• Impressive sound with music and movies
• Potent subwoofer
• Various mounting options

• High-gloss black attracts the dust
• That's it...

Loudspeaker technology has long dictated that to make decent levels of sound you basically need big boxes and drive units. All that changed a little while back when a collection of clever audio techs invented a new form of flat panel driver system. It goes by a couple of names - NXT, or what we have here, BMR.

Design and features

BMR, or Balanced Mode Radiator to use its full title, are advanced single driver speakers with small dimensions but full bandwidth and wide dispersion characteristics. The basic idea is small speakers, big sound.

Seriously compact cubes, the Minx family comprises two different satellites and there are three subwoofers to match. We put together this system using the smallest - five Min10 sats and X200 sub. Measuring a mere respective 78mm and 203mm square, the satellites take up hardly any space plus there are a variety of mounting options so room placement is very flexible.

Cambridge Audio has done a great job on the build and finish and the scratch-resistant white or black high-gloss lacquer looks suitably stylish.

Performance

The Minx is not the first of its kind; Mission's M-Cubes impressed us a couple of years ago when first released. The Cambridge Audio system is very similar in design and operation, but offers greater choice and is quite a bit more affordable. In its most basic form the Minx can be used as a 2.1-channel configuration, which is fine for stereo use. As such, the sub/sat combo produces some eminently listenable tunes combining fine imaging and stereo separation with depth of soundstage and genuine substance from the X200 subwoofer. It packs a particularly hefty punch for one so small - thanks to the nifty active/passive sub-radiator configuration. This means a trio of 140mm woofers dish out the bass with 200 watts of power to the active driver. We found it better reinforced the lower frequencies by placing it in a room corner, but even free-standing, the X200 is never short on lower hertz.

Adding the additional three Min10 satellites, the system really comes into its own as a full surround configuration. If you've a 7.1-channel AV receiver, adding another couple of sats is always another option. Running in 5.1 and hooked up to a Blu-ray source and an Onkyo AV receiver the tiny Cambridge Audios are capable of producing quite a home theatre din. It's far from an unpleasant noise though with more than their fair share of surround sound finesse and aptitude. This was plain to hear with more subtle effects from movie soundtracks such as Babel. Speech and dialogue is locked centrally and the remaining satellites steer effects, such as that long-range gunshot, with tremendous accuracy and dexterity.

As the pace hots up, so too does the Minx collective delivering action sequences with ample drive and impact. Still one of the loudest and most dynamic movie sequences, the depth charge explosions of U-571 can have most AV speaker systems in a flap. Admittedly, the Minx can only be pushed so far, but we were impressed just how composed the system remained even when cranked up to quite anti-social volume levels. We didn't dare try and push them up to Reference Level - the system's not been designed to achieve such lofty sound pressure levels. To its credit, our reasonably large 7x 4m listening room was no problem to fill with involving, powerful and wholly convincing surround soundfields.

Conclusion

Small, perfectly formed and capable of sound as big as Ben Hur, Cambridge Audio's Minx package is a tasty little number. It's as happy delivering music as it is the latest movie blockbuster and taking up so little space, it'll no doubt be a hit with "the partner" indoors also. Great design, slick looks (albeit a dust magnet) and true home theatre performance with all manner of material makes this a sure-fired winner.

• Cambridge Audio 650R
• Yamaha YHT-492AU
• Q Acoustics 2000 Cinema Package
• Cambridge Audio Azur 650BD

• Superb recording and playback quality
• Feature-laden
• Well built and finished

• Sheer complexity
• Outdated menus
• Pricey

Blu-ray has finally gained widespread mainstream acceptance as the HD disc format of choice, and we've recently seen players hit the sub-AU$100 mark, such as the rather stupendous value Soniq QPB302B. This sort of machine is a great entry-level buy, but what if you want your BD player to do a bit more than simply play Blu-ray discs? Then you'll need something like this: the Panasonic DMR-BW880 Blu-ray recorder/PVR, which will, with patience, provide all manner of HD video and audio convergence.

Design

Sharing the current Panasonic "look" for its DVD/BD hardware, the BW880 sports a metallic-lined front fascia with both disc draw, on-board controls and more hidden behind a couple of drop-down flaps. A flip reveals such hidden assets as a DV-in, SD card slot, USB input, composite video and stereo audio inputs, plus the basic functions of play, stop, record and channel selection. Everything else is on the remote, which is (understandably) quite a button-busy handset. Physically, the BW880 shares the same size footprint as your average slimline BD player.

