Q ACOUSTICS 3020i Bookshelf Speakers Pair Carbon Black - Featuring 2-way Reflex Enclosure Type, 125mm (5") Bass Driver, and 22mm (0.9") Tweeter - Stereo Speakers Hifi/Passive Speakers

I was on the lookout for a pair of speakers to go with my home office hi-fi. Hours of online videos and reviews convinced me that you seem to get a lot for your money with this brand. I paid £179 (delivered) so it seemed like a price worth gambling on. My pair arrived two days ago. I got them out of the box and was immediately impressed with the build and finish of the speakers. I’ll be keeping them out of reach of my 4-year-old as the tweeters look delicate, but the cabinets have decent weight and feel solid. First sound impression – I tried these on my main hi-fi, in our dining room. It’s the largest room in the house and it’s an old house with high ceilings. (I have a subwoofer on that system but turned it off for the initial listen to the Q Acoustics.) My initial response was mixed. There was a lot of good – all very clear, vocals and acoustic instruments sounded excellent but apart from some punchy kick drums, I really couldn’t hear any of the great bass I’d heard so much about in all the reviews. I turned on the subwoofer and balanced it with the speakers and things really improved. (I know "bookshelf" speakers of this size aren’t bass monsters, but I’ve had a pair of similar spec/size Mission speakers in the same spot, and they delivered more bass than these Q Acoustics.) I was a little deflated at this point – My experience wasn’t quite as exciting as all the reviews had led me to believe it might be. Yesterday I decided that there’s hardly likely to be a great big conspiracy, dozens of reviews all celebrating these speakers and mine just being ok. I assumed/hoped that these speakers were just not designed to fill larger rooms as the main speakers. So, I set them up on a NAD amp in a much smaller bedroom which is roughly the size of the office (currently being decorated so can’t set up in there) (Roughly 3m x 2.5m.) The difference was incredible – For £179 these speakers are excellent. It’s early days and I’m not by any means an expert but my first impressions are – There’s a lot of defined space and as weird as it sounds, the silences are noticeable, they seem to be very clear in the gaps where there is no music. I would say the speakers do electronic music well, but they do really well on organic instruments like strings/piano/guitars/vocals and the bass was there, punchy on beats and warm on bass lines, and not that false boomy bass you sometimes get with smaller speakers. I do think a sub would still help with the lower registers but overall, they’re ace. Highs are clear and really pleasant, no sign of painful trebly sounds on cymbals etc. In summary: Excellent speakers, well worth the money I paid – Work best in a small to medium room. Low end seems to disappear in larger spaces. Would also work really well in a home cinema.

I've had these for about 6 months now. They are wonderful-sounding, well-built/finished speakers for the price, and have responded to improvements like better speaker cables, Atacama nexus 6i speaker stands, and very recently, a REL T0 mark 2 subwoofer. I bought them at £199 and to get better, I think I'd have to spend at least twice or even three times as much - only the Acoustic Energy AE300, which costs £600 a pair, has sounded like a worthwhile upgrade to me, but I'm not prepared at present to spend that much. I'd rather spend it on additional kit like the stands and subwoofer, which I can continue to use if and when I upgrade the speakers. They are very easy to listen to: not at all fatiguing, and I can enjoy them for hours at a time. They image well, the sound stage being wide and high and deep with good separation between voices and/or instruments. For their size, the bass, even without a subwoofer, is pretty good, with its extension down to 64 hz. However, the treble and midrange is, I find, the star of the show. Adding a good subwoofer just completes the total range of frequencies covered and generally improves the sound stage and clarity somewhat. The key word is musical. With or without a subwoofer, these speakers play tunes and let you forget about analysing too much, because among other things, their level of detail is very good and you rarely have to strain to discern what's going on. You can just sit back and enjoy favourite tracks of whatever genre turns you on, be it classical, popular, jazz, country, folk, blues... I've listened to them all, and nothing has sounded lacking. Just don't buy them if you like forward and brighter-sounding speakers -- they're quite warm and I find the sound stage foms a semi-circle largely behind the plane of the speakers. Suits me and many others well, but it might not you, perhaps especially if you have an equally warm-sounding amplifier: it might prove too much of a good thing for you. They're forgiving of placement, but might just need a bit of experimenting with how much they are toed in and how wide apart you space them. I have the left speaker flat on, and the right, about five feet away, near a window, is slightly toed in as that seems to compensate for the sound reflections. But they sound pretty good most places I tried them; they even sound good way off axis at the other side of my listening room, which is about 19' by 11.5' (I listen at one end, across the short axis of the room). They sound best on stands some way from the wall. Q acoustics provide foam bungs for the rear ports (be careful not to insert them too far lest you lose them inside the cabinet!) to reduce bass boom from a nearby wall. I'd say they are too deep for an average bookshelf, but if one's shelves _are_ deep enough and all one can use, I'd try isolating them as best I could with spikes, pucks or short stands, and use the bungs. I recommend these speakers unreservedly; it's certainly the best £199 I ever spent on hi-fi gear, and even at their present price on Amazon of £219, imho, they're still an absolute bargain. Not so long ago, you could easily have paid much more for their like. Edit: Well, I've now had them for about 15 months and still use them as fronts in my surround system, but have upgraded my stereo system to include a pair of Quad S2s which are three times the price and sound significantly better -- but they should! My recommendation still stands; at the price, it's very difficult to better them.

These Q acoustic speakers are superb great clarity brilliant functionality very easy to set up fantastic quality very clear audio with great bass

Really rich sound from these fairly small bookshelf speakers. Beautiful design and great build quality for the price. They look great with the grills off but would benefit from decent speaker stands which will cost as much as the speakers.

The sound of these 3020i speakers are worth every penny, I've paired these with Denon D-M41DAB. The high notes are crisp and clear the bass is low without any rumble, but I think a good pair of speaker stands really help.

Absolutely brilliant speakers, beautifully built, and the sound quality is stunning, I've had speakers that have cost over 5 times as much yet don't sound as Good as these.

I like the speaker, rich sound, they look good, one's the best so far, for me. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

I've only ever had micro systems, so I finally decided to upgrade my hifi gear to separate components. I went for a Wiim Ultra, an Aiyima A07 Max amp, a Sound BlasterX G6 as a DAC and the 3020i speakers. The speakers alone cost the same as some of my previous micro systems have, so this is quite an upgrade. It's difficult not to be impressed by these speakers, as they sound so much better than all of my previous equipment. I'm very limited for space, so the system is still set up like a micro system with the components in between the speakers. And despite how close together the speakers are a lot of my music sounds much wider than I expected. They also go far louder than I would ever need to listen to them. The amp dial's off position is about the 7 o'clock position and 9 o'clock is quite loud enough! I listen to anything from orchestral movie scores, some pop music, rock, punk a tiny bit of metal and some jazzy music and everything sounds great. What I've noticed is the instruments are more accurately represented and sound more realistic. I'm picking up much more tiny detail like fingers and plectrums on guitar strings that previously I either couldn't hear or weren't as pronounced. Things like snare drums also sound a bit more airy and you get more of an idea of the space they were recorded in. If I were to be critical I'd say the bass won't trouble the neighbours. My amp has a sub output, which might be my next upgrade but it's not absolutely critical. Also, the speakers are quite deep, which might affect where you can put them like for me, but they come with foam bungs for the ports so that any proximity to a wall won't affect the sound quality. Overall I'm very pleased with them.