Q Acoustics has come up with a superb set of speakers for audiophiles who love big sound but don't have a big space to fill with big speakers. The new M40 micro-towers are designed to deliver a huge sound without also requiring a huge room.
The M40s are based on the firm's award-winning M20 HD wireless audio system, and these too are wireless. They have high resolution Bluetooth streaming via aptX HD, which delivers much higher audio resolution than standard Bluetooth audio, and they come with multiple connections so you can hook them up to a TV, turntable (with its own phono stage or pre-amp), games console, TV dongle, CD player or pretty much any other sound source.
At 71cm high they're small for high-end speakers, but there's nothing small about their power.
Q Acoustics M40 speakers: key specifications
Each speaker here has 100W of built-in Class D amplification so you don't need to run them from a separate amplifier. Inside you'll find Q Acoustics' C3 Continuous Curved Cone mid and bass driver, which first appeared in the 5000 series speakers; it's designed to deliver the best of both worlds with the bass performance of a traditional straight cone with the high and mid fidelity of a flared one.
There's also a decoupled tweeter and Helmholtz Pressure Equaliser (HPE) technology that's designed to reduce standing waves inside the cabinet. Standing waves are the arch-enemy of speaker design: every cabinet resonates to some degree, but too much resonance can cause frequency weirdness that affects the audio performance. HPE is designed to stop that from happening.
One of the key factors affecting the sound you get is where you put your speakers, and with smaller spaces you've got a bit less flexibility there. As a result Q Acoustics has included an EQ switch that can adjust the sound profile for specific locations: in a corner, against a wall or in a decent bit of free space. That tells the DSP to adjust the sound accordingly.
The Q Acoustics M40 are available now with a price tag of £749 /€899/ $999. You can find out more at the Q Acoustics website.
