Q Acoustics Concept 500 Floorstanding Speakers (Pair), Gloss Black

Full Description

• Traditional Speaker

  

Best Product 2017 - 2018 - Floorstanding Speaker

Mainstream speaker makers often struggle when they move upmarket, but not Q Acoustics. The Concept 500 is an audacious new floorstander employing highly optimised drivers and cabinet. This svelte new loudspeaker comes in a choice of white or black gloss, with contrasting real wood veneers. The special tweeter blends seamlessly with twin mid/bass drivers, which are set into the heavily braced, multilayered gel-lined cabinet. This loudspeaker sounds refined way beyond its price, with a neutral yet musical performance.

Hi-Fi News - Outstanding Product

The sum-up is pretty simple: the Concept 500s are nothing short of sensational value for money, and capable not only of revealing exactly what your system is doing, but also embarrassing some pricier rivals. Beautifully finished and with a rich, yet tightly defined sound, they respond well to care with positioning and being driven by highly accomplished electronics.

AV Forums - Reference Status

"It might be a whole new price point for them but Q Acoustics has built another speaker that is the new standard to beat - 10/10"

Hi-Fi Choice - Editors Choice

This is an outstanding speaker that shows an all-round depth of talent that would be impressive even if the price were considerably higher. Its ability to remain transparent so that you can simply get on with enjoying the music is something that Q Acoustics can be very proud of, as it redefines expectations at the price. It’s comparatively unfussy about its environment or the electronics that integrate with it as part of a system and should be top of any shortlist if you’re looking to spend £4k on a floorstander.

Designed to appeal to discerning audiophiles, the Concept 500 is the culmination of Q Acoustics continual evolution and refinement resulting in what we believe is sonic perfection. It is a loudspeaker that is at once, stylish, contemporary, fine-sounding and astonishingly accurate. It couples low directivity with wide bandwidth, good sensitivity and sensible impedance. This makes the new Concept 500 both room-friendly and an easy load to drive, allowing amplifiers to deliver their best performance.

To create a stereo soundstage which gives as good an impression of width, depth and height as that found in a live performance requires high quality drive units, a well designed crossover and an accurately constructed cabinet. To achieve this, Q Acoustics formed a truly talented team with many years of experience in the design, engineering and manufacture of world-class loudspeakers. A combination that resulted in a state-of-the-art loudspeaker worthy of any high-end system.

Concept 500 is the embodiment of elegant design, compatible with a contemporary living space and not specific to any particular style of interior. The appearance has been pared-back to be as clean looking as possible, with rear-mounted mid / bass drivers keeping the baffle uncluttered and embedded magnets securing the grille so no fixings are visible.

Gloss black or gloss white finishes have each been combined with Italian real wood veneer, chosen for its consistency in colour and pattern. The veneer is used sparingly in a subtle strip to create a cabinet that is visually light and clean. The white gloss finish has been attractively paired with pale oak and the black gloss with deep rosewood. Multiple coats of lacquer have then been added to give a deep piano gloss finish.

Features:

• P2P (Point to Point) cabinet bracing - supports the parts of the cabinet that need to be stiffened to deal with low frequency panel vibrations
• (HPE) Pressure equalisers - tall loudspeakers tend to suffer from resonances caused by unwanted pressure gradients. HPE balance out these pressure irregularities
• Equipped for bi-wiring or bi-amping - with terminals which can accept bare wires, spades or 4mm banana plugs
• Room tuning flexibility - Links are provided to adjust the high frequency + or - 0.5 dB, also port bungs to reduce low frequency output
• High frequency driver - mechanically decoupled mounting which effectively isolates the HF driver and speaker cabinet from reciprocal vibrations
• Large diameter mid/bass drivers - 35mm voice coil allows increased 'shove' and high power handling, as well as reducing compression
• Gel core cabinet walls - constructed in three separate layers and filled under pressure with non-setting gel, this damps the cabinet walls and converts higher frequency vibrations into heat
• High grade components - the crossover and high grade components used introduce virtually zero noise distortion

Dual Gelcore Cabinet

High frequency cabinet noise is dealt with by the use of Dual Gelcore™ technology. The speaker cabinet is constructed in three separate layers and the resulting interstices are completely filled under pressure with a compliant form of non-setting gel. The two constrained layers effectively damp the walls of the speaker cabinet by converting high frequency vibrations into heat, which is then dissipated. The Dual Gelcore™ technology significantly reduces the ability of the cabinet to interfere with the accurate reproduction of the source material.

High Frequency Driver

Finite Element Analysis was used to model the acoustic performance of the soft dome and surround for optimal axial dispersion. Too narrow a high frequency dispersion characteristic means the speaker will not drive the room well, making it sound flat and underwhelming unless the listener is sat in the exact 'sweet spot'. Mechanically de-coupled, the HF driver is isolated from the cabinet for the most accurate sound.

Mid/Bass Driver

From the outset, in keeping with a policy of proprietary development, the 165mm mid/bass drive units were designed exclusively for the Concept 500 project. The unusually large 35mm voice coil is a copper clad 2+2 configuration, which increases power handling, and increase force for a given input without adding extra mass. An Aluminium inductance ring and a copper cap to the pole piece ensure low distortion.

Stabilising Plinth

The cast aluminium base supplied with the concept 500 is securely mounted to the bottom of the cabinet. A speaker that doesn't sit solidly on the floor will not be able to deliver its ultimate performance because the speaker cone energy will not be transferred into the air in a completely linear way. Because the plinth is designed without large flat areas and is simply chrome plated without adornments it does not encourage deleterious effects.

Bi-Wire

The Concept 500 is equipped for bi-wiring or bi-amping with electrically isolated and oversized HF and LF terminals which can accept bare wires, spades, or 4mm banana plugs. If connected using a single run of cable, the best performance will usually be obtained using bi-wire links made from the same cable as the speaker cables. Q Acoustics recommend QED cable.

Attention To Detail

The rear access panel has been constructed to maintain the integrity of the Dual Gelcore™ cabinet. The rear access panel in particular has been constructed by sandwiching layers of MDF, steel, and bitumen to main the integrity of the Dual Gelcore™ cabinet.