Features

Replacing the DMR-BW850, the BW880 adds a couple of noteworthy extra features and a price drop, but at AU$1199 it's still a relatively expensive machine compared to some hardware alternatives. Internal HDD memory has remained the same as the previous model at 500GB hard drive (Japanese buyers of the local BW880 do twice as well with a 1TB minimum HDD ... why is that?) and the twin, high-definition tuners are the same as before. Feature-wise, this model adds DLNA media sharing over a home network compared to its predecessor. The twin tuners mean you can simultaneously record/watch digital TV broadcasts and the 500GB capacity equates to around 350 hours of HD quality recording or 885 hours of standard definition.

The DLNA networking capability is extremely useful, but only if your home's already networked and set-up for such. If so, and you've the technical know-how, the BW880's content can be shared on any other DLNA-compliant media devices on the network, such as streamers, laptops or desktop PCs. Other external devices, such as digital cameras, camcorders or MP3 players can be plugged in to either the SD card slot or USB port. What's more, the DMR-BW880 also supports Panasonic's Viera Cast service - connect it to your broadband and it'll stream photos and video via YouTube and Picasa.

At the back are all the usual connection types, including a single HDMI output (surely, two would have been no hassle to include?), as well as the garden variety component, S-Video, and composite video ins and outs. A single coaxial input and output make the antenna connection and again it would have been handy to provide twin ins and outs for both on-board tuners. Finally, digital audio is outputted as you'd expect as bitstream or PCM via both coaxial and optical outputs.

The remote is the same sort that Panasonic's been using for a while now and with the Viera Link it has clearly been designed for use with Panasonic's range of LCD and plasma TVs.

Performance

Depending on how far you want to delve, buyers of this recorder will probably want to take it one step at a time, given the sheer amount of features and functions. If you could never program the VCR, we'd recommend you read the manual with this one before attempting any fancy recording footwork. It's a complex beast to use and the rather dated menu system also doesn't help matters much.

Once you've overcome this initial hurdle and eased yourself in, the Panasonic's performance will have you smiling. We didn't encounter any problems with the on-board tuners (as commonly reported online), which was apparently an RF attenuation issue. Digital TV reception for us was great - both tuners locked on to and held channels solidly, even during a typical Sydney late afternoon electrical storm; reception didn't waver.

Thankfully, recording from the twin tuners proved relatively straightforward and most moderately techno-savvy users will soon be able to time shift and capture favourite TV programs. Of particular use here is the seven-day Electronic Program Guide (EPG), which does away with worrying about the time and day of the week you want to record - all you need do is select your favourite programs by name. Another couple of recording features we found useful were the Direct TV Record, which starts recording quickly with a couple of button presses and you can pause live TV, handy for when the phone goes or the baby's nappy needs changing. Hit the pause button on the remote and it'll temporarily cache the channel you're watching for up to eight hours.

Picture quality, no matter which variety, was impressive. Recording to either the HDD or a BD-R disc (25 or 50GB capacities) captured all of the original's definition and clarity. Switch between the playback source and HD recording and you simply cannot tell them apart - of course dropping to SD and the compression in the picture quality became obvious, but it's still perfectly watchable. Hooked up to our Full HD Sony LCD display, the BW880 looked every bit as good as Panasonic's BD-only players. Spinning an imported, region-free BD of Apocalypse Now: Full Disclosure, the visual magic of this masterpiece was pristinely apparent. Rich in colour and texture, the Panasonic provided spectacular-looking HD imagery, even with a film that was cut some 31 years ago.

It's not all about the picture though and the DMR-BW880 will play all manner of audio too. On-board processing handles all the new audio formats, plus it'll play a fair few disc types including plain old garden variety CDs through to ripped MP3 audio. As a music player it's a pleasant enough sounding device, especially for a PVR.

Conclusion

As a device that'll do it all, the DMR-BW880 has most tasks covered and is one of the better feature-laden PVRs around at the moment. It's hindered by its own complexity though, making it generally unpleasant to actually use. We can see how many prospective PVR buyers will be swayed by the long list of thing's it'll do, but if it's simplicity you're after we recommend you look elsewhere.

