Kanto Ren Introduction
I
was very pleasantly surprised by how good Kanto’s ORA speakers turned out to be
when I received them for review, so I was curious about what happened when Kanto scaled
their design up a bit from a desktop system. I asked Kanto about larger models,
and they suggested the REN for that purpose, and that brings us to today’s
review. The Kanto REN is intended as an alternative to a soundbar, among other
roles, since it has the ease of installation of a soundbar but more flexibility
as a sound system. It is a self-powered system with a plethora of inputs,
including HDMI ARC, much like many soundbars, and it is not a large speaker
system, so it could fit in many domestic situations. Much like soundbars, these
speakers are aimed at fitting in tight spaces.
The
big advantage is that a system like the RENs could have real stereo imaging,
unlike most soundbars. Most soundbars are essentially mono-aural systems since
they squeeze all the channels so close to each other relative to the listener.
There can be no sound coming from a left or right direction if there is no
significant distance between left and right from the listener’s perspective.
For this reason, soundbars have never really been considered high-fidelity
devices. There are perhaps very large soundbars that solve this problem, but
the idea of a large soundbar defeats its own purpose. The RENs can be spaced
far apart, thereby allowing a real stereo soundfield. Given the ease of
installation along with minimal space accommodation, the RENs look positioned
to accomplish their mission nicely — on paper. But how do they perform in
actuality? Are the RENs just a better alternative to a soundbar, or do they
strive to be a seriously good high-fidelity solution? Let’s dig in to find out…
Kanto Ren Appearance
The
Kanto Ren speakers come in a good selection of colors. Most speakers only have
two or three finishes available, but the Rens have five. They can be had in
matte white, black, blue, orange, and grey. I received the blue. Kanto calls it
a matte finish, but it has enough of a sheen that if they called it a satin
finish, I would not argue. The finish is very nicely applied. Stylistically
speaking, the Rens are fairly simple — a good idea so they can fit in a wider
variety of decors. The lengthwise edges are rounded to lend a somewhat
streamlined look. The drivers are sunken into the cabinet which gives the
tweeter a built-in waveguide. The driver diaphragms are simple, uniform
surfaces that are ringed by a small surround. The drivers can be hidden by a
black fabric grille which simplifies the appearance of the speaker even more.
The grille does leave the status LEDs and control knob on the master speaker
exposed. The front LED brightness can be changed, and there are five different
brightness levels. There is not much else to say about the appearance of the
Ren speakers. They look nice with a minimalism that shouldn’t have any
aesthetic collision with nearly any room they would go in, so long as the color
is a good pick.
Kanto Ren Design Analysis
The
Ren speakers are tasked with delivering high-fidelity sound from a modest-sized
package while accommodating a variety of sources; so how does it go about
accomplishing that task? The Rens use a very common 2-way design type: a 1”
dome tweeter mated with a 5.25” woofer, and it shouldn’t be too hard to pull a
good speaker out of such a popular design archetype. Let’s start our discussion
of its design at the top with the tweeter. The Rens use a 1” silk dome tweeter
mounted in a small waveguide. Silk dome tweeters are some of the
best-understood and most reliably good performers around. The waveguide should
help to control the tweeter’s directivity to narrow dispersion at the bottom of
its bandwidth and possibly broaden it at the top of the bandwidth. The woofer
is a 5.25” aluminum cone with an inverted surround. Given the beveling of the
waveguide around the cone, Kanto must have had to use an inverted surround so
that the driver would fit. It shouldn’t compromise performance at all. A
rear-mounted, flared port produces the lowest octave.
The
drivers are powered by a system total 100-watt RMS amplifier. That should be
plenty of wattage for speakers like these. The amp is a class D design, which
should make these speakers very energy-efficient. Only one speaker of the pair
has the amp built-in; it powers both speakers and uses a simple 10’ speaker
cable to power the passive speaker. While one speaker unit powers both
speakers, there isn’t a dedicated right or left unit since the channels can be
swapped by the remote control (just hold down the “next track” button for five
seconds until you see the speaker’s front LED blink twice). The crossover
circuits are passive, but since DSP is used, there should be equalization by
Kanto to fit a target response, so the crossover circuit isn’t likely to be
much more than simple bandwidth filters.
One
of the major advantages of the Ren speakers is their HDMI ARC connectivity.
