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Thread: Q Acoustics 3050 speaker

  1. #11
    Join Date: May 2013

    Location: Rotherham

    Posts: 693
    I'm steve.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Lerxst View Post
    Hi Steve,

    I am pleased with mine too - for the price they are very good. One of mine broke a tweeter after 7 months though, but it was replaced under warranty. The connections at the rear are a bit fiddly too and don't like any of the banana plugs I have tried - they just fall out. I have run them bi-wired but now I don't bother as I can't hear the difference. I think Rob is bi-wiring and experimenting with different cables for hi and low.

    I have mine about 25 cm away from the wall and toed in a bit - I didn't get a good soundstage otherwise (my amp's soundstage is not its strongest point). About 2.5 meters apart and a little further away to where I sit.

    They are easy to drive and sound Ok when at low volume too. My room is about 6 x 5 m with thick carpet, curtains, sofa and bare plasterboard walls which does get boomy corners at certain frequencies. Not much else. I don't have to use the supplied bungs for the single rear vent.

    I would say they are a tiny bit bright, nice mid-detail, a little clinical but quite nice authoritative lower end. When driven hard they don't seem to go flakey. I have run them with a bright amp though and it was awful. So, if you have a neutral-sounding amp you will be OK.

    I paid about £550 so for £389 they are even better. I didn't like only the one stabiliser on each speaker so have two on each - the holes all match up, same screws. I only got that idea when I had to send the first set back - DPD had really smashed them up in transit, but I kept the first pair's stabilisers. So mine were free.

    I have a concrete floor. They seem to stand solidly enough. Construction is chipboard covered in a (nice) laminate. A heavier construction would have been nice but for the price you can't expect everything.

    They are quite tall at 1 meter, but that puts the drivers right at ear-level for me.
    Although my room is rather smaller at 4x4.2m it has very high ceilings so there’s a fair volume, there’s also additionally a bay window which the speakers back onto, the speakers are just forward of the 90 degree angle of the wall into the bay, so they don’t really get any reinforcement from it. The amp in the living room is a Cambridge CXA60, the one in the bedroom is a Yamaha AS501 both of them I think are pretty neutral in tonal balance. Which room the 3050s will end up in depends on how they compare to my Jordan Eikona 2 VTLs, quite a tough act to follow particularly as the Jordan’s are a considerably more expensive speaker. The thing I like when comparing the Jordan’s to the 2020i is that the QAs seem to handle less than perfect recordings better than the VTLs which tend to be ruthlessly revealing of such recordings and make them less enjoyable to listen to.
    I’ve always thought using a single run of good thick stranded cable was preferable to bi wiring, I use 19/0.45mm 12AWG Teflon coated silver plated copper wire at £3/m for single run cable, it’s a bit inflexible but workable, I keep the wire pairs together with heat shrink and terminate them with Fisual right angle banana plugs which are excellent.
    According to QA the sonic signature through their range of speakers is the same in the midrange and treble with differences just being in the amount of bass weight and extension with the larger drivers and cabinets. I certainly don’t find the 2020i to be bright and would hope the 3050 would be similar.
    Did QA give any indication as to what caused your tweeter failure ?


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

  2. #12
    Join Date: Sep 2017

    Location: Northampton

    Posts: 177
    I'm Chris.

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    I only said a tiny bit bright - I changed cables recently though and now they are not bright at all. You might find your silver-plated cables enhance the tendency to brightness though - from what I hear. I was using Chord C-series and moved to Van Damme Blue (which someone on here recommended for "warmth").

    I have used a CXA60 with them with good results.

    QA gave no reason other than it was broken and replaced. If you google it there are no stories of QAs having a tweeter problem, so I assume my speaker just had a bad unit. If anything else happens they are going back though.

    Funny you mention the ruthlessness of your VTLs with less-than-perfect recordings. I have found the opposite with the QAs as well. In fact my old CD collection got new life. I never liked U2, ELO or old Van Halen recordings much, for example, but now I find them OK. I don't know the VTLs at all however.

