Initial impressions on Q Acoustics Concept 20s

[chander]

Finally after weeks of back and forth, I have my concept 20s hooked up to the Audiolab 6000a. Though not at all "audiophile ideally" placed, I got to hear them enough over the last weekend and have got a few thing to note. Please keep in mind -

1 - Source - FiiO M11 - via BT and a MediaBridge Aux to RCA.
2 - Music - Mostly Spotify, Primephonic and Local FLACs. My Qobuz membership expired so that is out.
3 - Placement - They are placed on top of a shelf - not ideal at all - but for now this is it. They are around 10 inches from the wall and I am using the bass port foam bungs that came with the speakers - WHY? I will come to that later.
4 - Future Plans - Connecting my Focal Cub 2 Sub to the setup and adding "Beautiful Hand-Made" stands that go with the rest and also store some LPs. And an LP player. Right now the idea is in it's "inception" phase. C20 stands are to be avoided like bubonic plague, as they "look like a turd". Not my words.

Now as you can see above - my setup is not "audiophile ideal" so please do not take this as a review, but rather my initial impressions in my situation.

I used a bunch of music to test this out. First with FLACs hooked to the AUX, then connected via BT and then just used a bunch of things on Spotify and Primphonic in the same order.

Music used (Only listing those that I used for critical listening - and only my impressions on FLAC)-
Louis Armstrong - A kiss to build a dream on.
Nike Drake - Cello Song, Voices
CCR - Long as I can see the light
The Doors - Love Me two times, Back door man
The Heavy - Short Change Hero
Queen - Bohemian rhapsody, dragon attack
Guem - Le Serpent
The Fairfield Four - These Bones
Brahms : Violin Concertop inD, OP 77:1, Allegro Non Troppo
Liszt: Hungarian Rhapsody No.6, in D Major, S.359/6
Joji Hirota & London Taiko Drummer : Akita
Jeno Jando - No.6 in D Flat Major
Sheku Kanneh Mason - Cello Concerto in E Minor, OP:85
Donovan - Hurdy Gurdy Man

NOW in this blasphemous placement situation.....

1 - They reproduce voices beautifully, incredibly indeed. Louis Armstrong, Fairfield four, Nick Drake, Doors and Bohemian Rhapsody - oh lord have mercy. The Fairfield four, main vocalist has this incredible Growl for a voice and never did C20s fault on that. It delivered it with incredible accuracy.
2 - The timing on classical music and the capability to identify instruments is quite amazing. They rarely muddle up the instruments. Percussion tracks like Le serpent and Akita, are very well rendered, if not absolutely accurately (but what is?), but there is extremely little you can fault them on. The sax on A kiss to build a dream on is vibrant and you can almost feel it.
3 - Donovan has this vibrato in his voice in Hurdy Gurdy Man and the solo gets a bit intense. These speakers however were always composed and never gave me a moment where I was - "What was that".
4 - I test almost everything with Bohemian rhapsody, for 2 reasons, I love the song, and it has got everything - almost to test your music system, it is a pretty busy song, and a technical marvel for it's time. The sound engineers had a ball. Youtube has a small documentary on this song. The speakers however, never choked, they did whatever they did with a reasonable amount of authority and accuracy.
5 - No cabinet vibrations, channel separation is very good and sound stage is quite deep, though not very wide, wide enough that it is beyond the speakers by maybe a feet or two.
6 - Foam bungs atleast in my situation make them quite a bit more composed. Guttural voices like that of Louis Armstrong, get snappier instead of booming forever, it makes the bass decay a lot more accurate.

Now all good things aside - they pretty much fall flat - when it comes to anything busier. Play Led Zeppelin's Black Dog and it is a big mush. Given their mid/bass driver size it was expected that they might not be the best at reproducing busy rock, however, they muddle it up quite a bit - it is like a marriage band. I played a number of busy songs from LedZep, AC/DC, GnR, Aerosmith, Radiohead and a lot more and they were quite - WTF. However, Pink Floyd, almost all of Temptations, Sly and the family stones, Kool and the gang, Most of RHCP, rolling stones were very enjoyable indeed.

