Test: Four compact 5.1 speakers with design ambition

One can argue about whether 60s and 70s design is nice or not – it has been hip in any case for some time. The colors white, red and orange as well as round or oval shapes with furniture and lamps are characteristic of this era. It is also obvious that manufacturers of clay furniture also jump onto the train. Even at that time, Grundig and Co. took on the form language and built ball and dice loudspeakers. And such forms are now back in trend: two of the box sets in the test are reminiscent of this era, the two others are from the modern era.


All four sets are made of high-quality materials and are first-class processed. But one could think that veneers are nowhere available: everything that cries for "retro" is lacquered - in high gloss. While the three more expensive box sets used aluminum as the housing material, only the diaphragms made of this material are made with the Mordaunt shortset.


Nevertheless, the processing of the British microphones is exemplary, and the pure aluminum sets are only marginally more stable. Moreover, the experience shows that the criterion for the good tone is less a criterion than the sum of the properties.


First, a minimum of box volume is the best basis for good sound. The volume ensures, among other things, adequate bass and bass tones. To ensure that a loudspeaker does not sound like a "Mickey Mouse", it must not be subdued in the lower voice range, so it must be able to be loudered to the working range of the subwoofer

For this purpose, in addition to the appropriate volume, a minimum diaphragm size and stroke is also required. There are loudspeakers which, thanks to active equalization, despite the smallest diaphragm, can reproduce the fundamental range at normal room loudness, but can not keep up with larger loudspeakers in home theater mode, if it is right to do so.

All four sets of boxes offer good prerequisites, as they fulfill the aforementioned criteria as far as possible. Above all, the KEF KHT3500SE and the Canton Movie CD 202, which are equipped with eleven centimeters in size. In contrast, the boxing ensembles of Mordaunt-Short and Focal have only nine to ten centimeters to offer. If you have the nose in front, read the following pages.