Q Acoustics 5040 floorstanding speaker review by Erin

[rynberg]

I agree.
What I’m saying is that these don’t appear to be badly designed, but very deliberately designed to achieve certain goals.
I wouldn’t buy them. But I’m sure they will sell well.

They are both poorly designed and have chosen poor goals for high fidelity.

Engineering-wise: the cabinet has a nasty resonance in the lower midrange and poor directivity (preventing effective use of EQ). This is the basic grab some drivers and stick them in a pretty cabinet with minimal bracing approach...maybe this would be OK at $700 but not $1,500. The only good piece of design is the industrial design, if those aesthetics work for one.

Goals-wise: shelving the lower midrange and bass down to assume it being placed against the wall is a very poor decision as that area needs to be EQ'd anyway to deal with room modes. If this was such a good approach, why does no quality manufacturer try this? And imposing a treble-lift to stand out on the showroom is not an excuse at this price-point, that's for $300 speakers at Best Buy. It doesn't take good engineering to achieve a treble-lift.

These speakers are not designed for high fidelity, and at $1,500, certainly need to be called out.

 

[mtmpenn]

I brought up the issue of designing to a purpose, rather than a preference score, in another thread, but it seems like this could be at play here.

If Q acoustics expects buyers to listen with the grill in place and the speaker shoved against the front wall the response makes a lot more sense.

And honestly, even though I would not buy them, they might be the “right” assumptions for the average buyer of these speakers (or any speaker marketes to the non-audiophile). I barely know anyone else with speakers and I don’t know anyone else that would take the grills off or plop the speakers 2 feet into the room.

 

[volteon]

No way I could‘ve done better:

✓ 5040‘s
✓ Powernode N330
✓ HT/1003 MKII

Jokes byside, but that were my first steps into audio world with a better-than-soundbar + WAF approach in mind.
Swapped the N330 with a TDAI 1120 in the meantime, which helped a lot.

I do own a white pair, in case of questions feel free.

 

[Blockader]

Making MTM designs should be illegal(unless point source).

 

[bstan]

I own them, and the Stereophile review was spot-on.

 

[Penelinfi]

Making MTM designs should be illegal(unless point source).

BMR has entered the chat

 

[kemmler3D]

I don't really think MTMs belong on floorstanders, especially not if you're going to squeeze the sound through the eye of a needle like this. The response looks a little weird to me, one of those speakers that will sound really right in the wrong room.

 

[alex-z]

Making MTM designs should be illegal(unless point source).

I wouldn't be so quick to scapegoat MTM layout, the Q Acoustics 5040 is just poorly designed. The Revel C25 and Arendal 1723 THX are much better examples, where a tweeter waveguide and proper crossover design was used. Having that secondary woofer provides tangible benefits, such as increased maximum output and reduced floor/ceiling interaction. Amir even highlighted this in his C25 review.

 

[bstan]

I wouldn't be so quick to scapegoat MTM layout, the Q Acoustics 5040 is just poorly designed. The Revel C25 and Arendal 1723 THX are much better examples, where a tweeter waveguide and proper crossover design was used. Having that secondary woofer provides tangible benefits, such as increased maximum output and reduced floor/ceiling interaction. Amir even highlighted this in his C25 review.

Have your heard these speakers?

 

[Dennis Murphy]

BMR has entered the chat

What is your definition of a point source MTM?

 

[kemmler3D]

I wouldn't be so quick to scapegoat MTM layout, the Q Acoustics 5040 is just poorly designed. The Revel C25 and Arendal 1723 THX are much better examples, where a tweeter waveguide and proper crossover design was used. Having that secondary woofer provides tangible benefits, such as increased maximum output and reduced floor/ceiling interaction. Amir even highlighted this in his C25 review.

MTMs can be good but it's not easy to push the crossover low enough and the C2C tight enough to make them work well. In this case it looks like they left the xover pretty high and decided to live with the narrow vertical dispersion penalty. Can be OK for nearfields, but these aren't those.

 

[Blockader]

I wouldn't be so quick to scapegoat MTM layout, the Q Acoustics 5040 is just poorly designed. The Revel C25 and Arendal 1723 THX are much better examples, where a tweeter waveguide and proper crossover design was used. Having that secondary woofer provides tangible benefits, such as increased maximum output and reduced floor/ceiling interaction. Amir even highlighted this in his C25 review.

how do you plan to get good vertical directivity with a non point source MTM design? The answer is the drivers should be closer than 1/4 wavelength of the crossover frequency. That's not as easy as it sounds. Pretty much impossible without a coaxial midwoofer/tweeter and high order crossover filter. That's basically how Genelec solved this problem.

 

[dfuller]

how do you plan to get good vertical directivity with a non point source MTM design? The answer is the drivers should be closer than 1/4 wavelength of the crossover frequency. That's not as easy as it sounds. Pretty much impossible without a coaxial midwoofer/tweeter and high order crossover filter. That's basically how Genelec solved this problem.

Narrow =/= bad, in fact in that department it's pretty well controlled.

 

[Dennis Murphy]

how do you plan to get good vertical directivity with a non point source MTM design? The answer is the drivers should be closer than 1/4 wavelength of the crossover frequency. That's not as easy as it sounds. Pretty much impossible without a coaxial midwoofer/tweeter and high order crossover filter. That's basically how Genelec solved this problem.

We don't really know what "good" vertical directivity is. Almost no speaker with non-coincident drivers will provide even vertical dispersion at the crossover point(s). Does that mean we should only be listening to point sources? If that's the case, I would invite you to drop by for a comparison of the KEF LS50 with the MTM BMR Tower.

 

[Penelinfi]

What is your definition of a point source MTM?

Not sure what you're getting at, but the phrase "X has entered the chat" is a meme that you can apply when somebody overlooks something. Eg "MTM should be illegal"
But many people love the BMR (and it measures well enough)

Also point source depends on listening distance and axis. Even a full range driver is not a point source under the right conditions.

 

[Dennis Murphy]

Not sure what you're getting at, but the phrase "X has entered the chat" is a meme that you can apply when somebody overlooks something. Eg "MTM should be illegal"
But many people love the BMR (and it measures well enough)

Also point source depends on listening distance and axis. Even a full range driver is not a point source under the right conditions.

My reply should have been to Blockader, not you. But the "correct" configuration and execution of an MTM is controversial in the extreme. Even D'appolito relaxed the crossover specifics necessary to execute his MTM design successfully. Some claim the mid-tweet distance should be no more than one wave length at the crossover frequency. Other's say it's 1/2 wavelength, and apparently Blockader has reduced this to 1/4 wavelength. I guess things go horribly wrong if that distance is exceeded and the speaker becomes illegally unlistenable. The BMR's just squeeze through at one wave length. With that distance, the layout succeeds in achieving one of the MTM"s goals--a symmetrical forward lobe with a reasonably simple crossover topology, and so far Mozart sounds like Mozart on the BMR's.

 

[Hart]

Interesting, numerous site have designated this speaker by far the best speaker in it's price category. So much disconnect between the Science site and the internet/periodical review sites... Is it a reflection of tailoring your speaker sound to appeal to the market vs. an accurate reproduction of a recording?