That makes it extremely easy to integrate into the signal chain of a
television: just plug an HDMI cable from the TV into the Ren speaker. You may
need to configure the television’s audio options to set it to two-channel
sound. Other types of connectivity that the Ren can accommodate are Bluetooth,
USB Audio, analog RCA, analog 3.5mm, and optical TOSLINK. This is a wide
variety of connectivity that will allow the Rens to be easily integrated into
nearly any type of sound system. Furthermore, it has a subwoofer output, so
adding a sub for deep bass is a cinch as well. When the subwoofer output is
connected, the Ren speakers will sense it and then automatically high-pass
filter out frequencies below 80Hz, so it has some level of built-in bass
management. The Ren speakers even have a USB charger built into the back panel
intended to charge things like smart home devices or network streamers, but I
suppose you could use it to charge your smartphone as well.
The
Ren speaker has two alternate sound modes outside of the default sound: Vocal
Boost and Night Mode. Vocal Boost simply boosts some midrange frequencies in
order to increase dialogue intelligibility. Night Mode employs a high-pass
filter to reduce bass output and also engages a compressor to reduce high
amplitude peaks so the sound level doesn’t become abruptly loud.
The
Ren comes with a remote control unit that has some functions not available on
the speaker itself. The remote can interact with Bluetooth playback by playing,
pausing, reversing, and forwarding tracks. It can also adjust the LED status
light brightness to five different brightness levels. The remote can engage an
automatic power-up and automatic power-down mode. If no signal has been
detected for 15 minutes, it will enter a standby mode but will be able to power
up if a signal is detected again. The remote has a mute function and also a
“mute subwoofer only” function. The remote also has tone controls in the form
of treble and bass buttons that can lower or raise treble or bass.
The
enclosures are made from ½” MDF panels with the front baffle having a greater
thickness. The rear-mounted port is approximately 5” long with a 1 ⅞” diameter,
and is only flared in the outer end. The speakers do not come with feet, but
Kanto provides some adhesive pads that users can stick to the bottom to prevent
the finish from getting scuffed by being placed on hard surfaces. The grille
uses magnetic adhesion for a cleaner front baffle appearance, but the grille
frame probably will cause some diffraction effects, so for the best sound,
leave the grille off (though the difference isn’t likely to be great).
The
ingredients are there to accomplish the mission of the speaker, but how well
they all work together is what matters, and we can’t know anything until we
give it some real-world trials, so let’s now hear what it can do in practice…
Kanto Ren Listening
Sessions
In my 24’ by 13’ (approximately)
listening room, I set up the speakers a few feet off the back and side walls,
and with an equal distance between the speakers and the listening position. I
angled the speakers to face the listening position. The listening distance from
the speakers was about 9 feet. No room correction equalization was used.
Processing was done by a Marantz 7705. A MartinLogan Dynamo 12 subwoofer was
used when indicated.
Music
Listening
Steve Reich has been a fixture in
avant-garde music for well over 50 years. But can you still be classed as
avant-garde when your influence is so extensive that it can be felt in
mainstream instrumental music within your lifetime? I don’t know the answer,
but I don’t think the answer matters as long as the music is consistently good,
and output never becomes stale. Reich, now nearly 90, has a new release from
his home label Nonesuch titled Jacob’s
Ladder/ Traveler’s Prayer, two compositions written in 2020 and 2023,
respectively. The style may be familiar to Reich fans, but the subject matter
is new. The pieces in this album make for a compelling listen, and I think they
will be viewed as a highlight in Reich’s output, despite coming out so late in
his life. I streamed this album from Qobuz in a 96kHz/24-bit resolution.
The Kanto Ren speakers brought Steve Reich’s Jacob’s Ladder to life with stunning realism and balance.
Supposedly, the “Jacob’s Ladder” segment
of this album was recorded at the premiere performance of this work at David
Geffen Hall at the Lincoln Center in New York City. However, it didn’t sound
like a concert hall performance. The sound engineering made it sound like the
listener was situated at a front-row seat. Instruments and vocalists imaged
very clearly to far left and right positions, much like what would be heard at
close proximity to the performers. It sounded like a studio recording, and the
Kanto Ren speakers explicitly conveyed that intent by the recording engineers.
