Kanto Uki Review

Introduction

The Kanto Uki are tiny desktop speakers from what has fast become one of the more reliable names for micro-size monitor-style units. 

They are tiny enough for small desks that might be used solely for laptop use, and look a little cuter than most of Kanto’s speakers. They’re more rounded, a welcome break from the boxiness of their contemporaries. 

Sound-wise they have all the same characteristics as the Kanto Ora I reviewed last year. They have great imaging, a sweet and insightful mid-range and a non-tiring sound suitable for hours-long near field listening. 

They do also suffer a bit from short speaker syndrome, like the Ora, though. Their lack of sub-bass is overcompensated for in increased mid-bass, and to my ears they benefit from losing a (good) few decibels of bass through EQ if you are not going to plug them into a subwoofer, which is an option.

Design

• Multiple colours available
• Petite speaker enclosures
• Can sit up to around 170cm apart

The Kanto Uki are small desktop speakers that score big on convenience. They are just 16.5cm tall, around 11cm wide. 

While many of us would like a pair of KEF LS50 Meta to attach to our laptops, you could fit around four of these speakers in the same volume as a single LS50 unit. And they are around a quarter the cost too. 

The Kanto Uki come in white, black, grey, sage green and light blue, and have a matt finish, two-part moulded plastic shell. While active speakers like this have roots in studio monitors, these are primarily lifestyle speakers. 

They feel tough, have rubber feet, and aside from being recessed in the casing the drivers have no protection at all. Have small kids wandering about? These tweeters may not stand a chance. 

While these are more approachable speakers than some of Kanto’s other models, the Uki still lean heavily on convenience and practicality. They have a front 3.5mm headphone jack, and the large volume knob also acts as a power buttons and source select.

It’s a button as well as a dial a long press turns the speakers off, a short one switches between the connected sources. And a multi-colour LED by the headphone connector shows the current mode. 

Yellow means the Uki are connected over USB, green denotes an RCA connection. Blue means Bluetooth. No prizes for guessing that one. 

Features

• Bluetooth support
• Sub out connection

The Kanto Uki’s rear panel is also home to a subwoofer output. The speakers use a 100Hz crossover — frequencies below are sent to the sub rather than these speakers. 

There are a few other practical points to cover before I get to the sound. The Uki don’t have a built-in phono pre-amp, which you’ll need if you plan on plugging in a record player. 

These speakers use Class-D amplifiers, which do generate a very small amount of audible hiss. However, it is only noticeable when getting your ear right up to the tweeter. 

This is also not a wireless pair of speakers, in a total sense. The right speaker attaches to the left one using a chunky cable, and it’s 170cm long. This means you can sit them either side of a TV too, as well as a laptop.  

Compared to Kanto’s more expensive speakers, Bluetooth is very limited. The Kanto Uki only support the basic basic SBC codec — no aptX or even AAC. It’s likely a budget-related issue. The Bluetooth mode still sounds decent for casual listening, but USB is the primary connection style here. 

Sound Quality

• Good sound quality
• Too much bass
• Will sound their best with a paired subwoofer

The Kanto Uki design, and even its official specs, tell you one of the most important things about what you can expect of the sound here: bass depth is going to be limited. These speakers have a 3-inch woofer and a 3/4-inch tweeter, with bass aided by a small rear port and no bass radiator. 

Sure enough, Kanto only claims the bass floor to be 80Hz, a little less deep than the 70Hz of the step-up Kanto Ora. 

To get truly deep bass you will need to attach a subwoofer. But you don’t necessarily need to use Kanto’s own SUB6 or SUB8 as the output is a classic relatively dumb connection. The (somewhat) smart part is limited to the speaker/subwoofer frequency split the Uki works out, known as the crossover. 

The sound you get with the Kanto Uki has much of the same great characteristics I heard almost a year ago in the Ora. 

They have nicely detailed mids and a fairly well-resolving but ultimately relatively relaxed treble, which works well for nearfield listening at higher volumes. Or lower ones. 

The sound field has a solid sense of depth, assume you use the Kanto Uki as intended, with the two units basically facing the one listener. They are a more relaxing listen than the FiiO SP3 BT, which have a significantly brighter tone. 

As in the Ora, though, Kanto overcompensates for their lack of low bass by piling on the mid-bass, which leaves its muddy footprints on the mids — which are otherwise probably the highlight of the Kanto Uki.

To get these speakers sounding the way I like them in my test room, after a basic play around, I ended up reducing 125Hz-250Hz by 4-5Db. That’s a hefty reduction but, to my ears it doesn’t make the Uki sound too thin. Others may rest somewhere in-between default tuning and that. 

There is no Kanto app, so you’d need to apply such EQ changes using an app on your phone/laptop/PC.

Post-tweak I think the Kanto Uki sound fantastic, and still deliver good weight for their size, alongside an impressive sense of transparency and imaging detail. Without it, they sound good, but slightly problematic to my ears. It’s likely to be less of an issue if you use a subwoofer, which takes a good chunky of the bass out of the Uki’s hands. 

The bass is also more prominent if you place the Uki speakers too near a wall, thanks to their rear-mounted port. You want to leave at least a good amount of clearance, which may dilute the appeal of their small size a bit for some setups.

Should you buy it?

FAQs