See this is where I am confused. All songs played were FLAC files - similar quality if not exact. It did an incredible job of recreating - Dragon attack for example, but a Black Dog was just noisy. No coherence what so ever. Doors was incredible, but Baba O' Reilly was muddy if not incomprehensible. It is not that it fails completely when it comes to rock, not at all, it just does it really badly on some tracks and some artists and sadly I love Led Zep. Maybe adding the sub might give them a little more room to breathe, I really hope or it will be heartbreaking.

Anything quieter, musical, they are amazing at reproducing, absolutely anything - Wish you were here, was a delight, so was Protobello belle. Devil baby had this sweetness I have personally never heard from a speaker system, only my IEMs can do anything close to what these C20s did.

I was unable to tell much of a difference between the wired and wireless connection, though I feel wireless sounded mildly better in lower frequency. I FEEL.

Spotifying the same tracks, was obviously a little less resolving, however, not bad at all - I was surprised how good Spotify sounded, and in real world situation that is going to be my go to.

I will keep updating my findings here, as I get a little accustomed to them, ear burn -in.

 

[Kannan]

Quite a deep review. I don't think with busier tracks it is totally a speaker problem. Room does play a role with such tracks, also the amp and source.

 

[Miany]

IMHO, you need to get the placement right before any serious listening.. i too struggled a lot with various speakers when it came to placements before getting that "ideal" sound (highly subjective indeed!)

Regarding Q Acoustics concept 20s, I cant agree more.. I too recently bought a pair of concept 40s as a stop-gap arrangement and they have indeed surprised me with their musicality. Vocals (both male and female) particularly sounded too real and involving...

I have tried the same setup (see my signature) in two different rooms with different sizes/acoustic treatments and the results were drastically different. IMO, only the tonal/timbre qualities remained somewhat same; everything else including soundstage, imaging and low end performance particularly, were very different.

Contradicting to what you experienced, I have found the sound to be very coherent. Agree that they dont sound that "exciting" with some genres like rock (am not really into rock music, the observation is based purely on the couple of tracks i listened) ; but they are really enjoyable with jazz, blues etc.. May be concept 40s and concept 20s differ in this area.. Did you try with any other sources? if possible, I would recommend trying a dedicated CD player along with audiolab 6000 first.

As with the any other stereo setup, the sound is the result of the entire chain along with room acoustics, so u might take a bit long to get everything the way you want it to be.. Good luck!

 

[chander]

@Kannan I agree with you there. Like I said - some things are beyond my control or I would have an anechoic chamber in the house .

@Miany - my apologies if my write up gave you the impression that they are incoherent, but no, on the contrary they aren't, they are extremely controlled; except with really busy heavy rock. The likes of Led Zeppelin or Radiohead for example. Classical, JAZZ, acoustic and generally quieter music for example show the technical and musical prowess of these speakers. They are exceptionally talented. Hearing Nina Simone sing through these is quite an extraordinary experience that I am experiencing while I write this.

I wish I could, but a CD player is not on the cards at all and LP player is though.

 

[Miany]

@Kannan I agree with you there. Like I said - some things are beyond my control or I would have an anechoic chamber in the house .

@Miany - my apologies if my write up gave you the impression that they are incoherent, but no, on the contrary they aren't, they are extremely controlled; except with really busy heavy rock. The likes of Led Zeppelin or Radiohead for example. Classical, JAZZ, acoustic and generally quieter music for example show the technical and musical prowess of these speakers. They are exceptionally talented. Hearing Nina Simone sing through these is quite an extraordinary experience that I am experiencing while I write this.

I wish I could, but a CD player is not on the cards at all and LP player is though.

Your apologies are not accepted .. just kidding.. Its good to share honest impressions yaar... I know that you had the issue only with some really heavy music...

