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trDETAILS PRODIJCT: QAcoustics2o5oi ORIGIN: UK/Germany/Chlha TY?E: QAcoustics205oi: z-wayreflex ported loudspeaker
ice-coo[ zo5oifloorstanding QAcoustics' loudspeakersounds aspureasit looks. Molcolm Stewordtakes it fora drive... he new Q Acoustics2050i is certainly a fine-looking Ioudspeake4 especially in its metre-tall, white gloss lacquer enclosure.Indeed, I would certainly be inclined to pay the €130 premium for the Piano Gloss\,Vhite finish over the standard black or walnutvinyl, both of which are rather mundane. At a total price of f 550 in this guise, ttre 2050i srill seemsa genuine bargain. Another aesthetic nicety is the concealment of the fixings attaching the drive units to the enclosure. It is. some rnight conside4 a minor feature but I think it's one that is noteworthy and certainly wonhwhile. Surely however, the key feature of this big budget box is that it was designed by the world-famous Fink Audio Consulting, a company tlat has been behind some of the most highly respected loudspeakers in modem times, from several premium brands, most recently Naim Audio. Founder Karl-Heinz Fink told me that the Q Acousticsrange enjoys technical features that usually only appear on far more expensive speakers. For example, the drive units feature optimised magnet systemswith aluminium compensation+"ings to minimise the inductance variations over their voice coil excursion. The 2050i is a big floorstanding design that offers an amplifierfriendly (quoted) 6 ohm impedance and 92dB sensitivitSl which promises to make it parricular$ easy to drive to high listening levels with lower powered amplifiers, such as valve or ClassA designs. The drive unit anay housed within the cabinet consists of the new, decoupled from the baffle, 25mm dome tweeter flanked by a pair of 165mm, coated paper bass-midrange drivers integrated with a crossover network revised from that ofthe preceding 2050 model. According to Q Acoustics, the carbon-fibre/ceramic coated cones www.hlflchoice.co.uk
now used deliver lower distortion and a deane4 more open sound than the paper/mica mix of the original 2050 cones. Cabinet construction incorporates an integral spiked steel plinth along with steel bracing designed to add rigidity to tJrestrucnrre and prevent endosure panel flap. The box is reflex-ported and a foam bung is supplied to reduce air-flow through the port if the user wants to position the loudspeakercloser to a rear wall. I used the speaker around a metre clear of the rear and side walls without any modification to its air-flow, and aligned it to fire down the long dimension of my room. 'It's a speakerthat is good so it allows the listener to enjoy the true joie de viwe of music,' said a Q Acoustics' spokesman. Sadly, I felt little in the way ofjoiewhen it came to connecting the 2050is to my amplifiers - the connection block is sited on the baseofthe enclosure, not the rear, making plugging in inflexible or bulky loudspeaker cables tricl
