Really nice review. If the DSP is always working, which it must for the crossovers, then there must also be an A/D converter for the RCA analog input. Any hint as to which A/D (and D/A) converters they are using, or are they not saying? Thanks in advance.
Good question Dave. They don't specify which D/A converters they use, either in the website info or in the owner's manual. But we affirm that they did a fine job getting such good sound from relatively tiny cabinets. They really sing if you add a subwoofer :-)
@@GramophoneMD Thank you for the prompt response. I appreciate it. I've gone full circle...from Apogee Divas in the 80s, and now to this. Good things come in small packages, too!
Thank you Mohdpazli, yes, it is an active, powered speaker system. You can read more about it here: blog.kantoaudio.com/getting-to-know-ora-features-technology/
Thank you@@mohdpazli . I am not sure that both speakers can be bi-amplified and yet have one active, one passive, so perhaps we're talking about the same thing - but using different language?
@@GramophoneMD im saying only the amplification part on one side..nothing on the other side..just like what edifier or hivi or airpulse were doing (except for certain model like s3000pro)
I get a really nice sound from my Creative T20 speakers. In fact they sound better today than when I bought them 15 years ago. And I can adjust base and treble to my liking. Also, they don't need to be 25 cm away from the wall (like the Kanto Ora). No hissing, no humming, no white, pink or other noise whatsoever (unlike nearly all other active speakers). Never heard of Kanto before, and all of a sudden there's dozens of videos popping up to create a hype. I'm sure the Kanto speakers sound pretty nice, but I have my doubts when reading reviews from Kanto owners who write they need an additional subwoofer. For me personally that wouldn't be an issue because my ears can't hear the very low frequencies anymore. But are the Kanto speakers worth 350 USD?
$350, or $3.50? Anyho, there’s a number of manufacturers in China, not to mention the other companies in and around Asia. You might not have noticed that many electronics are much cheaper and prolific lately. I’m sure you haven’t figured out that someone who had the finances, had not a huge amount. Could contact any of many of these manufactures, themselves, and theses companies will more than happily sale you a number of a model, and they will even work with you to design a logo that they will place on the products that you could purchase. No, they don’t design logos, but if you don’t have one, they will help you setup one to your liking, that way they can ship out your order as quickly as they can. If you don’t like something that is not on one of their current lineup, then they will modify it to suit your needs, the larger and more complex the modifications are to your design, the more you will need to pay. To cut in and add an bass port, not too expensive, and the might keep manufacturing, the batch when you order is complete. Slap a different model number on it, and especially if it made an improvement, the more the more they might charge others. You want red blue green, or other colors, besides black. You will need to pay extra. You want different drivers, you pay extra, and the better driver, the more you pay, and if you have good drivers, but cheeped out in the build of the cabinets. It might sound worse, and you will still pay more. You can go back and forth between the manufacturer, and end up with a product that fills your requirements, and that you are proud of, almost like your child, but guess what. There are going to be two groups of people who are going to have feelings about your child. First group is going to enjoy it and say it sounds good, and the other group will. Say it’s too expensive, and no bass, when clearly, when a speaker the size of this guy's head, even though he’s got a big head. They are not going to be a speaker that will disturb the neighbors. You might disturb your roommate, or your parents, but sleep well tonight, because you are not going to interrupt your neighbors, and they won’t need to call a noise complaint on you. It does have a output, for a sub, or a woofer. I’m not going to rewind the video to see what kind of output it is, but you can really annoy your parents, if you connect one up. P.S. you can also do the same for any other product you can imagine, and on the lowlow. If you need the hook up, holler at your boy here, and I got you. Now let this man get back to work. I would enjoy it if you could preform a demo, and went in more depth on the materials, and specified information like weight, and the construction of the body. Like if there was enough bracing or thickness to reduce resistance, or similar, but you done alright. I’ll give you two thumbs up. 👍
Hi Jacques, not that the ORA MUST be X distance from the wall. Rather, if you pull them away from the wall even a bit, they sound better. Years ago a famous speaker designer did a research project showing most speakers sound their best when placed about 1/3 of the way into the room. He acknowledged that almost no one will ever place their speakers there! These ORA offer amazing bass for being as compact as they are, but for really impressive bass, the sub-out sure helps
