The Kangas were originally designed as a centre speaker for home-theatre surround-sound systems, including with the Joeys and the Kamas that share drivers to produce a very uniform surround sound field. In fact the Kangas use identical drivers and crossovers as the Kamas – the only difference is the the smaller cabinet with front firing ports. While the Joeys use just one less mid-bass driver.
The Kangas, Kamas & Joeys now employ a papyrus bass-midrange unit that is used in some very expensive overseas speakers but we modify them with constrained-layer damping to give even more openness to the upper mid-band. And they use a high quality tweeter for a more open treble. The drivers are integrated with carefully designed crossovers that use only high quality air-cored inductors, polypropylene capacitors and non-iductive wire-wound resistors, all hand-soldered together and to the drivers.
The Kangas have therefore also been found to be excellent conventional stereo speakers as mini-towers – on bookshelves or on stands. The cabinet’s narrow front baffle with their asymmetrical driver layout (made in left/right mirror image pairs) minimises diffraction effects to create excellent stereo width and depth. Diffraction effects are also reduced by the frameless stretch-Lycra grille.
Like other Legend speakers, we have taken great care with the Kangas to minimise cabinet colourations, particularly resonances that smear the sound in time. These include making the cabinets very rigid to minimise cabinet vibrations and, with the internal walls non-parallel plus wool dampimg, standing waves are minimised inside the cabinets.
Thus the Kangas start and stop with incredible speed and accuracy reproducing faithfully the highest level of detail. For home-theatres, this means you will hear the gentlest russle of grass or the true crack of a rifle. And for music it means hearing the subleties and nuances that make each performance different – like being there.
