MEASUREMENTS

I used DRA Labs’ MLSSA system and a calibrated DPA 4006 microphone to measure the Canton Reference 7K’s frequency response in the farfield. My reference axis for the measurements was level with the center of the midrange unit, which is 36" from the floor, the height of my ears in my listening chair. I used an Earthworks QTC-40 mike for the nearfield and in-room responses and Dayton Audio’s DATS V2 system to measure the impedance.

Canton specifies the Reference 7K’s sensitivity as 88.5dB, presumably for 2.83V at 1m, which was confirmed by my measurement. The Reference 7K’s impedance is specified as 4–8 ohms. The solid trace in fig.1 indicates that drops below 2 ohms between 16Hz and 29Hz, between 83Hz and 123Hz, and between 395Hz and 745Hz, with minimum values of 1.7 ohms at 36Hz, 1.4 ohms at 103Hz, and 1.8 ohms between 480Hz and 600Hz. The Reference 7K must be used with amplifiers that don’t have problems driving 4 ohms.