News

Canton Debuts 600 Watt Subwoofer: Karat Line Sinks to New Depths of Bass (8/1/2004)

Canton, the largest and best-selling manufacturer of loudspeakers in Germany, has introduced the Karat AS 500 SC, the most powerful subwoofer the company has ever manufactured. It features a massive 12-inch high output driver and matching passive radiator driven by a massive internal power amplifier capable of generating 600 Watts of power. Thanks to Canton's SC (Subwoofer Control) technology, the subwoofer is capable of extremely precise and musical bass reproduction well below the limits of human hearing.

The Karat AS 500 SC uses a long-excursion 12-inch cellulose/graphite driver in a bass reflex enclosure. For extended deep bass response, rather than use a traditional port, it makes use of a passive radiator mounted on the opposite face of the enclosure. This design eliminates distortion due to port noise or unwanted pipe resonance, while improving the speaker's efficiency and generating increased sound pressure levels (SPL).

The Canton Karat AS 500 SC also incorporates the company's exclusive SC Technology, which redefines the relationship between the size of a subwoofer's housing and its transmission range. Canton engineers have designed an active electronic filter that is custom tailored for the AS 500 SC, based on complex computer-aided analysis and design, and integrated into the unit's amplifier between the preliminary and output stages. This circuit provides compensation for the acoustic characteristics of the housing and driver, adjusting the amplifier's response curve for optimum linearity. This both blocks unwanted infrasonic signals, which can cause excessive driver excursions, and improves the speaker's output response across the frequency range. The resulting increase in efficiency and stability, and the subsequent decrease of harmonic distortion, allows the subwoofer to reproduce bass more precisely, and to carry a heavier load with more clarity.

The Karat AS 500 SC was designed to complement the Karat Reference and L-class loudspeakers both sonically and visually. It features the same acoustical suspension base as found on the line's large floorstanding models, acoustically decoupling it from the floor to isolate it from vibrations that can cause unwanted distortion. It is magnetically shielded to allow for placement near displays, and includes rear-panel controls for adjustment of level, crossover frequency, and phase, and is available in real wood veneers of Beech and Cherry, or in the Karat line's signature silver lacquer finish.

The Canton Karat AS 500 SC Subwoofer is currently available at a suggested retail price of $2,000.

www.cantonusa.com