• Panasonic DMR-BW750
• LG HR559D
• LG HR599D
• Panasonic DMR-XW450

Eight years in the planning, it has taken a while for Australia to follow in the likes of the UK's DAB broadcasting footsteps, but it was the first country in the world to introduce the new, more bandwidth-efficient standard: DAB+.

DAB+ offers more stations with better reception, much improved stereo audio quality and accompanying text information; plus it's all free. So, what's the catch? If you think you'd like to hear (and see) what all the fuss is about, you're going to have to buy a new radio. Yes, DAB+ radios are popping up all over the place, from handheld portables to bedside clock radios to full-size home stereo components. Here is a round-up to give you a taste of what DAB+ has to offer.

For a more comprehensive explanation of this new digital radio phenomenon, check out our feature Digital radio: All you need to know.

Location plays a big part in actual DAB+ reception, and many of the radios here were tested on the lower Central Coast, north of Sydney - for more info check www.digitalradioplus.com.au, which lists coverage and station availability nationwide.

• Philips DAB AE5230 Radio
• Bush BR10DAB
• Cambridge Audio Azur 650T DAB+
• Sangean WFT-1D+

• Great looking BD performance
• Respectable load/play times
• Ridiculously good value

• No Wi-Fi streaming
• Basic remote

Come council clean-up day, you'll often see empty Soniq cardboard boxes awaiting kerbside collection. The brand's plasma and LCD TVs are notoriously inexpensive and popular as a result, primarily sold through JB Hi-Fi stores and occasionally online. Its product range is rapidly expanding and definitely price-driven as this Blu-ray player (one of two current models) clearly demonstrates.

Design and features

Unpacking the QPB302B, the player certainly looks the part and has some weight behind it, well 2.3kg to be precise, which for a slimline unit is respectably substantial. It's quite solid and feels well made compared to the usual standard of other "no-name" brands. Power up time was quick - the drawer opened and closed smoothly and generally the Soniq makes a favourable first impression.

At the time of writing this, JB was offering the Soniq for the "hot" price of just AU$99. We sauntered in to our local store and were even able to squeeze a few more bucks off this low price. So, it's definitely affordable, but like super-inexpensive DVD players, are you simply getting what you pay for?

The Soniq will play a decent variety of disc types and formats including DivX Plus HD, MP3, WMA and CD Audio playback, and will upscale DVD to 1080p. At this bargain basement level, it's one thing to claim what it'll play (MP3, WMA and CD Audio playbacks), but actually doing so can be a different story. We'd heard reports that this player can struggle with certain discs, mainly flatly refusing to play some DVDs, so we ran through plenty of discs to see how it would cope.

A standard remote handset is supplied, it's nothing flash and isn't backlit, but does the job.

Outputs are also standard fare comprising a single HDMI (1.3a), component, S-Video and composite. There are both optical and coaxial digital outs and the player's on-board decoding handles DTS-HD Master Audio as well as the usual Dolby flavours. It'll also do BD-Live (2.0) via Ethernet and has a handy front USB port.

Performance

First up was taking stock of power-up and load times. After pressing the power button, there is a short delay with just a solitary LED alight, and it appears not much is going on. Over in a flash, the player gets straight down to business. The drawer can be immediately ejected/loaded and it doesn't dawdle getting BDs to play - we timed your average disc to take around 20 seconds from no to go. Comparatively, this is on par with much dearer players and left our two-year-old resident Samsung BD-P1500 for dead, loading in around half the time.

Our review sample popped up an initial message saying that something called the "BUDA" was being checked and that it wasn't ready and that playback might not work. Further investigation (online) revealed this is something to do with BD-Live and is the given folder name where the player stores content to external memory. If it didn't pop up every time a BD was loaded, it would save a couple of precious pre-playing seconds and we couldn't find any way of disabling it nor any mention in the instructions.

Once a BD image pops up on screen, you soon forget about this minor annoyance. Closest to hand for our first look was a copy of Fool's Gold, not the most intellectually stimulating of films, but a bright, crisp BD transfer, full of vibrancy and excellent colour spectrum. Unwittingly, we found ourselves drawn into watching the silly opening boat sinking sequence, not because of the lame humour, but simply by how good the Soniq's image looked.