Have you shortlisted any LP player and phonostage to go with these? Please share.. i have never been to LPs except for the occasional listening at friends s places... I am more into streaming these days.. Tidal (quality is really good, they have CD quality and Hi-Res collection) and Auralic Aries with femto clock is my current setup... sounds really good.. Have got some CD collection as well.. need to buy a transport for those....

 

[chander]

@Miany

No I haven't yet shortlisted an LP player, the thing that I have learnt from my limited time researching them is that if there is anything more complicated than choosing the right amp or speakers, it is choosing the right LP player. However, from what I understand, my research will be limited to Pro-ject for now as they are affordable and generally favored. Either project essential II or the the elemental to be precise. The copious amount of knowledge base with project turntables across the world, makes it easier to troubleshoot and enhance too.

I used to love Tidal sound, but their collection did not have a lot of stuff I listen to. So I decided to give it up and just use Spotify. Also if I do not find anything I can always upload my local music to Spotify Playlists (limited bit-rate) which is a HUGE advantage. Spotify's music discovery is also light years ahead. I am not trying to start a war of apps here, just my experience.

 

[chander]

oh BTW- how could I miss them - Rega Planars have incredible reputation too.

 

[Miany]

@Miany

No I haven't yet shortlisted an LP player, the thing that I have learnt from my limited time researching them is that if there is anything more complicated than choosing the right amp or speakers, it is choosing the right LP player. However, from what I understand, my research will be limited to Pro-ject for now as they are affordable and generally favored. Either project essential II or the the elemental to be precise. The copious amount of knowledge base with project turntables across the world, makes it easier to troubleshoot and enhance too.

I used to love Tidal sound, but their collection did not have a lot of stuff I listen to. So I decided to give it up and just use Spotify. Also if I do not find anything I can always upload my local music to Spotify Playlists (limited bit-rate) which is a HUGE advantage. Spotify's music discovery is also light years ahead. I am not trying to start a war of apps here, just my experience.

Never really tried Spotify.. primarily due to lower bit rates... since i have a decent DAC and streamer, i need to make use of higher quality sources.. otherwise it wont make any sense... what do u mostly listen to? I think Tidal is more expensive than Spotify; can be justified to some extent due to the higher quality. Again, depends on where you purchase the Tidal account from.. Mine is a UK account... I think content might be limited to country of purchase as well, right? read it somewhere...

 

[chander]

That could be country limited. I was using a US account, I don't remember now what wasn't available, but I ended up having a spread sheet with a list. Now that is never a good thing, when u have to always sit with your iPad to make a google spreadsheet while.listening to music.

Spotify is sad quality, I am just hoping one day soon, they might do HiRes. As now amazon is in too.

 

[Deleted member 15865]

@chander, firstly let me applaud you for a very well-written account of your new system. You also seem to be knowledgeable about nuances in rock, especially classic rock. The QA Concept 20 are perhaps the best behaved speakers in their price range and most users won’t go wrong with them. You, of course are exploring how you could get the best out of them

Now all good things aside - they pretty much fall flat - when it comes to anything busier. Play Led Zeppelin's Black Dog and it is a big mush. Given their mid/bass driver size it was expected that they might not be the best at reproducing busy rock, however, they muddle it up quite a bit - it is like a marriage band. I played a number of busy songs from LedZep, AC/DC, GnR, Aerosmith, Radiohead and a lot more and they were quite - WTF.

I see this issue largely linked to your far from optimal placement of the speakers right now. When I bought my Castle Knight 2 speakers some 3-4 years back, I plonked them on top of the cabinet (good listening height though). But then when I bought the CK2 stands meant for the speakers and placed them on the stands, it was one of the two biggest improvements in sound I have had till date (other is my current speaker cable). I’d confidently say that with the right stands (and placement) you should see a big improvement in how busy rock sounds through the same speakers. But choose stands carefully - ideally go with what’s recommended by QA for the specific model. Form (stability/solidity, height, spikes) over aesthetics/features (looks, storage etc) when it comes to the stands. Placement will also be important. I feel 10 inches from front wall may be too less. Try various distances once you have the stands right upto 2 feet. You’d find your sweet spot (it’s a 1.5 ft with my speaker and room). And do this without the foam bungs, use the full reflex - just optimise the distance.

