Canton Reference 5.2 dc

I think the 3.2 was a significant step up from the 809's in bottom end and discernment. they are smoother and more open and spacious. Sorry for the slow reply.....

I have listened to the 890 a lot but done a side-by-side comparison with a Reference 5 only briefly. The Reference speaker had a richer sound and was more coherent. The sound approached that of my Silverline Bolero speakers. If I were building a system using Canton speakers I would most certainly use the Refernce line, I liked what I heard a lot. I should add though that I wouldn't hesitate to use the regular Vento speakers either, they are very good too, I just liked the References more. Also, the system on which I was listening to the speakers was an all tube setup.

I own the 5.2 reference. Initially I found them rather thin sounding speakers as I previously owned Dynos. So I missed the body and air. I removed the lower bass driver and removed the damping sponge from behind it. Also removed the sponge plug from the down firing bass port. Now I got the body and 3D what I wanted to achieve. I recommend you guys to try this little trick...I thing the philosophy behind the canton speaker design was to achieve an unboxy sound character so they over dumped the whole box. The idea is that by putting 5kg sponge in the box you will only hear the sound of the drivers without the boxy coloration.I also removed 80% of the sponge behind the mid driver. Now the sound has a healthy body with much air,the drivers can breath resulting a more dynamic character which is welcome in my system