Feeding an Optoma HD20 projector, our LP Morgan screen came alive with a fantastically vivid and well detailed picture. It was all there - natural-looking colours; tanned, but very human-looking flesh tones; fine detail retrieval, even in complex scenes and a general look of a player far more expensive. The other BD player we had on hand was a NuForce-worked Oppo BDP-83SE, with a price tag over 20 times that of the Soniq. Sure, it looked better; sounded better and is perhaps about the best BD machine around, but the maths simply entered the steepest curve of diminishing returns comparing an AU$2300 player with one that can be had for under a hundred bucks. OK, you tend to get what you pay for in this game, but occasionally a veritable bargain comes along and this Soniq is without doubt an HD steal.

All Blu-ray fodder we popped in the tray looked great - we didn't even have to delve too far into the player's configuration or set-up to make things look pretty. The Soniq also scrubbed up old, re-mastered material really well, such as Close Encounters of the Third Kind and 2001: A Space Odyssey, both of which show their age a bit on BD, but still provide a decent enough visual HD challenge. The same went for good old DVDs and using only the Soniq's upscaling, we were once more pleasantly surprised at the quality achieved by this player. It managed a better job than the vast majority of standard-definition DVD players and showed no signs of throwing in the towel during playback, with both legit and bootleg software - not during the three weeks we had it playing.

Firmware is king with many a Blu-ray/DVD player's functionality and general operation, and this Soniq is no different. An online search reveals user problems with certain disc types - even title specific. Soniq's recently released a firmware update for this player (v3.0) and with this installed it never refused to play a disc nor froze while doing so. We'd heard that this was the case with a few users, but can't say it was ever an issue with our player.

Conclusion

Even if you have to pay full RRP on the Soniq you've still got yourself a Blu-ray bargain. If there are any still in stock, buy two or three and give one to your mum, she'll be chuffed to bits. Blu-ray's getting more affordable and this Soniq represents a new low price tag without skimping at all on overall performance.

• Kogan Blu-ray player
• Pioneer BDP-120
• Sony BDP-S360
• LG BD370

Eight years in the planning, it has taken a while for Australia to follow in the likes of the UK's DAB broadcasting footsteps, but it is now the first country in the world to introduce the new, more bandwidth-efficient standard: DAB+.

DAB+ offers more stations with better reception, much improved stereo audio quality and accompanying text information; plus it's all free. So, what's the catch? If you think you'd like to hear (and see) what all the fuss is about, you're going to have to buy a new radio. Yes, DAB+ radios are popping up all over the place, from handheld portables to bedside clock radios to full-size home stereo components. Here is a round-up to give you a taste of what DAB+ has to offer.

For a more comprehensive explanation of this new digital radio phenomenon, check out our feature Digital radio: All you need to know.

Location plays a big part in actual DAB+ reception, and many of the radios here were tested on the lower Central Coast, north of Sydney - for more info check www.digitalradioplus.com.au, which lists coverage and station availability nationwide.

• Philips DAB AE5230 Radio
• Cambridge Audio Azur 650T DAB+
• Bush BR10DAB
• Sangean WFT-1D+

• Compact size
• Impressive big HD images
• Great blacks and natural colours
• Value for money with long lamp life

The bad

• Prefers permanent placement
• Only one HDMI input
• Dust magnet

While its local automotive division had a series of hiccups in recent years, Mitsubishi Electric seems to be weathering the global financial storm quite nicely. Aside from a vast array of domestic and commercial air conditioning and a range of household refrigerators, Mitsubishi Electric also includes four home theatre projectors. It too has brought 1080p projection to a far more affordable level lately, and the HC3800 has proved one of its more popular models.

Design and features

Encased in shiny black plastic, this is a serious dust magnet, as are all high-gloss electronics. Physically, the Mitsubishi is a similar size to the Optoma HD20 and BenQ W1000, which is well proportioned if you’re opting for table-top use. It can, of course, be ceiling mounted and has top cover access so the projector doesn’t have to be removed to change the lamp. Speaking of which, Mitsubishi rates it good for 5000 hours in “Low” mode making it one the longest-lasting of any manufacturer. A replacement is going to cost around AU$550 making it a lot dearer than that of the BenQ for example, so factor this in when weighing up the pros and cons of lamp replacement cost versus hours of use. But, if it lasts as long as Mitsubishi claims, the long-term running costs of the HC3800 would be comparatively very affordable.

