SoundStage! Access | SoundStageAccess.com (GoodSound.com)

Details: Written by: Thom Moon; Created: 15 October 2025

Founded in 2006, the UK speaker brand Q Acoustics is about to conclude its teenage years. For a while now I’ve wanted to audition one of its speakers, and recently I had that opportunity. Armour Home Electronics, which also owns QED cables and Goldring cartridges, “started Q Acoustics specifically to offer good-value speakers no matter the price category,” PR manager Nick Renshaw told me as we discussed the possibility of a review. He suggested I check out the 3020c, the middle standmount model in the new 3000c series. The 3020c is sold in pairs for US$829, CA$829.99, £399, or €499.

Q Acoustics

Description

Measuring 10.9″H × 6.9″W × 11.1″D, the 3020c is quite compact; but at 12.1 pounds, it’s pretty hefty for its size. The cabinet is made from 16mm MDF and the baffle from 25mm HDF for extra strength. Each speaker has threaded inserts in the base for secure mounting on Q Acoustics stands. Like all speakers in the 3000c series, the 3020c is available in four finishes: Satin Black, Satin White, Claro Walnut (a medium walnut finish), and Pin Oak (a light finish). The fit and finish are impeccable. These are among the most attractive speakers I’ve ever had in my system. My décor-conscious wife even agreed that they were good looking.

The speakers come with fabric grilles that attach to the cabinets with magnets. My Claro Walnut review pair had black grilles. Remove the grilles and you’re greeted with attractive, satin metallic trim that is bonded to the front baffles to suppress vibration within each baffle.

All 3000c-series speakers feature Q Acoustics’ P2P (Point to Point) internal bracing to reduce panel resonance. This system improves image specificity, the company claims.

Q Acoustics

The 4.75″ midrange-woofer features C³ (Continuous Curved Cone) technology, which is said to combine the advantages of a straight conic profile and a flared cone. Compared to a flared cone, a straight conic profile provides deeper bass extension and greater bass output, but suffers undesirable breakup modes at higher frequencies. A flared cone better controls breakup at higher frequencies, but is less rigid at lower frequencies. Benefits of the C³ design include improved bass dynamics, smoother frequency response, and more seamless integration with the tweeter.

The 0.9″ soft-dome tweeter is crossed over to the midrange-woofer at 2.6kHz using second-order filters. It’s housed in a vented subenclosure and mechanically isolated from the front baffle so that it is unaffected by cabinet vibrations and internal pressure variations.

Specified frequency response is 60Hz–30kHz (-6dB); sensitivity is 87dB (2.83V/m), fairly typical for a speaker of this size. The speaker’s nominal impedance is 6 ohms, with a minimum impedance of 3.7 ohms. Recommended amplifier power is 25 to 90Wpc.

Setup

The packaging for the 3020c is among the most protective I’ve ever seen. The two speakers are nestled in molded cardboard forms that hold them quite securely. In addition, they have foam caps on top and bottom, as well as strips of foam that keep the grilles in place during transit.

Q Acoustics

I mounted the speakers on 24″ Dayton Audio steel stands roughly 6′ feet apart and about 1′ from my room’s front wall. I toed them in about ten degrees, which resulted in a broad soundstage and precise imaging. The speakers were connected to my NAD C 275BEE power amplifier using Nakamichi Excel series 12-gauge cable, and the NAD amp was connected to my vintage Apt Holman preamp with Morrow Audio MA1 RCA interconnects. Sources comprised a Technics SL‑100C turntable with Goldring E4 cartridge and a Cambridge Audio Azur 650C CD player.

Listening

As I usually do, I began my critical listening with an orchestral piece—in this case, the opening movement, Prologue, from Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story Symphonic Dances, in a performance by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra conducted by David Zinman (CD, London 452 916-2). The dense and diverse instrumentation includes strings, brass, woodwinds, percussion, and piano. The 3020c loudspeakers reproduced this ultra-high-energy track with aplomb. The battling brass and woodwinds had wonderfully convincing timbre and dynamics—amazing for such small speakers. The percussion, comprising mainly bongos and congas, was taut and instantaneous. Bass was a bit lean, but everything above the bottom octave sounded marvelous.

Q Acoustics

Henry Mancini’s first credit as an independent composer-arranger was for the detective series Peter Gunn, which aired from 1958 to 1961. The theme song for the show was a huge pop hit for Ray Anthony in 1959, but I found a better-sounding, newer arrangement by pianist and producer Dave Grusin on his album Two for the Road: The Music of Henry Mancini (CD, GRP GRD-9865). Grusin assembled a heck of a band to back him on the album, including a fine soprano-sax player who has a long solo. That solo was presented with excellent pace and tone by the 3020cs. Grusin’s piano cooked all the way through, as his playing felt strong and tight, and the soundstage of the band (with lots of brass) was superb—nicely spread from side to side, with Grusin’s piano squarely in the middle.

Singer-songwriter Kim Richey is a local girl; she was raised near the Dayton, OH, area—my hometown. But she later moved to Nashville and has had a rather successful career as a songwriter. In 1999, she released a great song, “Come Around,” from her album Glimmer (CD, Mercury 314-538 888-2). On this track, Richey appears in the middle of the soundstage in front of the drum set. The accompanying electric guitar, drenched in echo, is on the right, and there is a synthesizer on the left. Richey has a plaintive voice that fits her song, and it sounded terrific through the 3020cs. The speakers also captured the otherworldly sound of the reverb-laden guitar very well. The drum strikes sounded fast and impactful, and the speakers offered a decent representation of the bass guitar. But I suspect I was hearing more second harmonics than fundamentals on the lowest notes.

