Review posted by Mats is the best and most honest I read on CANTON RCL speakers. Excellent review. Way to go Mats! If I ever decide to replace my CANTON'S it would be with Dynaudio Contour 3.0 speakers. Twice more expensive but not twice better.

Vocals, guitars, bass and feather like cymbals.

Needs a long playing time to run them in...

I bought these speakers about a year ago. It took me just as long to run them in, along with my other equipment. I have a Arcam Alpha 9 CD player and Arcam Alpha 9 int. + Arcam Alpha 10P amp with wich I biamp the speakers. I use Nordost Flatline Blue Heaven innerconnects with Nordost Flatline Gold II speaker cable.

At first everything seamed to have no direct control over the dynamics. But after about the 20th "Hellraising" party at home the speakers allowed me to join in on Neil youngs great intro on Hey Hey, My My, along with Rebecca Pidgeons and Natalie Coles superb vocals and the organs behind Marvin Gaye all came down to earth in a new shape, drums, sax, bass, guitars and so on: I strongly recommend a good listening before judging these speakers and don´t rush it.

If you are looking for a sound that i s familiar to Linn, wich divides the music into small atoms(No groove!) that are no fun to listen to you better buy Linn or Levinson.

Able to play at a high volume

undefined in the bassarea and unable to impress in mid and highrange!

The thing about these speakers is that they appeal to people that buy with their eyes. They look impressive with their double bass units in each speaker. And are pretty vell built, but not outstanding for its price.

If you want a speaker för homeparties with a little more details than your average rock ´n roll speaker these will do fine indeed. But as soon as you are into the cheaper high end and wants to have details, transparency and dynamics you will be utterly dissapointed. Although with one regard. If you haven´t listened to products in the higher range you may be able to live with these speakers for some time, but I tell you don´t listen to the competition then.

So what is it that this seaker does wrong. First of all, the bass units aren´t abe to produce the 18Hz which they claim to. The best placing i could come up with gave me a -3db at 28Hz. And if you are into serious listening you will find it hard to hear he different basstones when played at the same time. It´s not that detailed in the bassarea. Though it can move some air.

Secondly the high range is far from what you may excpect at its price. There´s also a slight hiss somewhere araound 10-12Khz which can be annoying to your ears, this is noticed very well at higher volume levels. Lets face it, no one buys these speakers without the thought of playing loud now and then. And that may be irritationg with some records. And as the lovrange the highrange isn´t as detailed as you may want it to be. Those suffering the most from this tweeter are female vocalists, avoid!

Despite the negatives. The midrange is the only part that may make it without any serious complaints. It gives the needed amount of flesh to the recordings and is at its pricerange when it comes to performing.

So what will my advice be? Listen when you are into buying speakers. Listen alot!!! If you can, listen in your room. Don´t rush into buying speakers, don´t just take my word for it, find out for yourself!

Similar Products Used:

Infinity kappa, Jm lab electra, Jamo concert, mirage om, all perform better.

Good Bass, Wonderful and clear mids, Good Highs

Lacks in the very deep bass

First of all anyone who thinks this speaker should be rated a 1 does not have a CLUE what they are talking about. Second of all stay away from the very lean and "matter of fact" digital equipment with these speakers. I am using a pioneer Elite DVD player as transport, with a Proceed AVP pre amp, ADA multichannel amp(sweet and detailed amp), Tara labs Air 3 interconnect, Audioquest Clear SE speaker cables...Ok, The Cantons are fantastic in the midrange area. Let's face it "if the midrange is not RIGHT, nothing else matters"....Right? The treble is detailed and not grainy, smooth, but not silky (there is a difference).. The base is present is wonderful but a little boomy...Mind you, "a little". This problem can be corrected to a large extent by moving the speakers about 3-4 feet awaya from the back wall.As a rule of thumb the DIFFERENCE of the distance from the speaker to the rear and to the side wall should not be less than 33%, ie, if the if the speaker is 100 cm from the rear wall, then it should be further than 67 cm frm the side wall. The two diswtances must never be equal. I would recommend about 4 feet or about 115 cm from the rear wall. By making this simple change you can get rid of the boominess in the bass and the bass becomes more defined and sharp....Is that confusing enough?

Ok, now as for the Control unit, unless you are using an A/V reciever, it's pretty much useless. Remeber it only alters the music!!! If you are using an integrated mas marketed A/V reciever, the control unit can be useful. Stay away from Sony, Yamaha or an other Japanese A/V reciever with these speakers, with the exception of perhaps Nakamichi. Nad or Pioneer Elite would serve you much better. Also, try these speakers with Cardas Golden Cross cables.

Bottom line, A great Speaker for the Price with fantastic worksmanship. It's not a catogory 1 speaker and the Levinson is not the right amp with this product.

Similar Products Used:

Kef refrence series, B&W Natilus 802

Nice piece of furniture

Too many

I was terribly dissapointed with the ergo speakers. My Mark levinson No 33 revealed everything. These speakers didn´t get much right. They sound completely unnatural. Take a good long listen to them before you buy. These speakers probably will do for those of you that do n´t know how a correct soundstage sounds like and for those of you that want a lot of bass but don´t need the bass to be alert, correct, deep and transparent.

The midrange sounds very thin and the tweeter will doesn´t reveal much information.

Settle for something else!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dynamic featured sound, vocals, organs, guitarr and bass.

Price in Sweden... That´s all........