The speakers brought the performers into my listening room for a “they are
here” rather than a “you are there” effect. The soundstage was much more
exacting than a typical symphonic hall recording, a characteristic nicely
captured by the speakers. The instruments and vocalists all sounded natural and
tonally balanced. In the “Traveler’s Prayer” track, the piano was given
prominence, and while the Kanto Ren speakers could reproduce it fine, the lower
notes were better represented when I added a subwoofer. The Ren speakers could
mostly reproduce the piano’s lower notes without the sub, but the subwoofer
made them sound a lot more authoritative, even when level matched with the
speakers. Reich’s music is an acquired taste, and even then, one must be in a
certain mood, but when that mood strikes, it ought to be heard with a
high-quality sound system. After hearing Jacob’s
Ladder/ Traveler’s Prayer on the Ren speakers, I think that Kanto has
provided just that in this case.
A new release that I found on Qobuz is
Marc Broussard’s Time is a Thief, a
blues album with a heavy dose of funk and rock. While I only knew of
Broussard’s work in passing, I finally decided to give him some real attention
with this new release, and I have to say I am pleasantly surprised. This is
fairly high-energy blues with terrific instrumental accompaniment. This sound
mix really lets each instrument breathe, and the mix turns out a clean
recording of a genre that more often opts for a grungy “live” sound. The album
sounds great, so I decided to see how it sounded in the Ren speakers.
Broussard’s voice imaged nicely in the
center of the soundstage. Brass instruments flanked him on both sides, with
percussion also occupying a broad center since it was clearly recorded with a
close mic. The bass drum and bass guitar had some real vigor, unexpectedly so
for a small speaker. The third track, “Cold-Blooded,” had a crunchy bass guitar
that the Rens gave some meat to, not on the level of a subwoofer or full-range
tower speaker, but very good for some smaller bookshelf speakers. The bass in this
music sounded good on the speakers by themselves, although I wasn’t listening
to this album at a high loudness level. All the instruments sounded natural and
tonally balanced. Broussard’s rich voice was given a detailed and proportionate
presentation by the speakers, and a great example of this was on the track
“Give You the World,” which gave his voice some space from the instruments. He
sounded terrific, as did his instrumental accompaniment. I am not sure what
else can be asked from some lower-cost powered stand-mount speakers for this
album. Time is a Thief was a very
enjoyable listening experience on the Rens. More expensive speakers might have
delivered more immediacy or wider dynamics, but I think anyone who gives these
speakers a chance with this album would be seriously impressed.
To see how these small speakers could
handle a big sound, I threw on Michael Stearns’s score for the epic Samsara, a 2011 wordless documentary
filmed in 70mm and intended for Imax-type presentations. Stearns has been a
major figure in the “space” subgenre of new-age music since the early ‘80s,
and, outside of the scores he has made for special exhibition movies such as Samsara and Baraka, he is known for planetarium-style music that feels like a
narrative for a space journey. Samsara
would bring in a host of other musical elements alongside Stearns’s spacey
synths, such as vocals by Lisa Gerrard, and especially musical instrumentation
from Southeast Asia, courtesy of Marcello de Francisci. It’s a monumental
score, but does it need monumental speakers to do it justice?
The Kanto Ren speakers delivered Marc Broussard’s Time Is a Thief with rich vocals and tight bass.
The soundtrack opens with one of the most
iconic scores from the film, “Bali Girls,” which features female vocals over a
gamelan. The Ren speakers placed the vocals dead-center while spreading the
gamelan over the width of the soundstage, and it was a good presentation of a
lovely piece of music. Track 3, “Modern Life,” was largely percussion-based,
using non-Western percussion instruments along with bells and electronic
atmospherics. The various drums had well-defined imaging over the soundstage,
whether it be center, slight left, hard right, and so on. The speakers did not
allow for confusion over the position of the instrument. Track 6, “Villages and
Freeways,” is more typical of the kind of stuff Michael Stearns is known for:
cosmic synths. The Ren speakers gave this track a wide, enveloping soundstage,
befitting of its IMAX presentation origins. I did bring in the subwoofer for
this track since it skirts some deeper bass, and while the speakers handled the
lower frequencies well, the subwoofer certainly added more depth to the sound.