Q Acoustics

If you haven’t seen the Yacht Rock mockumentary, you’ve missed a great parody of singer Michael McDonald, who seems to have been on every soft-rock song of the 1970s, from Steely Dan to Toto, Christopher Cross, and Kenny Loggins. After his time with the Doobie Brothers, he recorded an album called Motown (CD, Motown B0000651-02). Doing Motown is not out of character for McDonald, as he got his start singing and playing keyboards for St. Louis R&B bands while he was in high school. His version of Stevie Wonder’s “Signed, Sealed, Delivered I’m Yours” is wonderfully enthusiastic, down to the high-pitched scream at the start of the song. McDonald is backed by six singers who are gathered around him and blend beautifully, and a band that, although they aren’t the Funk Brothers, does a fine job. The 3020c pair performed well on this song, spreading the instruments evenly across a broad soundstage. The piano-guitar duo during the bridge sounded exceptional, especially the piano. The guitar had a suitably Motown/Stax sound, just as I imagine it was recorded. And the 3020cs provided a passable reproduction of the bass guitar.

George Merrill and Shannon Rubicam performed as Boy Meets Girl, but they’ve become better known as the people behind Whitney Houston hits like “I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)” and “How Will I Know.” Their single “Waiting for a Star to Fall” peaked at #5 on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart and #1 on its Adult Contemporary chart back in 1988. The song, featured on Boy Meets Girl’s Reel Life (CD, RCA 8414-2-R), features the duet’s vocals backed by George, who handled drum programming, bass, synthesizers, and piano—pretty much all the instrumentation, other than the wailing sax solo during the bridge. The piano and synths are right behind the singers, as are the bass and the drums. That makes for a fairly crowded soundstage; amazingly, through the 3020cs, it all worked quite well. I could easily isolate each instrument and voice.

Q Acoustics

If you ever saw Road House (the good version, with Patrick Swayze and Ben Gazzara), you met (if you didn’t know him already) the late Jeff Healey, a blind guitarist from Toronto. On his album Cover to Cover (CD, Arista 07822-18770-2), Healey and his band do a smokin’ live version of Spirit’s “I Got a Line on You.” His solo during the bridge is one of the tightest and hottest I’ve ever heard. The 3020cs handled that solo and the tune itself with an all-in-a-day’s-work attitude. The gritty nature of the recording was offered up realistically by the speakers, and they conveyed the distortion on Healey’s lead guitar just as I imagine it sounded at the session (only not quite so loud at my place; I have neighbors). These diminutive reproducers appeared to be able to handle just about anything!

Comparison

It may seem unfair to compare the small 3020c bookshelf speakers to my floorstanding Acoustic Energy Radiance 3s, but especially in the midrange, these two speakers are peas in a pod. In every respect except deep bass, they sound quite similar.

For my comparison, I chose “Bali Run” by Fourplay from the 2021 re-release of the group’s eponymous debut album (LP, Evosound EVLP025). Of course, the Qs couldn’t quite reach down to the depths of Nathan East’s bass guitar, but they gave me a taste, again probably of the second harmonic (an octave above the fundamental). As I’ve said, I found the midrange on these little beauties simply outstanding, with good pace, timing, and timbre. The highs were smooth and silken, though not as crisp as I expected. Overall, the 3020cs reproduced the music beautifully.

When I switched over to the Radiance 3s, the first thing I noticed was extra snap and slightly more openness on the highs. And, of course, the deep fundamentals of the bass guitar were present to a much greater degree. For grins, I augmented the 3020c speakers with my Vera‑Fi Scout Caldera 10 subwoofer, and they made a sweet-sounding combo, with lots of deep bass.

Conclusion

Q Acoustics’ 3020c does a fine job of extracting most of the sound from any source. Perhaps it’s a wee bit shy in the highs, but it’s exceptionally smooth, agile, detailed, and natural-sounding. Add to that its attractive physical design and ability to work well on a bookshelf with a bung blocking the rear port, or on a stand out in the room. It’s easy to drive even to fairly high volumes. The 3020c should be able to compete in a crowded market for good-sounding small speakers.

Q Acoustics

In my opinion the 3020c is still a fine value, even at the new US price, which recently jumped from $549 to $829 per pair because of tariffs—the prices in Canada, the UK, and Europe remain unchanged. If you’re in the market for a pair of affordable, fine-sounding standmount speakers, you need to hear the 3020c.

. . . Thom Moon
thom@soundstagenetwork.com

Associated Equipment

Speakers: Acoustic Energy Radiance 3
Subwoofer: Vera‑Fi Vanguard Caldera 10
Power amplifier: NAD C 275BEE
Preamplifier: Apt Corporation Holman
Analog source: Technics SL‑100C turntable with Goldring E4 cartridge
Digital source: Cambridge Audio Azur 650C CD player
Interconnects: Pro‑Ject Connect it E (turntable); Linn Silver (CD player); Morrow Audio MA1 (preamp to power amp)
Speaker cables: Nakamichi Excel 12-gauge OFC cable terminated in banana plugs