SOUNDBITES
Q ACOUSTICS CONCEPT 300
Q Acoustics has announced a flagship stand-mount model, the Concept 300, which comes supplied with unique stands, and retails in Australia for $5,999 (RRP), demonstrating another example of distributor Indi Imports’ ability to deliver local Australian prices that equal those in other markets, including Concept’s home market in the UK. (The UK, Euro and US prices are £2,999, €3,749 and $US4,499.)
Q Acoustics defines itself as offering ‘value at every price-point’, so the flagship is bulging with both ‘rigorous engineering’ and ‘aspirational aesthetics’. Reducing cabinet vibrations is one of the key elements used to improve the sound quality of Q Acoustics speakers, and the Concept 300 cabinet is comprised of three individual layers, each separated by a non-setting gel which converts any stray high-frequency vibrations into heat which dissipates within the gel. ‘Q Acoustics also uses point-to-point bracing inside the Concept 300’, said Paul Riachi, of Indi Imports, ‘but the designers take great care to ensure the cabinet has exactly the support it needs, and no more.’
With a stand-mount, of course, this attention to vibration needs to continue to the stand, which is why the Concept 300’s unique stand comes included—it’s not an option. It’s called the ‘Tensegrity’ stand and it’s a tripod design built from lightweight aluminium tubes and thin stainless steel cables—Q Acoustics is entitled to call this ‘an entirely new loudspeaker support concept’… and it does. The entire mass is then suspended on the four springs of the newly-developed integrated base plate.
The drivers used in the Concept 300 come from the Concept 500—a 165mm diameter impregnated/coated paper coned bass/midrange driver with a 35mm glass-fibre voice coil does the low and mid duties. The 28mm high-frequency driver’s dome is made of super-fine strands of coated microfibre, while the tweeter body itself is decoupled from the speaker cabinet using a rubber gasket.
For more information, contact Indi Imports on (03) 9416 7037 or visit www.indimports.com
Q ACOUSTICS | AUDIOPHILE REFERENCE RECORDINGS
AUDIOPHILE REFERENCE RECORDINGS MOVES
Melbourne’s most famous audiophile music store has moved to new premises in Cheltenham. Audiophile Reference Recordings’ owner, Charles Lee, founded his family-owned store in 2011, as the culmination of a dream he’d harboured since getting the hi-fi bug as a teenager. ‘My aim was to stock as many brand-new audiophile-quality recordings as we could, and to ship anywhere in Australia within 24 hours,’ says Lee. ‘If we do not have stock of a particular recording you’re after, our guarantee is
