I had the pleasure of being able to spend more time with Jon at Ultra Fidelis this week. This time the Kënto's were setup with the same electronics as my last session with the Quatro CT. The speakers were in similar but not identical positions as Jon spends a lot of blood sweat and tears to get the positions of each speaker right. The M5-HPA were again driving the loudspeakers.
The Këntos certainly look a lot more like the Quatros than the 5 Carbons they replace. They are slightly taller and have a wider base to accommodate the larger bass drivers compared to the Quatro. They have an integrated platform with three spikes to couple to the floor. Although not as clean from a design standpoint, they certainly look very well constructed and will not dominate a living room.
Although they look like the Quatros, I think they sound much more like the 7s. This was immediately apparent in the clean and controlled presentation. Imaging and bass integration was spectacular. My avatar friend David Bowie's voice was just hanging right there in the center of the room on several tracks from Hunky Dory. You could hear all the intonations in his singing and all the supporting instruments even when things got busy. Like the quatros, I felt I was hearing another 30% of the recording that I had been missing. Really kind of hallucinogenic!
These Këntos come across as more mellow than the Quatros. I had the urge to keep turning them up. I have no idea what decibels I was hitting but the pre level was comparable to the Quatro setup if not a little higher. Maybe these are less efficient speakers than the Quatro but it also may be the lower distortion coming out of the carbon/balsa midrange driver. This allows a listener to just increase the volume till you get the level of information you want. Never heard anything like this before. I felt like the Quatros got the information but also had more edge and energy in the midrange and upper frequencies relative to the Kënto, especially as the decibels got higher.
This demo was helpful to me as I was able to listen to how the M5-HPA perform on an even more transparent speaker like the Kënto. I have to say that I am very impressed with these monoblocks. Would have been interesting to sub in a different amp, like my Pass, to really hear what each adds (or doesn't add) to the sound. But I think the best way to do that is to get a pair of M5-HPA into my own system at home.
-Karl
