ASW Cantius 504 speaker system test

ASW Cantius 504 – speakers with high musical potential, characterized by smooth tonal balance and detailed sound. At the same time they do not always have enough dynamic bass. The Cantius 504 speaker systems represent the “middle” range of the German company ASW, positioned between the Opus and Genius series. Floor-standing “towers” have a modern design with tapered front panels and rounded edges of the fronts. The front of the speakers is decorated with a vertical aluminum strip – a family trait of all Cantius speakers.

Test by: Denis GONCHAROV, Consumer magazine.Video & Audio

CONSTRUCTION

The Cantius 504 stands on a wooden plinth resting on rubber dampened feet if the floor at home is covered with carpet, the speakers can be placed on spikes. The finish of the ASW loudspeakers is always above reproach in quality and variety of options: 16 standard colors and any additional options are available to the customer.

The Cantius 504 has a 2-way crossover configuration with 3rd order filters and a 2kHz crossover point. Two 130-mm midwoofers with aluminum membranes and a 30-mm silk dome tweeter are placed on the front panel in a symmetrical d’Appolito scheme, which provides a wide horizontal sound dispersion pattern and tight control of the radiation in the vertical plane.

All loudspeaker drivers are magnetically shielded. Both midrange/midrange drivers share a common cabinet volume with a single reflex port on the back panel. The speaker terminal block features two pairs of universal gold-plated connectors and jumpers made from strips of speaker wire.

SOUNDING

The sound of the “Cantius” subjectively has a flat tonal balance with a slight accent on the treble, which is associated rather with a dynamic liveliness of cymbals, the upper harmonics of strings and wind instruments. The middle part, traditionally for ASW, is transmitted with accurate and natural processing of timbres, neutral, but with a little slope to the cold side. This impression is due to some dryness of the upper middle and the speakers’ preoccupation with sibilance in the reproduction of vocal parts.

At the same time, you can’t say that the speakers are clearly “inventing” an emphasis on hissing, they are rather unwilling to make recordings sound more comfortable than they actually are. So here the Germans can be also praised for meticulousness and thoroughness in processing the musical material. The main thing is that the Cantius 504 loudspeakers do not allow themselves too harsh and tiresome harshness even at high volume.

The high-frequency range is handled by silk tweeters with high for the speaker class transparency of sound and competent treatment of cymbals, brushes and triangles aftershocks. Light and airy sounding jazz themes, rich percussion parts, very clearly served by concert hall HF reverberations.

Speakers are able to extend the scene widely, evenly and accurately filling it with virtual images along the azimuth, a few echelons of depth are obligatory, although the volumes of clearly localized space are more suitable for voicing chamber music forms or small orchestras. The stage is placed at a comfortable distance from the listener, not moving away from him, not moving forward. Instrument sizes and distances are accurately conveyed, only the bass sources in the background lose a bit of scale at times.

By the way, the “Cantius” bass turned out quite deep, considering the size of the loudspeakers themselves and the modest size of the woofers. But depth isn’t the main thing – the important thing is that the bass of the speakers is fast and well structured, which allows the Germans to reproduce acoustic instruments, such as contrabass, bassoon and even tuba, with great fidelity. However, the energy of the bass decreases markedly in the mid-bass, to get the dynamic sound in rock songs, the audiophile will have to play with the location of speakers in the corners of the room.

PRICE: 57 600 Dollars.

SOURCE

In the MF/HF range the impedance of the Cantius 504 changes only slightly staying in the 3.5-7 ohm range with a minimum at 250 Hz. Speakers’ reflex ports are tuned to 38 Hz.

Despite the local rise in sensitivity in the HF region above 2.5 kHz the AFC of the speakers can be called universally smooth, everywhere in the working range it falls within a standard deviation +/-3 dB with the lower limit of 52 Hz – an excellent result for a 2-way model with small MF/LF drivers. Furthermore, at 6dB the curve gets as far as 41 Hz.