There’s only the one HDMI input, compared to the mandatory two (or more) that you’ll find on any of the competition, plus component video, VGA, S-Video and composite options. No manual lens shifting means installation could be a bit tricky, although the installation menu does offer a vertical shift option. Control is via a serial input RS-232 and there’s a 12v trigger to enable powered screens.

When it comes to the number crunching, the Mitsubishi’s on par with what you’d expect at this resolution, projection type and price. The specs tell us there are 1300 lumens, combined with a contrast ratio of 3300:1. Coupled with a 1.5x zoom lens, you’ll be able to happily view things in “Low” lamp mode, making full use of those extra lamp hours without worrying about lack of brightness.

The supplied remote is basic, but functional and the buttons are backlit so you’re not left fumbling in the dark. There are the usual accessories available too, such as a ceiling mount and the warranty extends to a two-year parts and labour on the projector, while the lamp is covered for one year or 500 hours, depending on which comes first.

Performance

We were expecting great things from this affordable projector, but a few hurdles had to be overcome before we could say we were happy with its picture and set-up. Coffee table-mounting proved a bit fiddly: the HC3800 has to be pretty much at the right height and angle before it’ll fill the screen accurately, with the vertical image shifting, which proved to be helpful, but not overly so. The HC3800 would be much better off ceiling mounted and set-up the once - it doesn’t have the sort of temporary placement flexibility of either the BenQ W1000 or Optoma HD20. We also needed a touch of keystone correction, but couldn’t quite get the same tight lines (both vertically and horizontally) as we did with the more expensive Sony VPLHW15, which fitted our LP Morgan screen like a glove.

Then it was onto the picture that needed calibrating from the factory defaults. Once again, have a stab at it yourself with a calibration DVD or Blu-ray disc, or if you don’t trust your own eyes, a professional will get the projector looking its absolute best, both during the day and at night. We ended up running the HC3800 in Low mode as it produced ample light output and even dropped the brightness levels a touch further in the settings. The Gamma mode was left on Auto and we turned the BrilliantColor off to ensure there was none of the hard edge ghosting that it tends to inflict on strong colours. We also left the Mitsubishi’s Colour Management off. There are plenty of adjustment options including an Advanced picture menu, but for the most part, the few tweaks we made produced excellent quality images.

Solid blacks with good depth; plenty of high, strong contrast; bold, stable colours and razor sharp detail levels are what this Mitsubishi dishes up with HD content. Avatar came alive with all its colourful palette and extraordinary detail there to behold. Although very good, the Mitsubishi is still a notch behind the likes of the Sony VPLHW15 for sheer visual punch, but it comfortably holds its own compared to the similarly priced Epson EH-TW3500 and offers more than both the Optoma HD20 and BenQ W1000.

We didn’t notice any rainbow effect during any of the testing, and when we played the DVD of Sin City it showed this was still the case with black-and-white material, plus the Mitsubishi demonstrated its accurate processing of film or video-based standard-definition material. Not all digital light processing do such a good job here, but we have no complaints about how the HC3800 handled itself.

It’s also nice and quiet; sitting directly behind we weren’t ever reminded audibly of its presence. It’s whisper quiet in Low mode and hardly a few decibels louder in Standard, but still never a distraction while in use.

Conclusion

The HD image quality of this Mitsubishi and its longer lamp life are the keys to this projector’s appeal. Shopping around will secure one for around AU$2500 or slightly less, making this an excellent value 1080p projector. It’s not the most table-top-friendly plus there’s only that one HDMI input, but if you can forgive these shortcomings the HC3800 is an excellent choice among the current affordable 1080p crop.

Related Articles

• Mitsubishi HC6500
• BenQ W1000
• Sony VPLHW10 SXRD Home Theatre Projector
• Mitsubishi Electric HC7000

• Flexibility of placement
• Easy to initially install
• Can produce stunning images

The bad

• Looks best after proper calibration
• Some motion blurring
• Physically big

With its background firmly entrenched in all things to do with printing, Epson is a company that knows a thing or several about reproducing images. It has subsequently applied this pixel reproducing know-how to front projection for quite some time now and lays claim to the world’s first LCD video imaging projector launched back in 1989. Fast forward some 21 years and Epson has a multitude of models on offer, with this, the EH-TW3500, being its most affordable 1080p home theatre projector thus far.