On the track “Dump/Igen,” spaced-out
female vocals underpinned some deep bass synths, and while the Ren speakers
reproduced the vocals beautifully, they did struggle with the sweeping bass on
this track. I was hearing a shuddering sound, which I first thought might have
been something loose on the amp panels, but further investigation revealed it
was the ports overloading. I connected a subwoofer, and that took a big load
off the ports and solved the problem. Port turbulence sounds are often masked
by higher-frequency content on the recording, or by the speaker enclosure
itself when the ports are located on the back panel. But the Ren ports had such
a particular port turbulence sound that it was pretty audible anyway. However,
aside from a bit of port misbehavior, which was eliminated with the inclusion
of a subwoofer, the Ren speakers did a very nice job of reproducing the Samsara soundtrack. These small speakers
did an otherwise great job of recreating a big score.
To see how the Ren speakers would react
to being pushed, I threw on some drum’n’bass music and cranked it hard. I found
a killer new release from the 1985 Music label, by an artist named Napes. Shooters Hill EP is an EP of four tracks
of hard-hitting drum’n’bass that has a retro vibe, but with modern production
techniques. It sounds like someone gave modern production tools to a D’n’B
artist from the ‘90s. The sound is fast and ferocious, and the bass is heavy;
this music demands to be played loud. How loud could the Rens get without
falling apart?
The Kanto Ren speakers handled Napes’ Shooters Hill EP with surprising punch and precision for their size.
Again, the Ren speakers could do bass
better than expected, although there were moments when the ports struggled.
However, I was deliberately pushing them to the edge of their performance, and
they handled this abuse with more tenacity than I would have guessed, given
their size and specs. When I threw in a sub, they opened up quite a bit and
could get louder without struggling as much. Without a sub, their limits in
bass became apparent fairly easily, even as well as its 5.25” woofers could
move. Track 2, “Deja Vu 93.2,” had an old-school rolling bassline that the Ren
speakers could give body to, but not a tremendous amount of force. The
inclusion of a subwoofer obviously gave it much more potency, and allowed the
Ren speakers to play to their strengths, which don’t include really deep bass.
The star of this EP is the track “North Road,” with its stabby bassline and
frenetic snares and hats. It’s a masterpiece of retro jungle music, and it
sounded good on the Ren speakers. But it sounded great on the Ren speakers when a sub was included. Anyone who
remembers old school D’n’B fondly absolutely needs to give this track a listen
on a good sound system. The following track, “Tokyo Drifting,” is pretty epic
too.
In the end, I do think the Ren speakers
have sufficient dynamic range for their target buyers, especially when a
subwoofer is added. At normal levels, its limitations in deep bass are not
likely to become a problem. I don’t ever see it becoming a problem for those
using these speakers for a desktop system. And for those who want to get a bit
rowdy in a larger room, I do think the Rens can do that, but only with the
assistance of a subwoofer.
Movie
Watching
To see what the Ren speakers could do for
a major Hollywood movie, I watched Netflix’s new science-fiction epic The Electric State. In this movie, a
girl teams up with a robot and a smuggler to go on a journey to find her lost
brother in an alternate 1997, where humanity wages war against a race of
robotic beings. This 300-million-dollar movie was met with mixed critical
reception, but its sound mix should be as good as money can buy with such a
colossal production budget.
The
Electric State turned out to be a charming if
somewhat formulaic movie, and I don’t understand why it was trashed so badly by
critics. I do think that Netflix originals get judged more harshly by critics,
and I think the reason is that they see the medium as more disposable than
old-fashioned studio releases. Regardless of the critical opinion of the movie,
its sound mix was fun and lively, and it sounded very good with the Ren
speakers. The most distinctive aspect of the sound mix was the multitude of odd
noises made by the robot characters. The whirring and whizzing of motorized
motions and distorted mechanical voices added up to some vividly-realized
robotic characters, and the Ren speakers helped to make their creation an aural
reality. The action scenes had lots of large-scale destruction, and the
speakers gave all of the crashes and explosions a spirited presentation, for
their size. Larger speakers with wider dynamics probably would have had a lot
more slam, but the Ren speakers are not attempting to be dedicated home theater
fronts. Those looking at the Rens as an alternative to a soundbar would surely
be pleased with the punch these things can pack. They would also surely be
pleased with the excellent level of dialogue intelligibility; I didn’t have any
problems following conversations within the movie. I did watch this movie with
a sub, as I do think the low end would have been a bit taxing for the Ren
speakers at a higher loudness level. The Ren speakers probably would have
sounded OK without a subwoofer, but the sub gave them a larger sound, which
certainly befits a movie such as this.