Speaker: Canton RC-L
Int. Amp.: Arcam Alpha 9
Pow. Amp.: Arcam Alpha 10
Int. cable.: Nordost Blue Heaven
Speak. cable.: Nordost Red Dawn

Speakers: I use the 9 and 10 to biamp. I guess these speakers never will run out of good sound. From the day I bought them until today. The sound have improved every second month. The tweeder sounded very hard the first year, and now it is hard to push them to sound harsch... They really come to life when played with Arcam equipment.
When tested with other components they could sound a little laid back at some times. Not as full of life as I want them to...

I used to live in a VERY LARGE apartment and they really filled to livingroom with great sound(7*5meters). Then I moved to a smaller one and I was eager to put them to a test where to the RC-box could play its role, because of the dynamic bass. I have now fully understood how adapteble these speakers are to different rooms and different sound enviroments. GREAT RC-BOX !

Having listened to Mirage OM-8 and several Infinity Kappa in higher price range, Mission(782, 783) even LINN stuff. I find that these(CANTON RC-L) speakers are the BEST to be found in this price bracket. I am going to invest in the smaller RC-K for my home cinema.

They get the highest ratings from me because the are unbeateble in this price bracket for their quality and sound... Get out there and buy a pair and your souls will be pleased.

BR/mike

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At this price level, none!!!

overall performance, presence

my fault: a bit to big for my room!

buyed them 3 years ago and still lots of fun.
even at more modest levels of volume they sound great.

sure, they are a bit big for my living room with 25qm, but i`m moving to a place with a 48qm, much better, otherwise the bass is a bit to much.....

silent or loud, just like you want it: its real fine sound, compared to other units they simply offered all i wanted, espacially details in the highs and midrange, and of course, if the music offers you really cant complain having to less bass.

for the money i would buy them again, although over 3 years have passed by and people like me always thinking about how to upgrade a system.........

Similar Products Used:

none

Bass, Dynamics, Vocal reproduction, Adaptable to room characteristics.

Depth in the soundstage could be a bit better. Mains adapter that comes with the room compensation unit gets pretty hot after some time.

I would like to add this review to my previous one below in order to do justice to these wonderful speakers. My problems with the mains adapter and the audible 'spikes' are resolved in the meanwhile.
It turned out that the main cause of the 'spikes' was related to signal levels and output/input impedance of my preamp and poweramp. I had the RC unit hooked up between these two.
After moving the RC unit into the tape-loop of my preamp the interference disappeared and i haven't heard it since. The tape-loop has a much higher signal level and a lower impedance than the other connection did. So in my experience its best to use the tape-loop whenever possible.
Building a custom mains adapter solves the heat problem but adds little sound quality, so looking back i wouldn't do that again...
At this moment i am even more happy with these speaker than i already was.
Highly recommended !

Firm and deep bass
Natural sounding midrange (voices)
Crystal clear treble
Nice looking

Heavy
Quite large
Need for extra electronics box (see below)

I want to build a home theatre system with good stereo reproduction qualities and I was recommended by a colleague to build it around these speakers. I listened to a pair in a retail store, found they were a strong candidate and I was lucky to find a used pair in mint condition.

General impression is a vivid loudspeaker, designed for medium to large sized rooms.

The bass reproduction is amazing for a speaker in this price range, deep and firm without sounding boomy. The loudspekers are specified to go as deep as 18 Hz. Having tested with tracks from "Jurassic Park" soundtrack, I know I will not need a subwoofer.
Midrange is very detailed and voices appear very clear. Listening to Mozart Arias you feel voices are as good as live. Listening to good grand piano recordings, makes you feel sitting 5 meters from the scene.
Treble is crisp, but could perhaps be a bit softer. I guess it's one of the drawbacks using metal domes. Still, the treble is not metallic.

Generally I would say that these loudspeakers probably come to their best in rooms 25 square meters or more.

The only drawback is the need for the electronics box, implying extra cables and need for power supply. Without the box, the loudspeakers sound thinner and some frequencies sound close to harsh (I guess the frequencies around the cross-over frequency between mid range and treble). If your amplifier has no bridge between the pre-amp and the power amp, then you are left to use a tape monitor connection, which works fine as long as you do not need the speakers in a 5.1 arrangement. At the same time I must say that this magic box DOES what it is supposed to, namely to compensate for imperfections in frequency reproduction and phase shifts, and hopefully it brings the best out of these loudspeakers. I have accepted to view it as part of the loudspeakers and have hidden it. My 25 m2 room, speakers 30 cm from wall and 3 meters from listener takes -3 db on treble and -3 db or +/0 db for bass compensation, but that is also a matter of personal taste.

Lastly, the loudpseakers are quite large but with a clean and sober design and beautifully crafted. The cherry wood mixes nicely into my other furniture. Esthetics count.

The model is discontinued today, but some rest items may be possible to find (list price 2000$?).

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Dali 104

An excellent speaker for all types of music. Extremly wellbuilt.

The bass can be abit "buffy" but it's easily solved with the RC-box

Well, it doesn't get much better than this. Since Canton lowered the price for the RC-L speakers they earn even more credits than before. And the updated version with the adjustable RC-box gives them another kick.
With a H/K 690 and a similar CD-player you get a very nice setup for a reasonably amount of money. The speakers seems to fit almost any amplifier.
My setup contains
Thule IA150B (fully balanced)
Thule Spirit CD100
And I'm truly satisfied.
Due to the prices I'm not sure that my Thule stuff are that much better than the earlier mentioned H/K stuff. I used to have the H/K before and they sounded very good as well.