The Q Acoustics 5040 are a pair of five-star beauties that were 2023 award winners in the 'best floorstanding speaker £500-£1500' category. Now at a mouthwatering price of £789 at Richer Sounds, you'll be hard pressed to find a better hi-fi deal right now.
In our Q Acoustics 5040 review we called them "even-handed performers that simply step out of the way of the music and let it shine." This leads to "a wonderfully expressive and insightful performance that’s class-leading at this level", we found.
That is a whole lot of quality for the money. If you'd prefer a different retailer, then this identical deal is also available at Peter Tyson and Sevenoaks Sound and Vision.
The deal means the 5040s are significantly cheaper than their direct rivals, the five-star Fyne Audio F501E, which currently cost £999 at Peter Tyson.
For your money you get a solid pair of floorstanding speakers with surprisingly capable hardware.
The headline feature is their atypical Continuous Curved Cone mid/bass driver design, which is a departure from the brand's previous midrange hardware that radically changes the 5040s’ sonic character.
The speakers performed excellently during our checks, with the 5040 delivering excellent clarity and detail resolution as well as blissfully expressive dynamics when paired well.
Hence our reviewers’ conclusion:
“The Q Acoustics 5040 are even-handed performers that simply step out of the way of the music and let it shine. When partnered with care, they deliver a wonderfully expressive and insightful performance that’s class-leading at this level."
This is a key reason we gave them the What Hi-Fi? Best Floorstanding Speaker £500-£1000 Award last year.
Our only word of caution is that we really mean it when we say “partnered with care”. The speakers offer 91dB/W/m sensitivity and have a claimed nominal impedance of 6 ohms that drops to a minimum of 3 ohms. In non-technical terms, that means they partner best with a fairly muscly amplifier.
We got the best results when matching them with price-appropriate, powerful amps – specifically the Cambridge Audio CXA81. After that, they still required very careful room placement to truly shine.
If you don’t heed our advice, be warned: the 5040s' neutral tone and impressive levels of transparency for speakers this price will lay bare any shortcomings further up your audio chain.
That caveat aside, unless you’re willing to spend more, the Q Acoustics 5040 are a fantastic set of floorstanding speakers well worth considering, especially at their current price.
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