Canvas HiFi TV Speaker System Review

Canvas HiFi was founded in Denmark in 2022 by Kim Neeper Rasmussen and Laust Nielsen. The duo endeavoured to develop an innovative product that would challenge the boundaries of acoustics, leveraging on Nielsen’s commercial experience and Rasmussen’s technical expertise. The result is a music system designed to integrate seamlessly with a TV panel, without sacrificing sound quality.

It can be mounted in one of three ways: placed on the floor as a TV stand, wall-mounted, or used standalone (for example, on a sideboard or TV cabinet). The Canvas is also claimed to be future-proof, with a magnetically attached front panel that can be swapped to suit TVs from 55 to 85 inches. Panels are available in a variety of fabric colours and wood-slat designs to blend with different interior styles.

Up Close

This is too big to be called a soundbar. It measures 1,210 x 330 x 120mm and weighs 26.5kg. A fabric cover and mounting bracket add a further 6.9kg. The cabinet has an internal volume of 24 litres and feels sturdy and solid, courtesy of generous internal bracing. The required hardware for all mounting options is included.

Removing the front panel reveals six drive units sourced from SB Acoustics: one pair each of 1-inch tweeters, 6.5-inch mid/bass units, and 5 x 8-inch passive radiators. The company says the low-frequency drivers provide the equivalent radiating surface area to a 12-inch bass driver, with a claimed frequency response down to 30Hz.

Four Class D amplifiers supply a total of 250W, says the manufacturer. Digital-to-analogue conversion is handled by a Burr Brown 24-bit/192kHz DAC, while digital signal processing is performed by a 300 MIPS quad-core chip with a BACCH 3D filter. The latter is touted as a game-changer, said to bring back true three-dimensional stereo imaging.

BACCH 3D is a patented technology from Princeton University, which claims to correct sonic anomalies caused by crosstalk. In an ideal world, your right and left ears would only hear channel information specific to that ear, but in reality, your ears hear a mix of both channels. This system is said to eliminate crosstalk using digital filtering, improving stereo coherence. The company describes this as akin to having a digital mattress placed between your nose and the speakers, isolating information for the appropriate ear. This is especially important for products like the Canvas, with their drive units positioned fairly close together.

A small recessed panel at the rear of the unit provides HDMI eARC and a combined 3.5mm stereo/optical jack. Wi-Fi sources include AirPlay 2, Chromecast, Spotify Connect and Tidal Connect. Roon users can also stream via AirPlay. Control is via the Canvas app (available for iOS and Android) or your TV remote if you are using the HDMI eARC connection. There are no physical buttons on the front panel.

Although designed to partner with a TV, this is a strictly two-channel solution, with no support for surround sound formats. The drivers are front-firing, with no upward- or side-firing arrays seen in some premium rivals, and there are no dedicated centre-channel speakers. While this may be a turn-off for die-hard videophiles, the Canvas is pretty darn good at movies — so read on.

In Use

I opted to use the Canvas standalone as my TV is not wall-mounted. Wiring was straightforward, with only the detachable AC cord and HDMI cable needed to complete the setup. My regular HDMI cable could not fit due to the tight spacing, so I had to find one with a smaller head. The Canvas was tested in two positions: sitting on the floor and resting on a pair of 16-inch stands.

For room correction, I started by downloading the Android app to my phone. However, this was buggy and frequently crashed. The app could not perform room correction with either my phone or the Zen microphone, so I ended up using my iPad, which was glitch-free. The app is basic, with settings for volume, input selection, distance correction, and bass adjustment. Room correction and BACCH 3D can also be toggled on/off via the app.

A noteworthy feature is HDMI Volume Boost, which adds 10dB of gain. Apart from giving a wider range of volume adjustment, the boost also resulted in a more dynamic and exciting sound.

To run room correction, you wave your phone or external microphone over a wide area around the main listening position while the test tone is playing. The measured and target curve is then shown on the screen. The iPad delivered decent results, but using the Zen microphone sounded noticeably better. There are no complex adjustment options, nor the ability to tailor the room correction curve. You get the feeling the company wants to keep things as simple as possible.

The Listening

This sound system has serious low-frequency authority, impressing with deep, rich, textured bass. It sounded clear through the midrange and high frequencies, with a slightly warm tone that avoided harshness and listening fatigue. Although it disappears visually, it was able to fill the room with big, spacious sound.

With movies, the music-performance scenes from the J-drama Glass Heart sounded large and enveloping. The female lead plays an amateur drummer who makes her professional debut. In her opening concert, the drums had deep kick and impact, plus an airy shimmer from the cymbals. Guitar and keyboard lines, and the audience’s cheers, were all easy to pick out within an immersive, seamless soundstage.

Action movies like Midway didn’t faze the Canvas one bit. Explosions and gunfire didn’t compress or sound strained even at high volumes. While the bass doesn’t reach true subwoofer depths, there was enough thump to satisfy most movie lovers. Despite the Canvas being a stereo design, the dog-fighting aeroplanes were able to pan well beyond the speaker boundaries, and even to the sides of the listener. You won’t recreate the party tricks of a full surround system, but I found the experience convincing and enjoyable.

Dialogue was generally centred, although I noticed voices could drift for offset listeners at distances closer than two metres. That’s something to note for small apartment dwellers.

On musical fare, the Canvas was similarly able to impress. Alone by Heart sounded sweet, with clear separation between instruments and vocals. Bass and midrange were full and warm, with clear, extended highs. Unsurprisingly, movie soundtracks like Dream Within a Dream by Hans Zimmer fared well, with deep rumbling lows and effortless dynamics. The orchestra’s crescendo was refined and devoid of harshness.

Tracks like Sunday by Brad Mehldau are a top test for naturalness and tone. Piano and drums — plus brass, strings and woodwind — sounded realistic through the Canvas. The long flute solos were especially good to my ears. In terms of spatiality, while it easily outperformed most soundbars, it didn’t quite challenge a high-quality conventional speaker setup. The stage width was not as expansive, nor was imaging as sharply focused.

Room correction delivered deeper, tighter bass, and also cleaned up mid/bass muddiness without any sonic downsides. BACCH 3D, on the other hand, was a mixed bag. It got the nod with movies, delivering a more spacious and enveloping sound, but with music it widened the stage while hollowing out the midrange and softening transients slightly.

Tonality varied with placement. Bass was strongest with floor placement, adding some warmth to the midrange. Mounted on stands, the midrange and treble were clearer, but at the expense of reduced bass weight. I would have liked to see a graphic or parametric EQ to dial things in more precisely. Hopefully this could arrive via future firmware updates. A subwoofer output would also be useful for listeners who crave chest-thumping bass.

The Verdict

Intended for a niche audience, the Canvas HiFi is one of those rare products that sounds and looks great, albeit at a price. It isn’t cheap, but it offers good value when you compare its performance to other offerings at this level. While it’s impressive with music, it’s especially strong with movies. If you can overlook the limited software functionality (at present) and the poor Android experience, you may find yourself seriously impressed.

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