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More on the TUK Bookshelf Speakers
The Kanto TUK (pronounced "tuck") wireless speakers are not only gorgeous but they also deliver some seriously clear, full audio. These are some of the best wireless bookshelf speakers we have tested, especially in this price range. The TUK feature high-performance AMT tweeters and 5.25” aluminum drivers, which produce sparkling highs and rich bass. Outfitted with dedicated phono, RCA and Optical TOSLINK inputs, a built-in USB DAC and headphone amp, and Bluetooth 4.2 with aptX HD and AAC codecs, the TUK provides the flexibility you need to enjoy all of your devices.
For desktop use, the TUK speakers can be paired with Kanto's S6 Desktop Speaker Stands (which provide 16° of tilt) or SP6HD 6" Universal Speaker Stands (which are shown in the image at the top of this page). If being used with a TV or as a standalone stereo system, we recommend either the 26" or 32" Kanto Floorstanding Bookshelf Speaker Stands.
Video Transcript
"Hi, everyone. It's Adam with World Wide stereo. And today, I want to talk to you about some powered speakers from a company Kanto. These are the TUKs. ♪ [music] ♪ Powered speakers are kind of a nice up and coming category because they're so versatile.
You know, on the back of these speakers you can connect your TV to it, you can connect your computer to it, they have Bluetooth that's got a turntable input. So there's a lot of things that you can do with these speakers. So I want to dig into these but I want to thank everybody right now for subscribing to our YouTube channel, like our videos. Ask me questions. It's really a lot of fun to talk to you guys. So let's keep them coming and let's get into these speakers a little further. A powered speaker, that means that it has an amplifier in it.
These speakers have an amplifier in it that can deliver up to 260 watts of power, or 130 on average, which is sometimes called RMS. When you look at the front of the speaker, you'll see the five-and-quarter-inch ceramic woofer. And I like, if you look a little closer you'll see how they kind of put the front of the speaker behind the surround.
So all you see is this driver upfront, so it has a really cool look to it. And then up top here, that is not your average tweeter. Up top there, that's what's called an AMT tweeter. It's kind of like a ribbon tweeter. It's not your traditional dome tweeter. So it's really, really accurate and it can produce high frequencies really well. The samples that I have here that I got from Kanto, thank you, are in white and they are available in black.
You'll notice that they come with a remote control. And on the remote, you know, you have your standard power, you can switch between the inputs which I'll dig into further, your volume, mute, control the bass and treble. You also have a sub output too, that's really cool and kind of unique for these kinds of speakers. So a nice differentiator there. Bluetooth control.
And sometimes when you connect these to some computers, you can do things like track forward, track back and play and pause right here. One speaker, this one has your power and this is where your amplifier lives. And then this speaker is just a passive speaker and all it has is the terminals for the hookup over here, you connect to this output to this input over here.
Now there is an awesome feature with these speakers. You may not always have power in the right spot, okay? So they don't really designate which one is left or right. You get to decide that with using the remote control by pressing and holding the track back button, that makes that speaker the left speaker. If you press and hold the track forward button that makes this speaker the right speaker.
So again, press and hold on the track back, that'll make the active speaker here, the left. Track forward, this makes the active speaker the right. You'll see you have your USB B connection, so that's for connecting a computer which computers have the USB A outputs, and then you can make USB B connection. You'll see your sub output right here so you can connect. Kanto does make powered subwoofers, but it could be anybody's subwoofer.
It happens to work really well with theirs, but any subwoofer will do. And then you have your standard analog input, so this could be a connection for a CD player, your phone into it or an iPad into it or a tablet, something like that into this so you can connect there. Here is your phono input. Now, remember a phono input is very special. On the other side of this input, there is a built-in phono preamp meant specifically for a turntable.
Don't plug anything else into this, it'll be really nasty, bad sound if you do that. So don't do that. One of the really nice things about powered speakers is that most of them use what's called DSP, digital sound processing. That's nice because what the companies can do is when they put their speakers and their amplifier into a box like this, they can really custom tailor the sound of the amplifier and the sound of the speakers to maximize this piece right here.
So it's very common to see that in powered speakers but it's really nice to hear a setup like that because these again are custom made. The amplifier and the speakers are all designed to work in harmony together. When you're working with passive speakers and an amplifier that becomes a little trickier but sometimes the fun of that, but having it built-in makes it a lot easier and you get a really great product. Another nice feature for the TUKs speakers is that you can either have bass and treble control globally or by the press of a couple of buttons on the remote, you can individualize that.
So when you switch between Bluetooth, your computer, your turntable, the TV input, you have bass and treble settings for each one of those inputs. So that's really something that's special for the TUK speakers. I mentioned hooking up a computer, which that was part of my test. I hooked up my USB connection to it and played a lot of things from title and it sounded fantastic.
You can do a TV hookup. Here's a tip though, you have to be careful when you hook a TV up to this. With an optical cable, you have to make sure that your output is set to PCM, which is kind of a fancy word for just digital stereo. You're not going to find a surround sound decoder built into these, so if you try and feed it a 5.1 Dolby Digital or Atmos surround soundtrack, you're just going to hear a lot of clicking and popping and just not music.
So make sure that your TV's set to PCM when playing through these. One key note about this power switch on the back. You really want to leave it in the on position at all times. These speakers have an automatic on and an automatic off feature that is defeatable. But if you turn this switch off in the back to turn them off, if that's off for five minutes, I think it said in the manual about five minutes, that'll factory reset these speakers, so that may not be a good thing when you spent all this time setting up all those inputs, bass and treble, this, that.
And then you go and you turn them off, you come back the next day and yeah, all your settings are gone. So just leave it in the on position This on the remote control will put the speakers into a standby mode and then turn them back on. If, you know, you don't want to wait for them to turn off, but if you wait 15 minutes they will turn off by themselves. My personal experience with these speakers was fantastic. I hooked up a computer, I used a turntable, did a little Bluetooth thing, all were fantastic.
Key note here. When you hook up the subwoofer with the remote control, you can engage what's called a low pass crossover. So you basically allow this speaker to play down to 80 hertz, which is really low bass. And then all that bass leaves this out of the subwoofer output and goes to the woofer for support. If you don't have a woofer, which I did and didn't, I hooked up both, you can engage, not engage that crossover, so you get full-range sound out of these speakers which sounds great.
I love these kinds of tweeters because they're very wide open, they set up a great soundstage. They do recommend that you set up the speaker at least eight inches away from the wall. That'll give you good bass response without it being overpowering and set up a nice soundstage for you, so you get depth of sound. You can tell that the guitar's over here and the drummer's over here and the singer's kind of forward a little bit and then things are behind it. That's a soundstage.
So that does a really good job of that because of these tweeters and as long as you push them away from the wall. Now if you want more base response, push them closer to the wall and you'll get a lot more base out of the speakers but then it tends to squash that soundstage that I was talking about. So it's a give and take, whatever you prefer. But overall, these are great sounding speakers, plenty of volume, lots of accuracy. I had a lot of fun with them.
These are the Kanto TUK powered speakers. They'll be available online at worldwidestereo.com. We offer free shipping, a 60-day return policy, and we're authorized dealers for everything that we sell here. If you have any questions, you can leave those in the comment section below or call or email me at any time. Please remember to subscribe to our YouTube channel. This is Adam with World Wide Stereo, reminding you to listen to music every day. So long."
