Canton LE Series Review

The Canton LE package really shines is in home theater applications, look great and sound awsome.

Summary

Overall, I liked the Canton LE series speaker system very much. Whether you use it in stereo or in home theater settings, they do not disappoint. At its price point, I think it’s very hard to do better.  I strongly recommend you listen to this system if you are in the market for a $2500 well matched home theater system package. They are handsome looking and their strong performance might just be your ticket to the enjoyment that you’ve been looking for.

Introduction

Canton, a German speaker manufacturer, has had a long history in the hi-fi world. Actually, Canton has been manufacturing speakers since 1973, but it seems that only recently the company started to market its products aggressively in the United States. Visiting the company’s website, you’ll get the impression that all Canton products are made with pride. Most and major vital elements of Canton products are manufactured in-house in Germany, so that the quality can be closely controlled. In this era of globalization, this is a rare practice and something that should be appreciated.

The speaker system that I review here is from the company’s LE series. It consists of a pair of LE 109 floorstanding speakers ($1000/pair), a pair of LE 103 bookshelf speakers ($500/pair), an LE 105 CM center channel speaker ($400 each), and an AS 25 powered subwoofer ($600 each). All together the system costs $2500, which falls into the boundary between budget and mid-level price home theater speaker system.

Features and Design

The review samples that I received come in handsome beech enclosure finish with silver front and metal grills. If you like black, you can also choose the Canton LE series in ash black finish with black front and metal grills. To me personally, the beech/silver finish is more appealing. 

The LE 109 is a three-way front-ported bass-reflex speaker. It has a 1” fabric tweeter, a 7” polypropylene midrange driver and two 8” polypropylene woofers. The speaker connections in rear are high-quality five-way metal binding posts. They are spaced well apart, so standard double banana plugs will not work. Only one set of connections are available, which means that these speakers are not biwireable.

The size of the LE 103 is larger than the average bookshelf speaker. It is a two-way front-ported bass-reflex design with a 1” fabric tweeter and 7” polypropylene woofer. The speaker connections used are of the same type as the ones in LE 109. The LE 103s are intended to be put on 23-24” stands. If you like to stick on one brand, Canton also makes the matching stands for these speakers, called the LS 60 ($400/pair).

The LE 105 CM center channel speaker looks sleek when viewed from the front, but it is actually quite deep (about 13.8” deep). Unlike the LE 109 or LE 103, the LE 105 CM uses an acoustic suspension (closed) design. It has 1” fabric tweeter and two 6” polypropylene woofers. It is also magnetically shielded so it can safely be put on top of your television.

The AS 25 subwoofer has a built-in 150 W amplifier. It is a front-ported bass reflex design with a 10” cellulose/graphite driver. This subwoofer has both low and high level inputs and outputs. The rear panel also sports the usual subwoofer controls, such as crossover frequency, volume level, and phase adjustment. A switch is also provided to put the subwoofer in off, on, or standby mode. In the standby mode, the subwoofer will be automatically on when it senses the incoming signal and automatically off after a few minutes of inactivity. Metal blunt spikes for the subwoofer footing are also provided.

All these speakers are very well built. They are lighter than what I expected them to be. In a way this is good, because then they are easy to move around. The enclosures are not as damped as some other speakers I have encountered, but nevertheless I did not notice the effect of the possible enclosure resonance on the sound.

Test Equipment:

Preamplifiers: Adcom GFP-750, B&K Reference 20
Amplifier: ATI AT1505
CD playback: Yamaha CDC-755, MSB Link II DAC
Speakers: NHT 2.9, NHT AC-1, NHT SB-2, KEF AV-1
Cables: MIT Terminator 2 speaker cables, MIT Terminator 4 interconnects

Listening Experience

Now I arrive to what counts the most