Design and features

The EH-TW3500 is a big beastie and needs either a solid ceiling mount or a large coffee table to accommodate it. Once that’s been taken care of, the ‘3500 offers a massive amount of 1080p home theatre projection for its sub-AU$3000 price tag. Shop around and you’ll easily bag one for around two and a half grand.

Its projection system is based around Crystal Clear Fine’s 3LCD technology, which uses three individual LCD panels as opposed to a single chip design. Said benefits are supposedly no more “Rainbow Effect” (colour break up) and higher Colour Light Output (CLO), a relatively new method of measuring colour in a similar vein as light output (ANSI lumens) is measured. As always, take such specs purely as a guideline, not gospel, as there are many ways companies come by these figures. The proof’s always in the pudding, not on paper.

The specs impress - a contrast ratio of 36,000:1 with both CLO and normal brightness rated at 1800 lumens. These figures stack up compared to the competition at the price, but do they translate to fancy looking, bright and colourful pixels? Another figure to be aware of is the lamp life which is rated at 4000 hours (normal) and expect to pay around AU$500 for a genuine Epson replacement.

One of the beauties of this projector is its flexibility with positioning, thanks mainly to its x2.1 optical zoom and horizontal/vertical lens shift. Keystone correction is a thing of the past with these features and sure enough, it’s a breeze to accurately fill the screen as we quickly found out. There’s no need to adjust feet, or mess around with software settings, it’s more a case of simply pointing and shooting with this Epson.

Finally, a decent remote accompanies the projector and its big backlit buttons are perfectly tactile in the darkest of rooms.

Performance

Set atop a coffee table, the Epson did not take long to get up and running. Taking a look in its set-up configuration we found it necessary to make a few amendments from the default norm before we were truly happy with the image quality. It’s best to stick with Epson’s “Natural” colour mode when calibrating the picture and we also found the “x.v.Color” mode the more natural-looking. Once you scratch the surface of the myriad of adjustments, it can get a bit daunting, so use a calibration DVD or Blu-ray to help, or best of all, allow a professional to calibrate the projector for you - it’s well worth it.

We also played around with the Epson’s auto iris setting (which incidentally doesn’t apply in x.v.Color mode) and generally preferred the image quality with it in its “Normal” mode. To our eyes this served up the best blacks (deep and reasonably solid), and the darker CGI scenes of Terminator: Salvation looked impressively textured, rich and well-defined. Here too plenty of shadow detail retrieval was clearly evident and during the initial Skynet battle scenes, the Epson had no problem with contrast and dark tone levels. We did notice a little bit of edge blurring with rapid horizontal movement, but it was never distracting and you probably wouldn’t even notice if you weren’t looking for it.

The EH-TW3500 is sufficiently bright to handle some ambient room light and if you do want to use it in a less than dark room, switching the auto-iris to “High” or using “Dynamic” mode will help with these situations. Fan noise gets a bit louder when it’s operated brighter, but even so it’s hardly noticeable. In quieter operation the Epson’s super-silent.

Flesh tones and the Epson’s colour palette were also both well rendered. We loved the colour balance it achieved with HD content; it’s got that ability to reproduce 1080p colours with real vibrancy - the BD of Casino Royale, for example, never once looked over-cooked or over-saturated as we’ve seen from less capable projectors. Colour tones here were natural and well balanced; close-ups of 007’s rugged features looked realistic and suitably cool; never too warm or flat. Such scenes had plenty of visual punch - just what you’d expect from a decent LCD such as this.

It dishes up plenty of detail also, both from HD and SD content - we fed it some upconverted DVD and it still managed to look alive and dynamic, not to the same extent as with 1080p HD material, but impressively watchable nonetheless. It’s perhaps too nice a projector for gaming, especially if you go the trouble of having it properly calibrated, but if little Johnny insists in plugging in a console, he’ll be blown away playing on a screen this good.

Finally, the remote proved simple but effective and we never experienced any abnormalities while the Epson was projecting. Once set up and running, it should give you hour after hour of effortless projection.

Conclusion

For under AU$3000 the Epson is a lot of impressive HD projection for the money. It pays to calibrate things properly, which will reward the viewer with sumptuous, bright and highly involving images. At this price level, it’s decidedly competitive.

