Bookshelf Speaker Reviews

3000 5.1 Speaker System
Performance
Build Quality
Value

3070 Subwoofer
Performance
Features
Build Quality
Value

AT A GLANCE
Plus
Sweet and smooth sats
Dual 6.5-inch sub
Minus
Deep sub juts out from wall

THE VERDICT
A sweet-sounding system, with a sub worthy of the satellites, the Q Acoustics 3000 is one of the best under-$1,000 5.1-channel setups I’ve heard.

Tube amps. Mono pressings. And now, 5.1? Has bedrock surround sound indeed joined the ranks of retro audio technologies? Surround receivers beyond the most entry level nearly always have more than five channels (though their uses vary), while Dolby Atmos and DTS:X have made seven (5.1.2) the new minimum system configuration. What happens when you go in the other direction? The flood of 5.1 speaker sets that I used to review in the late 20th and early 21st centuries has tapered to a trickle. I see fewer new ones at CES and CEDIA, and plain old stereo is dominant at the rest of the domestic and international audio shows. However, the British manufacturer Q Acoustics has been marketing 5.1-channel speaker sets since the company’s inception about a decade ago and continues to actively develop them. The brand’s latest entry is called the 3000 5.1 Home Theatre System.

Performance
Build Quality
Ergonomics
Value

AT A GLANCE
Plus
Accurate response and tonal balance
Spacious imaging with impressive off-axis performance
Unique looks and fine finish
Minus
Peak level may fall short for very large rooms
Ergonomics of physical controls and indicators

THE VERDICT
The Q Active 200 is a lifestyle-friendly system with serious chops, delivering impressive accuracy and range from a compact wireless design.

If there were any doubts that we are well into the Age of Stream, the recent proliferation of "just add music" audio systems should lay them to rest. Whether toaster-sized Bluetooth portables or full floor-standing systems, wireless all-in-one speakers conceived around high-quality streaming are definitely a thing, and one of the latest examples comes from Q Acoustics.

Performance
Build Quality
Value

AT A GLANCE
Plus
Ribbon tweeter for wide horizontal dispersion
Kevlar cone woofer with dual-chambered loading
Multi-layered, curved cabinet
Minus
Limited bass, typical of compact monitors

THE VERDICT
The Quad Z1 monitor uses a beautifully voiced ribbon tweeter to achieve improved room coverage versus a conventional dome tweeter.

Everything you think you know about Quad comes with a curve ball. Some might associate the name with quadraphonic sound, but in fact it originally stood for Quality Unit Amplifier Domestic. That name implies a mission involving amps, and Quad does make ’em—but as any longtime audiophile can tell you, the brand is best known for its large flatpanel electrostatic loudspeakers. Some of those graying audiophiles remember Quad as a British manufacturer, but it has been under the competent and enlightened ownership of Bernard and Michael Chang of Taiwan and their International Audio Group for more than a decade.

Emotiva made its name by offering high-end audio electronics that look like they cost thousands but actually cost hundreds. With the X-Ref line, it’s trying to do the same in speakers. The company has offered speakers in the past, but X-Ref is its first concerted effort to deliver a broad line of speakers at prices low enough to attract budget-minded-yet -serious home theater enthusiasts. The line includes two tower speakers, two LCR (left/center/right) speakers, two bookshelf speakers, one surround speaker, and two subwoofers.

In my career as a reviewer, I've always focused totally on home and portable products, because other speaker categories seemed so different and I figured I couldn't be good at everything.

Since time immemorial (or at least the late 1980s), designers of compact subwoofer/satellite speaker systems have struggled against The Hole.

The Hole is the gap between the lowest note the satellites can play and the highest notes the subwoofer can play. The Hole can make voices sound thin, and can rob gunshots and other sound effects of their dynamic impact. But the usual methods for filling The Hole can cause worse problems than The Hole itself.

As a lazy musician (redundant, yes) with a bad back, it have nurtured an enduring fantasy, that of discovering a 3-inch-cube loudspeaker that weighs less than a kilogram but delivers the output of a 15-inch JBL D-130.