Canton Karat 300

Roboturner91

Roboturner91

Super Member
I just overpaid for a pair of these on impulse. Probably significantly overpaid actually. I won't say how much.

Wondering if anybody has any experience with these, it's a big bookshelf, 3-way with a dome midrange and a 10-inch woofer.

My current speakers are Celestion DL8 which I have been very happy with for a while but got the itch to try something new.
 
IMG_20170609_113152.jpg Not with that model. But I have a Walnut pair of Karat 200, three-way 8". Nice fatigue free speaker. AKer Bratwurst7 might be able to shed some light on insides, crossovers.
I think the soft dome Cantons sound similar to my soft dome ADS L880 three way 10". Newer Cantons with metal drivers sound brighter to me. A different sound.
 
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I'll stop in again after work. Very nice speakers, should sound delicous. Different tweeters and mids than the 200, I believe the same as the Quinto 540.

Cheers,
James
 
Also, I won't go into specifics so your thread doesn't get kicked to D&S, but the 300's still hold their value over here and don't go cheap, especially if they have walnut veneer.

James
 
They are both vary nice but maybe to close sound wise the Cantons and the Celestion fit into the same niche. The 300's might be a step up but the dl-8 are not far behind. Not sure about the sensitivity but you may not be able to tell when you switch.
 
These are them, I'll just be over here waiting on the Fedex man

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Got these today. I am not disappointed.

It'll take some time to compose my thoughts on the sound, which is quite a bit different than what I'm used to. My current stands are also insufficient and I know they're going to sound different once they're properly spiked to the floor.

They are incredibly well-built and the relationship with ADS is obvious, down to the sticky dome midrange and tweeter - which were really dirty. A good detailing is needed and I need to fill in a couple small chips in the baffle. The walnut looks nice but needs to be oiled.
 
Roboturner91 said:
Got these today. I am not disappointed.

It'll tarecommendationto compose my thoughts on the sound, which is quite a bit different than what I'm used to. My current stands are also insufficient and I know they're going to sound different once they're properly spiked to the floor.

They are incredibly well-built and the relationship with ADS is obvious, down to the sticky dome midrange and tweeter - which were really dirty. A good detailing is needed and I need to fill in a couple small chips in the baffle. The walnut looks nice but needs to be oiled.
Click to expand...

Nice you like sound, yes similar to ADS. I'm not aware of good method to clean sticky domes. Have read recommendation not use any metal tweezers. Makes sense.
 
Everytime I think I've got a good handle on these things and can adequately describe the sound, they do something that surprises me.

They do not do really deep bass, which I wasn't expecting anyway, but it seems like there is pretty prodigious output from the 70-80 hz range on up - when it's present, but never when it's not. They are remarkably uncolored speakers. The crossover point from the woofer to midrange seems a little higher than I would have expected it to be, but it works.

Super clean, massive soundstage - if I close my eyes it sounds a lot like there's an array of smaller speakers in a 180 degree arc in front of me at ear level and higher, and the bass and midbass are in the middle kind of anchoring everything. The airiness is an odd sensation and not at all what I'm used to. I like it even though I'm typically allergic to treble...probably going to play around with trying to EQ the crashy stuff out while leaving the shimmery stuff in.
 
Imminent Canton Karat 300 owner. Bumping the most recent thread on AK which looks to be this one at 1.5 years give or take. Saw in other threads that that caps may have jacked up ambiguous labels to where if and when I perform a recap I won't be able to tell the values on the NPE's to find the proper replacements.
 
mccarty350 said:
Imminent Canton Karat 300 owner. Bumping the most recent thread on AK which looks to be this one at 1.5 years give or take. Saw in other threads that that caps may have jacked up ambiguous labels to where if and when I perform a recap I won't be able to tell the values on the NPE's to find the proper replacements.
Click to expand...

Just go Here: https://audiokarma.org/forums/index.php?threads/canton-speaker-capacitor-reference-thread.740362/

...and you will be able to find what the cap values are.

Cheers,
James
 
Thank you so much that was really helpful! Also nice to know that the capacitors burst in a lot of them so that convinces me that replacing them all is the right thing to do.
 
I have to say...having owned these for a while now and having recapped them early on I will say that I prefer these to their ADS peers in the same size class. I feel like the tweeter is a bit more open and smooth and that there is more sparkle. The efficiency is night and day greater. I performed A/B switch comparisons of these with L700's (early L710 3 way variant), L880's,and L7e's and though it was close and different ears will have different opinions I liked the Cantons.
 
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