Related Articles

• Sanyo PLV-Z3000
• Mitsubishi HC6500
• Optoma HD20
• Maxon Visimax Projector

We last looked at its innovative Q-TV2; a bolt-on 2.1-channel speaker system for flat panel TVs, and now it’s the turn of the more conventional 2000 Cinema Package - a compact 5.1-channel AV speaker system.

Design and features

Four identical bookshelf speakers, the 2010s, a single 2000C centre speaker and 2070S active subwoofer make up the package, plus there are optional stands and wall brackets available for different mounting positions. Four finishes are available - walnut and graphite black (AU$1599 RRP) or high gloss white or black options which add AU$200 to the price. Our system came in the shiny white and visually the 2000s look super sleek. Construction and finish are both excellent.

The 2010 and 2000C all use the same 100mm bass drivers and 25mm tweeter, while the slimline 2070S subwoofer contains several fancy features. It’s “digital” insomuch as the 140 Watts of on-board power are Class D driving twin 170mm woofers and it employs Digital Signal Processing (DSP) to sonically match it to the partnering speakers. An array of switches on the back panel of the sub allows different operating modes, includes a choice of “Ported” versus “Sealed” for the mains - we chose the former as it suits the 2010s. “Music” and “Movie” modes also alter bass performance, with the latter setting said to offer a bit more grunt for those big dynamic movie moments.

The 2010s’ cable connections are tucked underneath on a base plate which means the speakers can be placed right up against a wall or run through the optional stands’ column to hide the wiring completely. Removable cloth grilles complete the aesthetics and either on or off the system as a whole looks quite inconspicuous and room-friendly.

Performance

Given a week to properly run in, we were keen to hear the 2000s in full surround sound flight and duly loaded up a Blu-ray of the rather excellent Star Trek (2009). There’s plenty of heavy-duty audio to keep the speakers busy and the Qs didn’t mind one bit. We were driving them with an Onkyo AV receiver which had no trouble pushing the 2000s to almost reference level. Despite their compactness the Qs genuinely deliver sound pressure levels far greater than you’d imagine and they do it cleanly too. The film’s battle scenes deliver blockbuster sound at its best and the little Qs make a hell of a din, in a nice, cohesive, dynamic sort of way.

For movie power and punch, the system delivers the big stuff in an almost mocking fashion and we’d imagine most AV amps would run out of steam before the 2000s. They coped admirably with the torture test that is Spielberg’s War of the Worlds and reproduced the “take your breath away” dynamic crunch wonderfully as the tripod emerges from beneath the street.

Some AV speakers tend to sound as subtle as a brick with finer movie details or music; however, the Qs turn on the charm here also. Atmospheric movies like Signs, Das Boot or 2001: A Space Odyssey are deftly handled with you sitting pretty amidst spacious and ambient soundfields. The submariner action of Das Boot places you right there in the claustrophobic U-boat and its crushing depths - those subtle effects that add realism are precisely handled and the Qs steer them with the skills of a champion sheepdog. And if you ever struggle to make sense of home theatre dialogue, the 2000C’s tonal balance and clarity will ensure on-screen speech is delivered intelligible.

As the Q2010s are sold in stereo pairs, they make listening to music just as enjoyable as the 5.1 option. Best used with the subwoofer for bass reinforcement, in 2.1 mode the Q Acoustics play music - all music - in a big, majestic fashion. There’s bags of sparkling, open detail and scintillating midband presence, all of which are qualities that rarely grace AV loudspeakers. Switched to “Music” mode the 2070S sub gels perfectly with the 2010s as satellites filling out the bottom end with sumptuous, fast and tuneful bass. Even without the aid of the sub, the 2010s are still able to make decent thump of their own, especially if you do chuck them right up against the wall. But it’s their abilities in the higher frequencies, especially that silky smooth midband that leaves the most lasting impression.

Conclusion

We’re hard pressed to find fault with this speaker collection - it impresses on all levels. If you have a cavernous room to fill, then it’ll struggle, but for the average living room and home theatre system the 2000 Cinema Package is a superb solution. Movies and music are handled with equal measure, the sub’s various DSP controls all work well and improve its versatility. Excellent build, great looks and a price tag that’s very reasonable all mean this little lot gets a well deserved “Editors’ Choice” recommendation.

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