CANTON

Why Canton Portable Music Box Is Superior To Overpriced Dali KATCH

During a recent visit to a Melbourne based, specialist audio dealer, I heard for the first time the larger of the two Canton MusicBox portable speakers, I was then handed the smaller XS version and that is a story on its own.

Instantly I was blown away by the high quality of this German engineered product especially as I had recently played with the Dali KATCH portable audio player and I already own a Harman Esquire and a Bose SoundLink Mini II speaker.

It was when heard the smaller version of the Canton offering called the XS which is selling for $329 that I got the distinct impression that this Company really knew a lot about packing big sound into a small box.

The big question is which one, the Dali or the Canton delivered value for money.

Let’s start with the Canton branded product, their portable sound offering comes in two sizes. The Canton MusicBox S and the mini XS.

The smaller MusicBox XS was the Companies first entry into the portable Bluetooth speaker market, and while the device looks like the Bose SoundLink Mini II the quality of the components are miles apart.

The Canton offering has German made drivers and speakers which is a major plus for any small speaker system.

The first thing you notice, is that the Canton offering has an all metal enclosure and a soft rubber base, it also has an auxiliary input for non-Bluetooth devices.

Standing in the store I could easily Bluetooth pair both speakers.

All I did was hold the Bluetooth button down until I heard “Bluetooth Pairing “I then fired up my Spotify app on my Android phone, as the source for content.

The sound output was way beyond what I expected from such a small speaker, significantly better than the Dali KATCH which at $699 struggles to remotely deliver value for money.

On top of the speaker, we’ve got buttons for power, auxiliary input, Bluetooth and volume, I shuffled my content via the Spotify app on my smartphone.

What I liked about the MusicBox XS was that one could easily create a stereo pair.

You can either choose the Canton Party Mode resulting in each speaker playing the same stereo signal or you can move to true stereo mode with each speaker playing a separate stereo channel.