When I reviewed the Concept 50 loudspeaker from the UK’s Q Acoustics in August 2022, I concluded that the Concept 50 lowers the sweet price spot for affordable tower speakers to $3000/pair. Now I have another pair of Q Acoustics loudspeakers in the house for review. Like the earlier speaker, the 5040 is a slim, elegant-looking tower with a vertical D’Appolito drive-unit array comprising a 0.9″ fabric-dome tweeter positioned between the two 5″ plastic-cone woofers. But the price is half that of the Concept 50: $1499/pair. Will this be a new sweet spot? We shall see.
The 5040
Superficially, the 5040 appears identical to the Concept 50, with twin height-adjustable spikes at the front and stabilizing aluminum outriggers at the rear. But it is slightly shorter and lacks the earlier speaker’s sprung base. The three drive units are mounted at the top of the High-Density Fiberboard baffle on a panel finished in black acrylic and isolated from the enclosure with a layer of butyl rubber. The enclosure is made from 18mm MDF and, as with the Concept 50, Q Acoustics has paid a lot of attention to the cabinet’s vibrational behavior. Strategically placed Point-2-Point (P2P) internal bracing stiffens the cabinet to minimize low-frequency vibrations, while two tubes, called Helmholtz Pressure Equalisers (HPE), are said to reduce the effects of internal standing waves.
The proprietary drive units were developed for Q Acoustics’s 5000-series models. The woofers’ plastic cones are terminated with a substantial half-roll surround and feature what Q Acoustics calls a “Continuous Curve Cone” profile (footnote 1), which doesn’t have a conventional dust cap. This cone was developed using Finite Element Analysis (FEA) and is said to combine the bass-performance benefits of a traditional straight conical cone with the midrange frequency control of a flared cone while reducing harmonic distortion. The dispersion and what is described as “a well-controlled frequency response” should enable a smooth integration with the tweeter. The woofer’s motor uses a substantial magnet with a near fully saturated pole piece and an aluminum ring mounted underneath the pole plate to reduce inductance-induced modulation distortion. The 30.5mm voice-coil is wound from low-mass copper-clad aluminum wire (CCAW) over a glass fiber former.
The woofers are reflex-loaded with a port 11″ from the floor on the speaker’s rear and cross over to the tweeter at 2.5kHz. This unit was developed from the Concept series tweeter. It is hermetically sealed to prevent modulation by internal pressure variations and mechanically isolated from the front baffle. The cloth diaphragm has a narrow concave roll surround and is loaded with a shallow waveguide.
Setting up
I used my Roon Nucleus+ to feed audio data over my network to an MBL N31 CD player/DAC, which was connected first to the Musical Fidelity Nu-Vista 800.2 integrated amplifier I reviewed in the December 2023 issue, then, later, to the Audio Research I/50 integrated amplifier I reviewed in September 2023. Finally, I hooked it up to my NAD M10 integrated amplifier. The Q Acoustics 5040 has a single pair of binding posts at the bottom of the rear panel. I single-wired each speaker with AudioQuest Robin Hood cable.
With the 5040s sitting on their spikes and outriggers—protective spike covers are provided for those who have wooden floors—the tweeters were 30″ from the floor, which is a few inches below my ear height. However, a D’Appolito driver array optimizes the vertical dispersion so that the tweeter-axis response is maintained a few degrees above and below that axis while floor and ceiling reflections are reduced in level. Listening to the dual-mono pink noise track on my Editor’s Choice CD (Stereophile STPH016-2; no longer available), I didn’t hear any significant change in tonal balance if I slouched or sat up straight. The sound started to sound a little hollow if I rose to the point where I could see the top of the enclosure.
The manual recommends that the 5040s be positioned at least 0.2m (8″) from the wall behind them, 0.5m (19.7″) from the sidewalls, and 2–4m (78.7″–157″) apart. As with the Concept 50s, the 5040s needed to be closer to the wall behind them than was possible in my room. (This is due to a short flight of stairs behind the right-hand speaker that runs up to the vestibule.) I therefore experimented with the speaker positions to give the most even midbass and upper-bass balance. The 5040’s front baffles ended up 72″ from the wall behind the speakers, which were 103″ apart and 47″ from the nearest sidewalls, though this distance was reduced at places by bookcases and record cabinets.
The manual also says that “turning the loudspeakers slightly inwards will sharpen the stereo image at the expense of a narrower sound stage.” As I am a stereo imaging fanatic (footnote 2), I toed each speaker in to the listening position. I left off the vestigial grilles for my auditioning.
Listening
With their ports open, the 5040s reproduced the 1/3-octave warble tones on the Editor’s Choice CD cleanly down to the 40Hz band, with the 50Hz warble a little lower in level. The 32Hz tone was reinforced by the lowest room mode, but the 25Hz and 20Hz tones were inaudible. The warble tones sounded very clean, with no “doubling” (adding second-harmonic distortion). The half-step–spaced tonebursts on Editor’s Choice spoke cleanly down to 60Hz, with those lower in frequency suppressed a little and those between 2kHz and 4kHz slightly accentuated. Listening to the enclosure’s walls with a stethoscope while the tonebursts played, I could hear a narrow band of liveliness between 250Hz and 300Hz on the rear panel. The side panels and front baffle were better behaved in this regard.
Though the 5040s were positioned farther out in my room than Q Acoustics recommends, the low frequencies had sufficient bass weight. The softly struck bass drum that punctuates Peter Gabriel’s “My Body Is a Cage,” from Scratch My Back (Special Edition) (24/48 MQA, Real World Productions/Tidal), was delivered into the room in what sounded to be full measure.
Footnote 1: A white paper on the technology featured in Q Acoustics’ 5000-series loudspeakers can be downloaded from tinyurl.com/3c4m9du8.
Footnote 2: See my 1981 article on stereo imaging here.
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COMPANY INFO
Q Acoustics
Unit 2, Woodside
Bishop’s Stortford CM23 5RG
England, UK
(855) 279-5070
www.qacoustics.com
ARTICLE CONTENTS
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Specifications
Associated Equipment
Measurements
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