I currently have the KANTO TUK's and the s8 subwoofer as my desktop...probably overkill..am thinking of putting the Tuk's as my TV speakers and then get this ORA speakers and a sub for my desktop....what are your thoughts ? will the TUK's be good for TV speakers.....cheers from Canada
Hi Golf, Tuk would make a fine TV speaker, especially if you haven't made a TV speaker upgrade so far. ORA of course is not as great sounding as Tuk, so the answer partly depends on how much time you spend with your TV enjoyment vs working at your desktop. But your plan sounds like a good one to us
Hi Jay, at this time we're not an Audioengine dealer, so we haven't directly A/B compared them. These are quite good, so if this is your price range I would not hesitate to pull the trigger. A subwoofer out connection is included, so if you want to upgrade your sound over time you can
The Kanto YU2's are meant to be a direct competitor to the A2's and these are a tier above the YU2's in Kanto's lineup, so I would assume you'd be getting a substantial upgrade in sound quality going for the ORA over the A2's
Hello Christopher, both sound really good and are compact. ORA's speakers are bi-amplified internally, with each tweeter & woofer separately tuned, so you hear better detail in both the bass and mid / high frequencies. All crossover duties are handled by DSP, so the sound is surprisingly clear. ORA goes a bit deeper in bass response @ 70 Hz as the roll-off. But we've got loads of happy customers with YU 2 as well, so it's really a price point decision for you: skybygramophone.com/collections/kanto
Your use of language is a bit misguided. A tradtional speaker that relies upon the output of an external amplifier is a "passive" device. An "active" speaker is any that has a built-in amplifier, so requiring a power source. However, this is entirely separate from the nature of the crossover. It's possible, at the very low-end, to have an active speaker with a single amplifier and a passive crossover. Still a 2-way active speaker. But very cheap to make. In contrast, what you describe is a "bi-amplified" active speaker. It has a line level crossover, feeding a pair of amplifiers, one for each driver. Bi- and even tri-amplified powered monitors are quite common. These have been very common in professional circles for decades. I see people in the Hi-Fi space who seem to mischaracterize anything that's not biamp'd as not being active. That's simply not true.
Hello Trolling, you are right to say that the lowest bass frequency most humans can hear is 20 Hz, and these won't come close. Yet the bass you do hear from this lightweight, under 3 lbs., "hold it in your hand" speaker is amazing - not that it goes as low as the finest speakers and subwoofers, which it can't.
Great review. Thx!
Thanks for watching, Bluegoo, and for your kind comment
Really nice review. If the DSP is always working, which it must for the crossovers, then there must also be an A/D converter for the RCA analog input. Any hint as to which A/D (and D/A) converters they are using, or are they not saying? Thanks in advance.
Good question Dave. They don't specify which D/A converters they use, either in the website info or in the owner's manual. But we affirm that they did a fine job getting such good sound from relatively tiny cabinets. They really sing if you add a subwoofer :-)
@@GramophoneMD Thank you for the prompt response. I appreciate it. I've gone full circle...from Apogee Divas in the 80s, and now to this. Good things come in small packages, too!
I believe those 4 connector only carry audio signal, 2 for woofer and 2 for tweeter..its totally passive
Thank you Mohdpazli, yes, it is an active, powered speaker system. You can read more about it here: blog.kantoaudio.com/getting-to-know-ora-features-technology/
@@GramophoneMD yes Sir the whole speaker is active but all the goods happen on the primary speaker.. the other one only passive
Thank you@@mohdpazli . I am not sure that both speakers can be bi-amplified and yet have one active, one passive, so perhaps we're talking about the same thing - but using different language?
@@GramophoneMD im saying only the amplification part on one side..nothing on the other side..just like what edifier or hivi or airpulse were doing (except for certain model like s3000pro)
I get a really nice sound from my Creative T20 speakers. In fact they sound better today than when I bought them 15 years ago. And I can adjust base and treble to my liking. Also, they don't need to be 25 cm away from the wall (like the Kanto Ora). No hissing, no humming, no white, pink or other noise whatsoever (unlike nearly all other active speakers). Never heard of Kanto before, and all of a sudden there's dozens of videos popping up to create a hype. I'm sure the Kanto speakers sound pretty nice, but I have my doubts when reading reviews from Kanto owners who write they need an additional subwoofer. For me personally that wouldn't be an issue because my ears can't hear the very low frequencies anymore. But are the Kanto speakers worth 350 USD?
