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Canton Quinto 520 Thread

Bratwurst7s

Bratwurst7s

In The Frying Pan
Subscriber
The Quinto 520 is the first of the Quinto series that I bought or have experience with, but will actually be the 3rd that I get to hear.

I bought my pair last June but it turned out that both tweeters and one woofer were dead. The cabs are in walnut veneer but look a lot worse in person than in the sellers photos. So it's taken me a while to get them ready. In the mean time I bought a pair of 510's for my PC system (sound fantastic) and have refurbed a pair of 530's for a friend (also sound great).

Canton Quinto 520
General Data
  • Manufacurer: Canton
  • Model: Quinto 520
  • Production Year: 1981-1985
  • Produced in: Germany
  • Color: Black, White, Walnut
  • Measuremennts: 245 x 390 x 240 mm (WxHxD)
  • Weight: 7,5 kg
  • New Price ca.: 900,- DM (MSRP Pair)

Technical Data

  • Cabinet Style: 3-Way, Closed Bookshelf Loudspeaker
  • Drivers:
    • Woofer: 1x 220 mm (Long-Throw-Papar Cone)
    • Midrange: 1x 28 mm (Soft Dome)
    • Tweeter: 1x 20 mm (Soft Dome)
  • Load Carrying Ability (RMS-/Peak): 65 / 100 Watt
  • For Amplifiers Up To: 80 Watt (RMS)
  • For Rooms Up To: 40m²
  • Sensiitivity: - dB
  • Working Load: 6,5 Watt (86dB, 3m Distance)
  • Frequency Range: 28 - 30.000 Hz
  • Off-Axis Response: Over 125 Degrees At 12500 Hz
  • Crossover Points: 800 / 5.000 Hz
  • Impedance: 4 Ohm
Cheers,
James
 
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The 520 Drivers are:
Woofer: 3156
Midrange: 1086
Tweeter: 1087

The mids and tweeters are also used in the Quinto 510, 530, Karat 100. The tweeters can also be founD in the GL 300F. I haven't found and info on potential donors for the woofers yet.

Crossover Capacitors are:
1104 = 5.6µF/23v
2381 = 12µF/40v
1102 = 22µF/23v
1101 = 82µF/23v

Coils are:
2531 = 0.17mH/0.7ohm
1156 = 0.4mH/1.0ohm
3205 = 0.7mH/0.18ohm
1154 = 1.53mH/0.3ohm
!These are values measured with an LCR meter and not from Canton!

Resistors:
47ohm
0.68ohm

Cheers,
James

edit 8 July 2107: Fixed typo above concerning woofer part number, was 3159 (wrong), corrected to 3156. My apologies for the mistake.
 
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None of the Quinto series that I've seen have any internal bracing. But they do have ca 19mm cabinet walls. Adding a lot of bracing to these small cabs would seem to be counter-productive to bass response if it reduces cabinet volume by very much but I thought that a single brace to the weak point of the front baffle would be useful without stealing a lot of cabinet volume. I chose 18mm dia beach hardwood rod and cut it on my miter box slightly long, then carefully hand sanded them to a firm fit. Fasteners are stainless 3.5mm screws. The screw pilot holes in the rods were drilled on a lathe to keep them centered and parallel.

DSC03016.jpg DSC03017.jpg DSC03018.jpg

Cheers,
James

edit: I forgot to mention that the holes for the brace were drilled 120mm from the top edge of the box and centered side-side.
 
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Sanding the cabs. I really didn't want to go through the veneer so basicly hand sanded with fingertips and 120 grit to get through the laquer, just going until I started to see some color in the dust. After that I used 240 grit to finish them. This took about 10 hours per box. Slave work, I'll have to rethink this when I refinish my 510's. Perhaps use the orbital sander to remove most of the paint and then hand finish.

DSC03331.jpg DSC03332.jpg DSC03333.jpg

Cheers,
James
 
For caps I chose:
5.6µF/400v Jantzen MKP Crosscap for the tweeters,
12µF/250v Monacor MKT on the upper end of the mids,
22µF/100v Mundorf Ecap on the lower end of the mids,
82µF/100v Mundorf Ecap for the woofers.

All solder connections were re-flowed and de-fluxed.

DSC03350.jpg DSC03352.jpg DSC03355.jpg

In the future I might choose Jantzen MKT caps for the 12µF as they are a good bit smaller than the Monacor caps.

Cheers,
James
 
I haven't been removing the old leads from the original spring speaker connectors on any of these old speakers. Just schrink-wrapping the ends and taping them to the bottom of the boxes. You never know where the speakers might eventually end up and I don't want to tie the next potential owners hands.

I used a bore guide attached to my drill to get perfectly square holes for the new connectors. 8mm holes, countersunk to 10mm dia on the back side to fit the plastic bushings. I went stupid overkill and used Oehlbach silver plated 1.5mm² wire for the new connectors, 33cm long and soldered with 5% silver solder. edit: see below.

DSC03361.jpg DSC03362.jpg DSC03363.jpg DSC03364.jpg DSC03366.jpg

The holes are 95mm from the bottom of the cab, with 50mm spacing. This leaves plenty of clearance inside the cabs.

