Q Acoustics have announced the latest addition to their Concept range of loudspeakers and it’s the most radical model yet. The Concept 300 is a two-way standmount with a lot of differences, many of them in the stand and support. Taking a lot of tech from the Concept 500 floorstander launched two years ago the new model has the same aim of minimising noise in order to produce a clean undistorted signal. The box incorporates dual Gelcore damping with three layers of MDF, in differing thicknesses, separated by damping gel that’s designed to turn vibration into heat. It has point to point bracing with positioning worked out using FEA (finite element analysis) to provide maximum stiffening just where it needs to be in order to keep vibration to a minimum.
The Concept 300 takes the 28mm soft dome tweeter from the Concept 500, a driver developed for strong off-axis performance and allies it to a 165mm mid/bass with a new magnetic circuit. This uses two copper clad aluminium voice coils for increased force at a given power input without adding mass. The driver is held in place by a tensioned spring and rear fixing arrangement for maximum rigidity.
The most exciting part of this design for those of us who believe spikes are the devil’s work is that the Concept 300 has spring decoupling built into its base. A steel plinth with four springs and damping, dubbed Isodamp, sits between the loudspeaker and its dedicated stand and stops vibration from getting out of and into the cabinet. See our review of the Townshend Seismic Podiums for why this is great idea.
The stand designed by Kieren Dunk is pretty fabulous too and probably the most attractive example of its kind we have ever come across. Using the principle of tensegrity it combines a large tripod support with stainless steel legs and tensioning cables to give the slender design the requisite strength to support a 14.5kg loudspeaker. The stand is an integral part of the Concept 300 and cannot at present be purchased separately, not least because it is designed to be bolted onto the base of the loudspeaker. The Concept 300 package including stands retails for £2,999 and will be available in March.