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Canton DM 90

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Sound Bars: A viable alternative for surround sound in the home-theater?

by Florian Friedrich on04/05/2009

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Canton DM 90

Canton DM 90 sound bar

First-rate product: This intricately-constructed, cleverly-conceived sound bar from Canton will take the place of a bulky surround sound setup in the living room.

Excellent sound for movies and music.
Genuinely deep bass.
Wide spatial effect.
Accurate sound, even at high volume.
Built-in FM tuner.

The rear-surround effect is rather too subtle.
Only listeners sitting directly opposite the unit will enjoy the full effect.

The Canton DM 90 is a sound bar for the most exacting requirements, but it is relatively expensive. On the market since August 2008 for around 1,200 GBP, the DM 90 starts from about 900 GBP online.

Canton DM 90 Key Factors

Concept and Design

Canton DM 90

Simple, unintrusive design: Ideal for the living room, Canton's sound bar is designed so that you can stand the TV on top.

The DM 90 sound bar from Canton's Digital Movie series sports a simple, fuss-free look. This is perfect for a living room that's only a part-time home-theater - after all, you want to hear the sound, but prefer not to see a room full of huge speakers. The developers at German loudspeaker specialist Canton did an excellent job, constructing the DM 90 so that you can easily stand a flat-panel TV on top of the speaker.

plasma tv on sound bar

A well-conceived and space-saving design: Canton designed their sound bar so that you can stand even hefty plasma TVs on top of it.

Design:

The 90 centimeter long, 30 cm deep, and 16 cm high wooden casing is professionally reinforced, and has no problem holding even heavier plasma TVs. You can choose from white, black lacquer, or matt-black finishes.

The remote control is a good match, with an equally functional design. It uses radio instead of infrared to communicate, and its graphical display guides the user though the various menus and settings.

Features and Technology

Canton has taken the same purist approach to the acoustic concept as they did to the aesthetics. Behind the cover, there are two coaxial drivers with central tweeter cones, sitting at the ends of the unit, which simulate five virtual loudspeakers.

Four 11-centimeter-diameter woofers support these with bass and deep-bass frequencies. Here, Canton calls on its substantial experience with bass-reflex systems to help provide uncompromised sound quality. Indeed, the whole concept of sound bars aims to achieve an excellent bass fundament and sound pressure level.

Connectivity:

connections panel

Plenty here for a living room setup: You can input audio from a CD, DVD or Blu-ray player, or a satellite TV receiver, via the three analog and two digital inputs on the rear of the Canton. The sound bar then decodes and processes the signals. On the other hand, the associated picture goes directly to the TV.

If there's not enough power for you, you can connect a further active subwoofer or external effects speakers to the preamp-output on the back of the unit. The three analog and two digital inputs for PCM, Dolby Digital, and DTS accept the usual audio sources, with the exception of the new HDMI audio formats.

Remote Control:

Canton remote control

Easy: The wireless remote control has a graphical display and, thanks to its logical structure, operation is like child's play.

The remote control's graphical display shows all of the settings. On the sound bar itself, there is neither a display nor any LEDs that could disturb the atmosphere of a dark home-theater. The logically constructed menu contains practical functions, such as a Lip-Synch delay, a bass/treble control, and a two-level loudness setting.

Listening Mode Set-up:

Depending on whether you're listening to music or watching a movie, you can set up a corresponding listening mode. Alongside the stereo and surround modes, there is a second 5.1-channel mode, with better speech intelligibility for the center speaker, which significantly improves dialog in some poorly mixed movie soundtracks. Sadly, however, the system cannot store your preferred mode for each input.

A practical feature, on the other hand: You can set the start-up and maximum volume levels in the service menu, eliminating the chance of unpleasant surprises. This is good news for those with pets or over-sensitive neighbors.

Sound Quality in Detail

impressive bass

Impressive: Canton's sound bar conjures up so much bass you can actually feel shockwaves moving through the living room.

When setting the levels, we suggest you use a noise signal from a test DVD, since the integrated test-sound generator does not address the virtual center and surround channels. The width of the surround sound varies depending on how far you sit from the sound bar, but left/right localization is always successful - that is, if you sit directly in the middle.

For large families clustered around the central sofa, the system is less than ideal. You'll find it harder to localize surround components than with the Yamaha YSP 4000 sound projector, for example, but as a consolation, the Canton's simulated channels all sound balanced and homogenous.

For our first practical test, we fed in the DTS-format surround soundtrack from the submarine-spectacular "U-571". At first, we didn't believe our ears: Never in our wildest dreams would we expect such a chest-rattling, powerful bass from this small speaker!

When the submarine's propellers kick in and coax the huge vessel into motion, the Canton sound bar volunteered decent force, showing unexpected substance. When the first blasts ring out in the distance, the low rumble really stirred up some tension in our test theater. Voices are clear and well articulated, and not at all superficial.

But it doesn't stop there. With the volume cranked up, the Canton lets us know it's not just messing around. When the depth charges strike with a loud splash, explode violently, and then catapult giant fountains of water upwards out of the sea, the sound bar effortlessly fires off powerful salvos of deep bass around the listening room. This is quite incredible considering the unit's size.

Stereo Music Playback:

For stereo music playback, the all-important criteria are balanced tonality and powerful bass, and the DM 90 gives you them both with buckets of enthusiasm - we loved it! In comparison with a fully-fledged HiFi system, the only limitation is the relatively narrow stereo basis. Otherwise, the sound bar hands out dynamism, resolution, and sound quality in equal measures, right down to the lowest bass note.

It doesn't matter whether you're listening to jazzy piano pieces from Keith Jarrett's "The Köln Concert" or driving hard rock from AC/DC's latest album "War Machine". The surround modes 1 and 2 also sound very pleasant, with their more broad spatial distribution, even though they don't quite reach the same precision as the stereo mode.

Technical Data and Product Details

frequency measurement

Measurements for the Canton DM 90 from the AVTOP test laboratory.

Measurement Results:
Maximum acoustic pressure (bass): 97 dBSPL
Lower cutoff frequency: 30 Hertz
Frequency response deviation (front): 6 dB
Frequency response deviation (center): 7 dB
Frequency response deviation (surround): 10 dB

Technical data for the Canton DM 90:

Virtual surround system 2.1

Single unit containing 2 x closed two-way center speakers, 1 x bass reflex subwoofer

System output: 350 watts

Subwoofer bass chassis: 4 x 110 mm

Center speaker mid-range chassis: 2 x 110 mm, aluminum

Center speaker tweeter chassis: 2 x 25 mm

Dimensions and Weight:

Dimensions (width x height x depth): 90 x 14.5 x 30 cm

Weight: 17.5 kg

Connections:

2 x digital audio input (coaxial)