The Kanto Ren speakers brought The Electric State to life with crisp dialogue and cinematic punch.
I was interested to see Longlegs, a critically acclaimed 2024
horror movie starring Maika Monroe and Nicholas Cage. It concerns an FBI agent
who is tasked with investigating a serial killer involved in the occult, who
turns out to have personal connections with her past. The plot sounds pretty
generic, but the director, Osgood Perkins, has had a string of hits since his
first film, the terrific The Blackcoat’s
Daughter. He has proven himself to be an artist worth keeping an eye on,
and with good word-of-mouth following Longlegs,
I felt reasonably sure that it was going to be anything but generic.
Longlegs turned out to be a fairly creepy exercise with a sound mix full of
subtle cues. The most notable element of the sound mix was the music, both the
instrumental score and the diegetic music. The original music was done by Elvis
Perkins, the director’s brother, who also scored some of his other films. It’s
an atmospheric orchestral score with electronic elements, and it was given a
sinister presence by the speakers on account of their wide soundstage. In-scene
music included a few tracks from ‘70s glam rock band T-Rex, and on the Ren
speakers, it had a nice amount of verve and energy. The movie’s sound mix on
the whole was relatively quiet and not calamitous (as so many horror movies end
up being), and it heightened the eeriness of the setting. The quietude also
contrasted with the moments of abrupt shock for the few jump scares, although
this movie’s horror is much more about story, tone, and style than jump scares.
Dialogue intelligibility was good throughout, even with Nicholas Cage’s
extremely bizarre performance and dialogue delivery. I did use a subwoofer in
this movie to supplement deep bass, although I do think that the Ren speakers
probably would have been fine for this sound mix, for the most part. Longlegs wasn’t a loud movie, but it was
a very good one, and so deserves a good presentation. The Ren speakers helped
to make it an enjoyable viewing experience, and I certainly would not trade
them for any soundbar.
Kanto Ren Measurements and Analysis
The Kanto Ren speakers were measured in
free air at a height of 7.5 feet at a 1-meter distance from the microphone, and
the measurements were gated at an 11-millisecond delay. In this time window,
some resolution is lost below 250 Hz, and accuracy is completely lost below 110
Hz. Measurements have been smoothed at a 1/24 octave resolution.
The above graph shows the direct-axis
frequency response and other curves that describe the speaker’s amplitude
response in a number of ways. For more information about the meaning of these
curves, please refer to our article Understanding
Loudspeaker Measurements Part 1.
The response that we see from the Ren speakers is nicely well-controlled. There
is a little bit of waviness going from 1kHz to 2kHz, but other than that, it’s
very good. The on-axis response has some waviness in upper treble, but the most
important curve here, the Listening Window, is quite neutral, especially in the
tweeter’s bandwidth. The Listening Window holds to a pretty tight range, about
+/-1.5dB out to 20kHz. Based on what we saw from Kanto’s Ora speakers, I was
expecting the Rens to be good as well, and that is what we see here. The
directivity indexes do have a few ripples in the tweeter’s bandwidth, so this
isn’t a perfect set of measurements, but they are pretty darn good. The Rens
prove themselves to be fairly accurate and linear loudspeakers.
The above graphs
depict the speaker’s direct-axis and horizontal dispersion out to a 90-degree
angle in five-degree increments. Information on how to interpret these graphs
can be read in this article: Understanding Loudspeaker Review Measurements Part II.
As we can see from the above graphs, the
on-axis responses are very neutral. Correspondence to off-axis responses does
take a small hit in some areas, namely around 5kHz and above 12kHz. These are
what caused dips in the directivity indexes. I wouldn’t expect them to have a
serious impact on the sound of these speakers since they occur pretty far
off-axis, and stuff above 12kHz is pretty rare and not easy for many listeners
to even hear. These flaws are small and very minor. What these graphs tell us
is that the Ren speakers have an accurate and well-balanced sound, much like
what I heard while listening to them.
