Q Acoustics Q Active 200 review - What Hi-Fi?

Q Acoustics bravely enters uncharted waters, but out-of-character sonic shortfalls let down an otherwise decent first effort.

For Q Acoustics’ first all-in-one streaming speaker system, the Q Active 200, the British speaker specialist could have focused most of its attention on the streaming side of things – that is the unchartered territory here, after all.

While the brand has some degree of experience in powered speaker design, this is its first proper active streaming proposition. .

But the Q Acoustics Q Active 200 appear to be a speaker-first design, given the ambitious acoustic engineering on show here.

If you were expecting an active set of speakers resembling Q Acoustics’ current range of standmounters, then the Q Active 200’s design may raise a few eyebrows.

The boxes are narrow, deep and in a beautifully finished matte white – so far, so Q Acoustics.

Q Acoustics has chosen to use a pair of BMR drivers in each cabinet in preference to conventional cone units.

Their positioning on the speaker – the dual BMR configuration can sit either on the inside top corner or outside top corner, depending on which way round the speakers are placed – brings some benefits too.

Q Acoustics has designed a pair of dedicated stands for the Q Active 200, the Q FS75, more modest evolutions of the innovative stands designed for the Concept 300.

Q Acoustics has taken the decision not to house the streaming architecture and connectivity inside the speakers, but instead in a separate connectivity hub.

It’s a shame one box doesn’t cover both bases – there must be plenty of people who use Alexa, for example, but also stream music via Chromecast.

Rather than the hub streaming these converted signals to a master speaker that passes the other audio channel to the slave speaker, it sends the two channels of audio directly to the speakers over a 5GHz wireless connection, helping ensure accurate syncing between them.

If you own a NAS drive with music, UPnP support is onboard for playing networked music files up to 32-bit/192kHz (which subsequently gets down-sampled to 24-bit/96kHz for the transmission to the speakers).

Q Acoustics will soon release its dedicated Q Active app for helping owners with registration and set-up, control hub customisation, software updates and basic controls, however it won’t be an all-encompassing music control app from which to browse networked or local music libraries and access streaming services.

That’s a shame, but third-party UPnP control apps aren’t hard to come by, and those using Tidal (via Chromecast) or Spotify (via Connect) may well choose to use the native apps anyway.

They’re nicely responsive – sometimes more so than the UPnP apps we use – although as there’s a short delay in the call and action, we would have liked visual confirmation of the communication from, say, a visible LED.

Q Acoustics has successfully built a reputation for excellent passive speakers in its 15-year history – especially in the budget market.

We switch from Q Acoustics' dedicated stands to a pair of Custom Design FS104 Signatures and the presentation sheds some clarity – from both a sonic and aesthetic point of view, we’d recommend the custom-built accessory.

Just note that due to the rubber strips beneath the speaker, secure placement on a third-party pair of stands may be a little fiddly.

It’s rare, if ever, that we publish sentences featuring both ‘Q Acoustics’ and ‘disappointing’, but here the Q Active 200 cannot hide behind their thoughtfully considered spec sheet and speaker engineering

It’s a shame because the brand has done a lot right – there’s vast connectivity on offer, a whole lot of speaker engineering, and dedicated stands for those who want them

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