Vandersteen Kento Carbon wins The Absolute Sound’s “Product Of the Year” award.

From TAS:

“The four-way, five-driver Kento Carbon loudspeaker can be summed up in two words: extraordinary cohesiveness. From its organic, reach-out-and-want-to-touch-it presentation to the solidity of its instrumental timbre, the Kento combines Vandersteen’s core time-and-phase-accurate design philosophy with a high level of midrange/treble purity and the ability to create highly realistic and truthful bass. A key advancement for the Kento is the use of side-firing 9″ woofers, combined with newly updated, built-in, low-frequency room-optimization/compensation controls that deliver unprecedented, for Vandersteen, additional 100Hz-to-200Hz mid/woofer-to-woofer integration. These all-analog controls free the Kento Carbons to operate near optimally in multiple spaces and locations (placement near walls or out into the listening room), without the same level of concern about unruly bass performance experienced with some other designs. Kento Carbon produces some of the most believable 200Hz-and-below bass that reviewer Andre Jennings has heard from any of the company’s products as of this speaker’s introduction—and possibly from any stand-alone speaker encountered to date.”