The above polar
map shows the same information as the preceding graphs but depicts it in a way
that can offer new insight regarding these speakers’ behavior. Instead of using
individual raised lines to illustrate amplitude, polar maps use color to portray
amplitude, and this allows the use of a purely angle/frequency axis
perspective. The advantage of these graphs is that they can let us see broader
trends of the speaker’s dispersion behavior more easily. More information about
interpreting this graph can be read in this article: Understanding Loudspeaker Measurements Part II.
In this graph, we get a sense of how wide
the dispersion of the Ren speakers is. Typically, 2-way speakers using a 5.25”
woofer with a 1” dome tweeter have a very wide dispersion, especially at the
low end, but then tighten up as we approach upper treble. The Ren speakers
don’t quite follow that trend since the tweeter is mounted in a small
waveguide. The waveguide tightens its dispersion at the lower end of its
bandwidth but broadens it at the upper end. Since the Ren’s waveguide isn’t a
particularly deep one, it isn’t hugely controlling of the dome’s dispersion,
but its effects are very evident. The tweeter still starts to beam, but that
only becomes significant above 13kHz or so, frequencies that are too high to
really impact the sound character of the speaker. The Ren speakers are fairly
wide-dispersion speakers on the whole, and maintain some real acoustic energy
out past a 50-degree angle from a front-firing position. That means that it
should offer good coverage to anyone within a reasonable angle in front of the
speakers.
The above graph shows the Ren’s response
behavior along its vertical axis where zero degrees is directly in front of the
tweeter, negative degree values are below the tweeter, and positive degree
values are above the tweeter. Any speaker where drivers are separated by
distance, such as here, where the tweeter is mounted a short distance away from
the woofer, will inevitably suffer phase conflicts on the axis where the
separation occurs. Those phase conflicts typically manifest as nulls at
off-axis angles. In this respect, what is unusual about the Ren speakers is
just how asymmetrically these nulls occur relative to the on-axis angle. There
is a very formidable null just below the on-axis angle, yet a good angle of
solid response above the on-axis angle. What that means is that there will be a
big gap in the sound if you are listening at an angle below the tweeter but not
above the tweeter. To get a better sense of this, let’s look at a polar map of
the vertical dispersion…
The black line marks the zero-degree
angle, meaning that is the response that happens where the tweeter is aimed.
Above that line is about 30 degrees of nice solid red, meaning that that sound
will be consistent and full within that angle. Below that, however, we get a
gap between about 1.5kHz to past 3kHz, just under 10 degrees. That is a pretty
important frequency band, so users definitely do not want to be listening at
that angle. What this all boils down to is that users should listen to the Ren
speakers at or above the tweeter axis, not below.
The above graph
shows the Ren’s low-frequency response captured using ground plane measurements
(where the speaker and microphone are on the ground at a 2-meter distance in a
wide-open area). The Ren has a bass tone control button on its remote control, and
I have shown responses where the tone control is set to maximum, neutral, and
minimum. The bass tone control can add or subtract about 5dB below about 300Hz.
The Ren has a mostly flat low-frequency response that begins its roll-off at
90Hz. With room gain, I expect most users would get a solid response to just
above 50Hz. Much like the rest of its frequency response, the bass response is
admirably flat and well-controlled.
Kanto Ren Conclusion
Before bringing
this review to a close, I will briefly go over the strengths and weaknesses of
the product under evaluation, and, as usual, I will start with the weaknesses.
What are the weaknesses of Kanto’s Ren speakers? There aren’t many, but one
aspect that is a bit flawed is the way in which the port overloads. For some
reason, when the Ren speakers are pushed hard and the ports become overloaded,
the port turbulence is more pronounced than I have heard with other speakers
that share similar specs. Of course, this is only a problem at very high drive
levels — likely higher than many users would ever push the Rens. It also only occurs when a subwoofer is not in use, and I would guess that quite a few users will add a subwoofer to a Ren system, which automatically applies a high-pass filter (HPF) to reduce the bass load on the speakers. It probably isn’t a huge task to rework
the port a bit, perhaps using an elliptical shape instead of a cylinder, as
well as flaring both ends, so I am hoping that Kanto takes another look at the
port.
Something else
that I wish were a bit beefier is the cabinet. The cabinet construction is OK
and in line with products of its class, but I think that Kanto could shore it
up a bit. Kanto could add some bracing or make the panels thicker. That would
be a simple matter and would go a long way towards making the Rens feel more
premium and substantial.