$350, or $3.50? Anyho, there’s a number of manufacturers in China, not to mention the other companies in and around Asia. You might not have noticed that many electronics are much cheaper and prolific lately. I’m sure you haven’t figured out that someone who had the finances, had not a huge amount. Could contact any of many of these manufactures, themselves, and theses companies will more than happily sale you a number of a model, and they will even work with you to design a logo that they will place on the products that you could purchase. No, they don’t design logos, but if you don’t have one, they will help you setup one to your liking, that way they can ship out your order as quickly as they can. If you don’t like something that is not on one of their current lineup, then they will modify it to suit your needs, the larger and more complex the modifications are to your design, the more you will need to pay. To cut in and add an bass port, not too expensive, and the might keep manufacturing, the batch when you order is complete. Slap a different model number on it, and especially if it made an improvement, the more the more they might charge others. You want red blue green, or other colors, besides black. You will need to pay extra. You want different drivers, you pay extra, and the better driver, the more you pay, and if you have good drivers, but cheeped out in the build of the cabinets. It might sound worse, and you will still pay more. You can go back and forth between the manufacturer, and end up with a product that fills your requirements, and that you are proud of, almost like your child, but guess what. There are going to be two groups of people who are going to have feelings about your child. First group is going to enjoy it and say it sounds good, and the other group will. Say it’s too expensive, and no bass, when clearly, when a speaker the size of this guy's head, even though he’s got a big head. They are not going to be a speaker that will disturb the neighbors. You might disturb your roommate, or your parents, but sleep well tonight, because you are not going to interrupt your neighbors, and they won’t need to call a noise complaint on you. It does have a output, for a sub, or a woofer. I’m not going to rewind the video to see what kind of output it is, but you can really annoy your parents, if you connect one up.
P.S. you can also do the same for any other product you can imagine, and on the lowlow. If you need the hook up, holler at your boy here, and I got you. Now let this man get back to work. I would enjoy it if you could preform a demo, and went in more depth on the materials, and specified information like weight, and the construction of the body. Like if there was enough bracing or thickness to reduce resistance, or similar, but you done alright. I’ll give you two thumbs up. 👍
Hi Jacques, not that the ORA MUST be X distance from the wall. Rather, if you pull them away from the wall even a bit, they sound better. Years ago a famous speaker designer did a research project showing most speakers sound their best when placed about 1/3 of the way into the room. He acknowledged that almost no one will ever place their speakers there! These ORA offer amazing bass for being as compact as they are, but for really impressive bass, the sub-out sure helps
I currently have the KANTO TUK's and the s8 subwoofer as my desktop...probably overkill..am thinking of putting the Tuk's as my TV speakers and then get this ORA speakers and a sub for my desktop....what are your thoughts ? will the TUK's be good for TV speakers.....cheers from Canada
Hi Golf, Tuk would make a fine TV speaker, especially if you haven't made a TV speaker upgrade so far. ORA of course is not as great sounding as Tuk, so the answer partly depends on how much time you spend with your TV enjoyment vs working at your desktop. But your plan sounds like a good one to us
I need a pair of solid desktop speakers without breaking the bank. How do these compare to the Audioengine A2+?
Hi Jay, at this time we're not an Audioengine dealer, so we haven't directly A/B compared them. These are quite good, so if this is your price range I would not hesitate to pull the trigger. A subwoofer out connection is included, so if you want to upgrade your sound over time you can
The Kanto YU2's are meant to be a direct competitor to the A2's and these are a tier above the YU2's in Kanto's lineup, so I would assume you'd be getting a substantial upgrade in sound quality going for the ORA over the A2's
How does the ORA compare to the YU2?
Hello Christopher, both sound really good and are compact. ORA's speakers are bi-amplified internally, with each tweeter & woofer separately tuned, so you hear better detail in both the bass and mid / high frequencies. All crossover duties are handled by DSP, so the sound is surprisingly clear. ORA goes a bit deeper in bass response @ 70 Hz as the roll-off. But we've got loads of happy customers with YU 2 as well, so it's really a price point decision for you: skybygramophone.com/collections/kanto
Your use of language is a bit misguided. A tradtional speaker that relies upon the output of an external amplifier is a "passive" device. An "active" speaker is any that has a built-in amplifier, so requiring a power source. However, this is entirely separate from the nature of the crossover.
It's possible, at the very low-end, to have an active speaker with a single amplifier and a passive crossover. Still a 2-way active speaker. But very cheap to make.
In contrast, what you describe is a "bi-amplified" active speaker. It has a line level crossover, feeding a pair of amplifiers, one for each driver. Bi- and even tri-amplified powered monitors are quite common. These have been very common in professional circles for decades.
I see people in the Hi-Fi space who seem to mischaracterize anything that's not biamp'd as not being active. That's simply not true.
Thank you for your comments
Kanto ORA Frequency Response 70 Hz - 22 kHz They have no base! Standard Frequency Range (20Hz to 20kHz)
Hello Trolling, you are right to say that the lowest bass frequency most humans can hear is 20 Hz, and these won't come close. Yet the bass you do hear from this lightweight, under 3 lbs., "hold it in your hand" speaker is amazing - not that it goes as low as the finest speakers and subwoofers, which it can't.
well the program doesnt