Also, play with toe-ins and distance between the speakers. If sound is too thick and/or busy music sounds muddied, separate the speakers further apart and/or reduce the toe in. Some of us (me included) believe zero toe-in is always best - toe in to tackle room acoustics comes at a cost of not just reduced sound stage, but even the delicacy of the notes. But go with what suits you with your speakers.

Mine is a UK account... I think content might be limited to country of purchase as well, right? read it somewhere...

Are you sure? Does Tidal say that themselves? I checked both US and Turkey and found them largely identical in collection (could easily get 90-95% of my US playlist contents in Turkey. I’d imagine other countries won’t be too different.

 

[chander]

Thanks @SachinChavan for your valuable input.

I have a situation; where the speaker placement is perhaps the 100th priority (not for me but for my better half), as this system is part of my master bedroom, which happens to be a large open room - with a reading area, overlooking a large coconut grove so lots of windows and doors.

Now as this room also serves as the temporary COVID office for her so a work desk has been included in there too, my options were - get rid of the floor standers, get smaller speakers without stands, lesser cables and the shelf is what I get. I chose my battles and came out victorious with the white finish, even though " it looks like a hospital equipment" not my words again. Now - the QA stands are out of question as they don't go with anything, bringing them further out is not an option as they would fall off the shelf .

I am trying my best to convince to get some Wooden stands made, that can also hold LPs and'enhances the classy look of the room and somehow just somehow put a sub , as the AL has a per-out. Beyond that how much they come into the room, how do they toe in etc. is our of question .

I am not sure your Tidal question was directed to @Miany or to me, regardless, I am not sure if anything is region bound in case of Tidal, I believe we both were just guessing. Though it does happen that way in both Spotify, Google/Youtube Music and Amazon Music. I have used subscription for all in the past to just review their libraries. Currently I have the Spotify US and my partner has the Spotify Ind and there is a substantial difference in the library, specially when you look at older music like - Albert Collins and King, Aphrodite's child, Bo Didley, Blues travellers,Booker T, Buddy Guy etc. Like I said I have a spreadsheet

 

[chander]

Ok as I am writing all this - I am listening to Led Zeppelin, and I can kinda understand now what is wrong here. They are actually not failing really; they sound thin and unpleasant yes but that is because the reproduced bass on these songs is really lean - it's there, but not THERE - attributed perhaps to the size of the drivers, which takes away a massive part of the music and changes it completely, hence the unfamiliarity and the irritation. That was to be expected, but as I am listening to them, everything - every guitar twang and cymbal hit is quite pronounced, just that both the thumping Johns are kinda missing, hence the rhythm seems completely off. Removing the foam bungs helped Zilch in this case. Time to fix the sub!

 

[Deleted member 15865]

I have a situation; where the speaker placement is perhaps the 100th priority (not for me but for my better half), as this system is part of my master bedroom, which happens to be a large open room - with a reading area, overlooking a large coconut grove so lots of windows and doors.

Sorry, I couldn’t gather your domestic constraints from the first post and ended up providing irrelevant suggestions.

 

[square_wave]

Quite a deep review. I don't think with busier tracks it is totally a speaker problem. Room does play a role with such tracks, also the amp and source.

I agree completely. You are hearing "all the components and how they all perform together" when you listen to a system. This includes the room, cables and setup also. The recent component you introduced is the speaker, hence you are focussing all the judgement on the speaker.

 

[chander]

@SachinChavan hey never mind, I have the tendency to write a lot, itchy fingers Wouldn't fault anyone if a point gets lost in my write up.

