These are
excellent speakers!
I briefly compared then to the Canton Chrono 520.2 and realized that was essentially pointless! As much as I like the Chronos, the Ventos were clearly in a different league. I could not detect anything that the Chronos did better (aside from keeping money in my wallet)! It is always nice to see such a strong correlation between price and performance, as that means their engineer/designers have a good methodology and are not wasting the extra budget on snake oil (though some might argue that the gloss finish is a waste)!
I compared the Vento to my RBH 61lse (with the Status Acoustic drivers and crossover).
The only content where the RBH sounded better was when Tori Amos' voice was the dominant sound. The RBH's did a sweet job with this content. What I don't know is whether the RBH's are more accurate or if the recording had some offensive artifacts that the Canton reproduced more accurately. I will need to listen to Tori on my Focals to provide a reference. Unfortunately, it was
@TheWarrior 's CD that exhibited this and I didn't think to ask him to leave it at the time. So I can't check that right away.
However, on everything else, the Cantons were an easy winner! That is high praise. I was surprised that the Canton had more Bass than the RBH because the RBH have a substantially larger cabinet. A higher SPL seemed to favor the RBH's (the RBH's opened up while the Canton maintained their original character), but the Cantons still took the prize!
Because the Vento handily beat the RBH, I next pulled out my Focal Solo6 Be, which I use as a reference standard. These are professional audio monitors which are among he best speakers I have ever heard. At $1300 each, they are almost twice the MSRP of the $1500/pr Vento! (and I would argue that $1300/ea in pro audio equates to about $2000/ea in home audio speakers, aside from some ID outlets and clearance deals like this Vento)
https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/Solo6Be
I am thoroughly impressed with these Cantons!
Compared to the Focals, the Vento had more bass, but that is no surprise at this point. I've always recognized the Focals as needing a sub. The Ventos would do a good job with the room gain typical of a bedroom or office set-up and most importantly, their bass was clean!
The Focals have a nice open-ness to them which make them great studio monitors! While the sound on the Vento can comparatively get crowded, the Focal is incredible at being able to distinctly resolve every voice in the recording. Part of this is, I believe, quick transients because I am always amazed at how I can hear very slight differences in two people playing the same rhythm on the Focals when the musicians' timing seem to be in sync on other speakers.
Overall, they did not beat the Focals, but I repeatedly noticed that the Cantons actually sounded better than the Focals on Symphonic chimes (the fullness of the overtones) and an aggressively played trombone sounded better. These are two sounds that I felt the Focals were exceptional with, so this was a major surprise!
The Focals are a very high bar, and the fact that I could sometimes switch between them and prefer the Cantons is pretty significant!
The take away from this is the Canton Vento 820.2 are excellent speakers. I wish I had the SVS Ultras available to compare directly, but based how I remember the Ultras comparing against the RBH and the Focals, I feel that the Cantons are at least equal to the Ultra bookshelf speakers! I think the Canton is a little more neutral, so you might prefer the Ultra if you like a forward speaker, but we are talking subtleties as both are pretty neutral!
As long as the Ventos are being sold for $600/pr ($640 if you want white), this is a screaming deal for anyone looking for a pair of high quality Bookshelf speakers!
I hope to compare the Ventos to the Paradigm Signature S2 (which is the next step down, among my speakers, from the Focals) but can't make any promises this time of the year!
Edit: I want to thank TheWarrior for taking the time to come listen to these. AT 59, I know I don't hear what might be happening at 17kHz and always worry that I might recommend a speaker that younger ears will find truly offensive (this was a pet-peeve of mine). Comparing notes with Alex in the past, there were places I could hear a (to me) subtle metal tweeter breakup as compared to a very clean speaker like the Focal, but I needed to be directed to where to listen for it... whereas it slapped him in the face! In any case these Ventos are "Alex approved"!
