeaker land, everything changes; but in many ways, everything remains the same.
It's no exaggeration to say that Canton is the leading German hi-fi speaker brand, and the Ergo is one of its more affordable ranges, though the real-wood veneer finish and classy radiused edges lift it comfortably clear of the beer-budget sector. The Ergo series includes six stereo pairs: the smallest of these (the 601) is a wall-mount intended primarily for surround channels, while the $1290 per pair 602 is the smaller of two standmounts intended for stereo use.
It's a two-way design, naturally enough, based around a rear-port-loaded 180mm bass/mid driver housed in an attractive medium-size ‘traditional' enclosure with an internal capacity of roughly 12 litres. The pretty cabinet with its artfully softened edges is available in either beech or cherry veneer, or in black or silver lacquer. A wooden picture frame surrounds the recessed front panel, and a black perforated metal grille fits flush with the edges, so is best left in place for aesthetic reasons if nothing else.
The main driver has an anodised aluminium cone 115mm in diameter, terminated in Canton's proprietary ‘wave geometry' rubber surround. The tweeter has a 25mm aluminium/manganese alloy dome, with a claimed response up to 40kHz. Signal connection is made via a high-quality single terminal pair.
SOUND QUALITY
Clearly best mounted on proper stands located clear of walls, the Ergo 602 unsurprisingly loses out to the floorstanders in terms of bass power and weight, but in every other respect this pretty (if by group standards relatively costly) standmount goes a long way towards justifying its premium price, with a notably neutral tonal balance and very low coloration.
German speakers have often tended to have a slightly brighter balance than those which hail from British designers, and that is certainly the case here. This might just be a matte
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r of taste, though there is also a (possibly apocryphal) theory that a brighter than usual top end helps make the consonant-heavy German language more intelligible.
Whatever the reason, the 602 is definitely brighter than average, and that in turn does help make lyrics and speech particularly explicit and easy to follow. However, although this arguably positive attribute entirely avoids any tendency for the voice band to sound ‘shut in', it also means that the top end is arguably a little too obvious, because this is quite a small speaker and the bass end of things sounds a little dry and underfed. The bottom end is also a shade soft and lacking in punch, though it is both clean and beautifully even-handed.
The 602 could perhaps do with a little more warmth and harmonic richness, particularly through the lower registers. But overall its superior smoothness and superb top-to-bottom neutrality, as well as the attractively traditional styling and finish, makes it a welcome addition to today's marketplace that comfortably justifies the asking price.
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