@square_wave I understand that my placement is not ideal and I am not faulting the speakers because of that. I always maintained that the speakers are brilliant, however - these are my impressions "in my situation/setup". This was never meant to be a review, I will perhaps review them thoroughly in a month or two once they are placed better - or else it will be unfair; this is just my experience with them 'out of the box'. Nobody's fault but mine . Just a side note; not that it matters but - my entire system is new .

Also if you don't mind me adding, I personally feel that considering the size of their mid/bass driver, they feel a little constrained while playing busy rock through them; regardless of placement. This is what I FEEL. Yes the "correct" placement definitely will impact their sound I do not doubt that, but I am a little doubtful of HOW MUCH? I also know I will never know unless I DO.

Please DO NOT think I am trying to ignore your knowledge and experience here, absolutely not, I agree with you 100%; I just have certain reservations.

 

[Miany]

Regarding the difference in Tidal contents based on regions, i think i have read that in this forum or some other forum.. dont remember exactly. I have never really done an A/B comparison in this regard.

If not right, pardon my ignorance in this regard.

 

[chander]

Update - connecting the Focal Cub 2 sub from the pre-out to RCA in @
0° phase, around 40% volume and currently at 80hz crossover, has made a huge impact on sound with hard rock. Kick drums sound like Kick drums, no loss in fidelity in another areas, though I think it is kinda overlapping in the lowest frequencies, but I couldn't test it out. Primary test song was - to know you is to love you by B B king, where around 5.20ish there is a 'vocal solo'-ish, introducing instruments as he repeats his lines. Mesmerising is the word, without losing the emotion in King's throaty voice. The highs of his voice were intact but the bass and the kick drum was just thumpin'.

The speakers are breathing life into led zep finally. Levy breaks was finally like it should sound. The Johns are back.

I am going to play with the cross over a little to see if there is any overlap at all.

 

[shyamv]

Finally after weeks of back and forth, I have my concept 20s hooked up to the Audiolab 6000a. Though not at all "audiophile ideally" placed, I got to hear them enough over the last weekend and have got a few thing to note. Please keep in mind -

1 - Source - FiiO M11 - via BT and a MediaBridge Aux to RCA.
2 - Music - Mostly Spotify, Primephonic and Local FLACs. My Qobuz membership expired so that is out.
3 - Placement - They are placed on top of a shelf - not ideal at all - but for now this is it. They are around 10 inches from the wall and I am using the bass port foam bungs that came with the speakers - WHY? I will come to that later.
4 - Future Plans - Connecting my Focal Cub 2 Sub to the setup and adding "Beautiful Hand-Made" stands that go with the rest and also store some LPs. And an LP player. Right now the idea is in it's "inception" phase. C20 stands are to be avoided like bubonic plague, as they "look like a turd". Not my words.

Now as you can see above - my setup is not "audiophile ideal" so please do not take this as a review, but rather my initial impressions in my situation.

I used a bunch of music to test this out. First with FLACs hooked to the AUX, then connected via BT and then just used a bunch of things on Spotify and Primphonic in the same order.

Music used (Only listing those that I used for critical listening - and only my impressions on FLAC)-
Louis Armstrong - A kiss to build a dream on.
Nike Drake - Cello Song, Voices
CCR - Long as I can see the light
The Doors - Love Me two times, Back door man
The Heavy - Short Change Hero
Queen - Bohemian rhapsody, dragon attack
Guem - Le Serpent
The Fairfield Four - These Bones
Brahms : Violin Concertop inD, OP 77:1, Allegro Non Troppo
Liszt: Hungarian Rhapsody No.6, in D Major, S.359/6
Joji Hirota & London Taiko Drummer : Akita
Jeno Jando - No.6 in D Flat Major
Sheku Kanneh Mason - Cello Concerto in E Minor, OP:85
Donovan - Hurdy Gurdy Man

NOW in this blasphemous placement situation.....