    QA is right about the bass weight and extension - my jaw still drops with certain recordings. If you want to come down and have a listen let me know. I still have the CXA60.

  3. #13
    Join Date: May 2013

    Location: Rotherham

    Posts: 693
    I'm steve.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Lerxst View Post
    I only said a tiny bit bright - I changed cables recently though and now they are not bright at all. You might find your silver-plated cables enhance the tendency to brightness though - from what I hear. I was using Chord C-series and moved to Van Damme Blue (which someone on here recommended for "warmth").

    I have used a CXA60 with them with good results.

    QA gave no reason other than it was broken and replaced. If you google it there are no stories of QAs having a tweeter problem, so I assume my speaker just had a bad unit. If anything else happens they are going back though.

    Funny you mention the ruthlessness of your VTLs with less-than-perfect recordings. I have found the opposite with the QAs as well. In fact my old CD collection got new life. I never liked U2, ELO or old Van Halen recordings much, for example, but now I find them OK. I don't know the VTLs at all however.

    QA is right about the bass weight and extension - my jaw still drops with certain recordings. If you want to come down and have a listen let me know. I still have the CXA60.
    Certainly the listen ability of the 2020i with older recordings is one of their plus points for sure, being an old timer I have a lot of stuff from 60's 70's and 80's, they're all in the iTunes library on my Macmini as lossless files that being my main digital source.
    Surprisingly the silver plated cables don't increase brightness and I use them all the way from amp to drive unit in the Jordans, with the Eikona being full range there is no crossover between amp and driver.
    When I changed the cable I hoped it would be a bit brighter but the main thing it improved was grip in the bass. Thanks for the offer of an audition, a possibility if I'm not too far away, where are you located ?


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  4. #14
    Join Date: Nov 2017

    Location: Dutch now living in Milton Keynes in the United Kingdom

    Posts: 59
    I'm Rob.

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    Hi Steve, I stream via usb to an external dac via Audirvana I find that gives a better quality that streaming via the apple tv, but I also stram 24 bits files and the apple tv smaples that down ti 16 bits.

  5. #15
    Join Date: May 2013

    Location: Rotherham

    Posts: 693
    I'm steve.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Rob Tube View Post
    Hi Steve, I stream via usb to an external dac via Audirvana I find that gives a better quality that streaming via the apple tv, but I also stram 24 bits files and the apple tv smaples that down ti 16 bits.
    I used to use an external DAC the Cambridge Dacmagic + but I sold it when I got the CXA60 to cut down on the box and cable count, I find the onboard DAC just as good sound wise, I use optical connection from the Macmini. I have an iMac as source in the bedroom setup and use the DAC in the AS501.


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  6. #16
    Join Date: Feb 2014

    Location: Huntingdonshire

    Posts: 1,413
    I'm Andrew.

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    Seems an odd thread for this area of the forum.

  7. #17
    Join Date: Apr 2012

    Location: N E Kent

    Posts: 51,624
    I'm Geoff.

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    Quote Originally Posted by agk View Post
    Seems an odd thread for this area of the forum.
    Quite so. Moved to Blank Canvas.

  8. #18
    Join Date: Nov 2017

    Location: Dutch now living in Milton Keynes in the United Kingdom

    Posts: 59
    I'm Rob.

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    I am streaming music via usb, to a musical fidelity V90 dac, to a Nobsound ns-01P tube pre amp and then to a arcam Alpha 8 power amp.

  9. #19
    Join Date: Sep 2017

    Location: Northampton

    Posts: 177
    I'm Chris.

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    Quote Originally Posted by walpurgis View Post
    Quite so. Moved to Blank Canvas.
    Lol. Where was it then?

  10. #20
    Join Date: Apr 2012

    Location: N E Kent

    Posts: 51,624
    I'm Geoff.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Lerxst View Post
    Lol. Where was it then?
    In Analogue Art for some mysterious reason!

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