Q Acoustics Powered M40 Wireless Towers – First Look

All Image Credit: Q Acoustics

Q Acoustics of the UK are making inroads into smaller spaces with the introduction of their M40 Powered Micro Towers. At just 28″ (71cm) high and being available in black, white and Walnut, these petite pillars are compact and discreet and should seamlessly fit into any interior space. Just add a subwoofer and you will have full-range sound (20Hz-22KHz) performance.

This powered, two-way ported design houses a pair of 5″ mid/bass units and a single 0.9″ HF unit. The bass/mid units are in-house developed and utilize their C3 Continuous Curved Cone technology that is said to provide; “outstanding bass performance of a traditional straight cone with the high/midrange control and fidelity of a flared cone”, that together with the cabinets design is said to be rated down to 38Hz. Cabinet design features include; a Helmholtz Pressure Equalizer which aims to dissipate internal cabinet standing waves and Point to Point bracing that reduces cabinet resonances.

This is not an active speaker in that is uses a full bandwidth, Class D, 50watt RMS per channel (4Ω), stereo power amplifier located inside one tower to drive both towers. Each tower then uses a local passive crossover network that crosses over at 2.5KHz to drive the tweeter and mid/bass drivers. The towers being connected by supplied convectional speaker cabling.

With Bluetooth CODEC support for aptX, aptX HD, aptX Low Latency, SBC and AAC, there is limited wireless Hi-Res support as higher resolution signals above 24bit/48KHz will be lossy compressed to fit the Bluetooth bandwidth. Those desiring full uncompressed 24bit/196KHz support can still use either the TOSLINK optical or USB inputs with stereo analog RCA and 3.5mm inputs being the remaining input connectivity options. An unbalanced RCA subwoofer output is provided for those requiring a little more bass.

Other rear panel controls include, a left/right switch to allow the main speaker to be positioned optimally for a convenient power socket and an EQ switch to let the system know if the speakers each are positioned in a corner, against a wall or in free space.

Finally, the towers not only come with a 13′ (4m) speaker interconnect, but also a remote handset for seated control of power, volume, mute and input selection etc.