I just got back home after my first listen to the concept 500's. Haven't even had my lunch yet.... A meal can wait considering my excitement
.
For someone who has had the concept 40's for more than a decade and still love them to bits, it was so heart warmingly joyful to hear the immense strides Qacoustics have made in a decade.
Before I start with my listening impressions, I need to add, that this friend of mine has bat's ears. And he is OCD about setup, cabling and components. He has the ability to make any speaker sound great. And how do I know that
... Because we both started with concept 40's a decade back. He was using a luxman integrated then, and I was using a parasound halo integrated. But his sound was always way superior to mine... Always
.
He eventually moved to the ATC SCM40V2 with nuprime class D mono blocks, and transparent music cabling. This was again a benchmark sound. I have 2 other friends running the same speakers, one at the end of a gryphon and another with a kinki studio. But neither could match his setup skills, and even with way more expensive amplification, they couldn't match his sound.
Lately, this friend of mine was finding the ATC higher frequencies to be too much for him. So he bought the concept 500 blindly based on reviews
. They've broken in for close to a month before I visited him today.
The chain is a mac mini with lpsu, running audirvana into a North star supremo dac, then nuprime evolution one amps powering the concept 500's. I chose all the tracks... And the sound was absolutely stunning
.
The speakers disappeared completely on the annick asvik tracks I played. Next I played thriller by Michael Jackson, the sound stage and imaging and separation was spell bounding. And again it was a vanishing act. The first thing I noticed was that Qacoustics have retained their smooth sounding heritage. But unlike my concept 40's, these are not laid back speakers, though still smooth. They can do rhythm and timing like they chew it. I think these are a ground up new design speakers with some clever cabinetry, and qacoustics went for absolute transparency here, though with smoothness added on top.
The word that comes to mind again and again is holography. They completely disappear from the act, but paint such a 3 dimensional picture of the music. Absolutely stunning
.
Iam smitten now... These will definitely be my next speakers to replace my concept 40's....but the concept 40's just don't die even after 10 years