With those two
minor gripes out of the way, let’s now talk about the Ren’s strengths, the
chief of which is the sound it can produce. The Ren’s sound is well-balanced
and has no undue emphasis or deemphasis over any frequency band. Its projected
sound is well controlled over a wide angle, so users don’t need these speakers
to be precisely positioned to have a great sound. Just sit somewhere in front
of them with your ears roughly level with the tweeter, and they will sound
great. They image well and can create a vivid, well-realized soundstage. Bass
extension is good for a smaller standmount speaker, and the ability to easily
add a subwoofer lets users determine bass extension should they choose to do
so. Dynamic range is likewise impressive for a loudspeaker of its size,
especially with a subwoofer in play.
The Kanto Ren delivers balanced sound, sleek design, and versatile connectivity for any setup.
Next to the Ren’s
sound quality, its major advantage is its connectivity suite, mainly HDMI ARC.
That makes it easy to plug into a television and get a great sound right out of
the box. HDMI ARC is what makes the Rens such a viable alternative to a soundbar.
However, its optical S/PDIF input, USB Audio, Bluetooth, and RCA inputs make
the Rens versatile speakers that can easily be integrated into a wide range of
systems. The automatic high-pass filtering that occurs when a subwoofer is
connected is also a major advantage.
Of course, to be
a viable alternative to a soundbar, it also has to look nice to fit into a
living space, and Kanto’s sleek, minimalist design for the Rens accomplishes
this very well. With a variety of colors to choose from, users could find
something that allows it to fit into almost any interior decor. It’s a handsome
speaker that I doubt many would object to.
Kanto Ren vs the Competition
Powered consumer
speakers are becoming a crowded market, so what are the Ren speakers up
against? Unfortunately, there isn’t much we have reviewed in this growing
segment, but there are some similarly priced contenders that look worthwhile.
One competing product is the Klipsch R50-PM.
I would expect the R50-PM to have a wide dynamic range and well-controlled
directivity, hallmarks of Klipsch design, but one edge that the Ren speakers
have over the R50-PM is the inclusion of HDMI ARC connectivity. ELAC has the DCB41-DS (what a catchy name!) It does have HDMI ARC as well as a clean styling,
but it isn’t likely to match the Kanto Ren’s dynamic range since it has a
smaller woofer, smaller tweeter, and half the amplifier power. A manufacturer
that has long inhabited this segment is Audioengine, and they have the HD6 Home Music System
as well as other powered standmount speakers that compete with the Rens.
Audioengine has a good reputation for high-quality audio, and the HD6 speakers
do look nice, but it is missing HDMI connectivity. Similarly, acclaimed
manufacturer PSB has the Alpha AM5, which looks
nice but also lacks HDMI. One that does not lack HDMI is the recently-reviewed
Fluance Ri71 speakers. This is a solid entry with a good
sound, and it costs a couple of Fluance Ri71 hundred dollars less than the Ren
speakers. It doesn’t have as clean of a look, and it lacks optical S/PDIF and
USB Audio connectivity, but if you only plan on using HDMI as your sound
source, the Ri71 speakers are certainly worth a look.
Much like the ORA
speakers that I previously reviewed, the Ren speakers are a highly competent
loudspeaker from Kanto. They are a very strong choice in their segment, and
Kanto has done a great job with their design. Within their price class, it’s
hard to say they aren’t the top choice for their combination of sound quality,
features, and aesthetics. There are powered standmount speakers out there that
can top the Rens, but they cost a lot more and can’t be considered direct
competition since they are in a different price class. With that in mind, I
would be interested in seeing what Kanto could do at higher price points: if
they can put forward such a strong product in this class at $700/pair, what could
they do at $1.5k or $3k? I would love to find out.
The Score Card
The scoring below is based on each piece of
equipment doing the duty it is designed for. The
numbers are weighed heavily with respect to the
individual cost of each unit, thus giving a rating
roughly equal to:
Performance × Price Factor/Value = Rating
Audioholics.com note:
The ratings indicated below are based on subjective listening and objective testing
of the product in question. The rating scale is based on performance/value ratio.
If you notice better performing products in future reviews that have lower numbers
in certain areas, be aware that the value factor is most likely the culprit.
Other Audioholics reviewers may rate products solely based on performance,
and each reviewer has his/her own system for ratings.