1 - They reproduce voices beautifully, incredibly indeed. Louis Armstrong, Fairfield four, Nick Drake, Doors and Bohemian Rhapsody - oh lord have mercy. The Fairfield four, main vocalist has this incredible Growl for a voice and never did C20s fault on that. It delivered it with incredible accuracy.
2 - The timing on classical music and the capability to identify instruments is quite amazing. They rarely muddle up the instruments. Percussion tracks like Le serpent and Akita, are very well rendered, if not absolutely accurately (but what is?), but there is extremely little you can fault them on. The sax on A kiss to build a dream on is vibrant and you can almost feel it.
3 - Donovan has this vibrato in his voice in Hurdy Gurdy Man and the solo gets a bit intense. These speakers however were always composed and never gave me a moment where I was - "What was that".
4 - I test almost everything with Bohemian rhapsody, for 2 reasons, I love the song, and it has got everything - almost to test your music system, it is a pretty busy song, and a technical marvel for it's time. The sound engineers had a ball. Youtube has a small documentary on this song. The speakers however, never choked, they did whatever they did with a reasonable amount of authority and accuracy.
5 - No cabinet vibrations, channel separation is very good and sound stage is quite deep, though not very wide, wide enough that it is beyond the speakers by maybe a feet or two.
6 - Foam bungs atleast in my situation make them quite a bit more composed. Guttural voices like that of Louis Armstrong, get snappier instead of booming forever, it makes the bass decay a lot more accurate.

Now all good things aside - they pretty much fall flat - when it comes to anything busier. Play Led Zeppelin's Black Dog and it is a big mush. Given their mid/bass driver size it was expected that they might not be the best at reproducing busy rock, however, they muddle it up quite a bit - it is like a marriage band. I played a number of busy songs from LedZep, AC/DC, GnR, Aerosmith, Radiohead and a lot more and they were quite - WTF. However, Pink Floyd, almost all of Temptations, Sly and the family stones, Kool and the gang, Most of RHCP, rolling stones were very enjoyable indeed.

See this is where I am confused. All songs played were FLAC files - similar quality if not exact. It did an incredible job of recreating - Dragon attack for example, but a Black Dog was just noisy. No coherence what so ever. Doors was incredible, but Baba O' Reilly was muddy if not incomprehensible. It is not that it fails completely when it comes to rock, not at all, it just does it really badly on some tracks and some artists and sadly I love Led Zep. Maybe adding the sub might give them a little more room to breathe, I really hope or it will be heartbreaking.

Anything quieter, musical, they are amazing at reproducing, absolutely anything - Wish you were here, was a delight, so was Protobello belle. Devil baby had this sweetness I have personally never heard from a speaker system, only my IEMs can do anything close to what these C20s did.

I was unable to tell much of a difference between the wired and wireless connection, though I feel wireless sounded mildly better in lower frequency. I FEEL.

Spotifying the same tracks, was obviously a little less resolving, however, not bad at all - I was surprised how good Spotify sounded, and in real world situation that is going to be my go to.

I will keep updating my findings here, as I get a little accustomed to them, ear burn -in.

Hi, Looksike you fixed the problem with your Sub, I was wondering if you have tried the digital filter in Audiolab 6000A. I have the same amp and I found that the filters change the overall sound presentation quite a bit. I found the Slow Filter to be more suited for 'busy' music like Led Zeppelin or The Who. On an aside, some of the Led Zeppelin remasters has issues with dynamic range and compression. I prefer the sound of the older recordings of Led Zeppelin.

 

[chander]

Hey @shyamv, I have not really gone into the system and tweaked it at all. It is all straight out of the box The sub took care of everything . That could be the reason, I mostly had the FLACs of the remasters, but a lot of other stuff sounded really bad too

 

[Miany]

Hey @shyamv, I have not really gone into the system and tweaked it at all. It is all straight out of the box The sub took care of everything . That could be the reason, I mostly had the FLACs of the remasters, but a lot of other stuff sounded really bad too

Happy to know that you are satisfied with the sound now. Enjoy!!