Cheers,
James

edit 8 July 2017: Concerning the holes for the binding posts. It's better to drill them with a 7mm bit, countersink with the 10mm, and then use a round file to open the holes to 8mm side to side. The posts fit more securely that way and can't rotate in the holes.
 
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The crossovers and fibreglass stuffing went back in, drivers mounted and attached, and hey, it's almost time to give these babies a test drive!

DSC03369.jpg DSC03371.jpg DSC03372.jpg DSC03374.jpg DSC03375.jpg

Cheers,
James

edit: I forgot to mention that I mirrored the tweeters, the high/mid cutouts are the same so there are no issues concerning doing this.
 
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I keep a set of leads attached to the B speakers of my PC system for testing, and The Eagles Desperado sounded really good coming from these speakers. It's almost a shame to use them as rear speakers in my HT system, but they look so much nicer than the white Canton Karat 200's that they replaced, and are a bit smaller. Next project will be to finally build some wall mount shelves for them.

DSC03379.jpg DSC03380.jpg DSC03382.jpg DSC03386.jpg

Cheers,
James
 
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Thanks Mike! I'm pretty happy with how they turned out. The white Karat 200's that they replaced sounded good but were ugly as sin. So there is an appreciable WAF factor with these, which is always useful.

Cheers,
James
 
Just today I have met with this forum while I was searching specs for Canton Ergo 80 speakers which I just bought from Germany. By a chance i have seen this tread and to be able to see the photos of the restoration better, just signed in the forum. As I have also Quinto 520 speakers for 7 years, I have enjoyed to see the great restoration. Great job Bratwurst (sausages on your avatar looks delicious as well!)
Last year I had sanded a bit and used wooden vernique but, your handjob is brilliant.

Later on, I will ask further questions about not working mids of Ergos.

Anyway, this is my 1st post and want to say greetings from Marmaris, Turkey. Cheers!
 
I have some Ergos with some deep gouges in the Cherry... I might give it a go...

Good job on the restore!
 
Beautiful work! I feel in love with Cantons in the late 80's, reading Stereo Review magazines in the college library (when I was supposed to be studying) and I have a set of cherry Ergos for my home theater. Always loved the look and quality of the cabinets.
 
Kuas said:
Just today I have met with this forum while I was searching specs for Canton Ergo 80 speakers which I just bought from Germany. By a chance i have seen this tread and to be able to see the photos of the restoration better, just signed in the forum. As I have also Quinto 520 speakers for 7 years, I have enjoyed to see the great restoration. Great job Bratwurst (sausages on your avatar looks delicious as well!)
Last year I had sanded a bit and used wooden vernique but, your handjob is brilliant.

Later on, I will ask further questions about not working mids of Ergos.

Anyway, this is my 1st post and want to say greetings from Marmaris, Turkey. Cheers!
Click to expand...

Hi Kuas! I'm humbled that you chose to join me in appreciating our Quinto's with your first post. Welcome to AudioKarma! :beerchug:

Cheers,
James

edit: http://www.hifi-wiki.de/index.php/Canton_Ergo_80
 
Obankenobi said:
Beautiful work! I feel in love with Cantons in the late 80's, reading Stereo Review magazines in the college library (when I was supposed to be studying) and I have a set of cherry Ergos for my home theater. Always loved the look and quality of the cabinets.
Click to expand...

I haven't had the chance to listen to any Ergos yet. Sooner or later tho...

Cheers,
James
 
Bratwurst7s said:
Hi Kuas! I'm humbled that you chose to join me in appreciating our Quinto's with your first post. Welcome to AudioKarma! :beerchug:

Cheers,
James

edit: http://www.hifi-wiki.de/index.php/Canton_Ergo_80
Click to expand...

Hi James,

Great job deserves applause :) Always been a fan of Cantons and my new edition Ergos have a non working mid driver. I assume the upper one is mid, not woofer. :) Later on, I can share the photos of the driver at a more proper new thread. :) hifi-wiki is my key page when I am looking at any specs and details. Actually, I need information whether I can fix the driver or not? Probably I will ask a techj friend's help to fix the driver. Hope the bobins are fine, just unattached bobin cables and cracked plastic legs of chasis.

Anyway, nice to meet you!

Emre
 
Putterman said:
I'not sure if you want to mess with your speakers again, but my understanding is that the coils in the crossover are too close to each other to eliminate crosstalk between the drivers, with the best solution IMO to make the middle coil vertical to reduce this problem. See http://www.audioholics.com/loudspeaker-design/inductor-coil-crosstalk-basics for more info and no ... I'm not up on the electrical theory.
Click to expand...

I believe that you are correct. Good idea, I should have thought of that, especially as I did exactly that when I made new crossovers for my Speakerlabs. And since I have finally gotten a laptop set up that's dedicated to Woofer-Tester-2, REW and X-Sim I plan on calculating a zobel for the woofers. I could tip the center coil at that time. I'd have to extend the leads but that won't be a problem.

Cheers,
James
 
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