I’ve had quite a bit of first hand experience with Sweden’s QLN loudspeaker brand. From the many US representations at local audio shows (usually from the hand of Mark Sossa at Well Pleased AV) to our full review of the bookshelf-style Signature 3, the word on the street and sound in the air is usually big and beautiful from this relatively under-the-radar company.
The truth is that QLN has been around for a quite a while, and its head designer Mats Andersen has acquired an extensive resume in high end audio as well. The slanted front baffle look of the eye catching series continues with the QLN Prestige 5. Looking to improve even further on time alignment issues, the feature set of the P5 provides a few key components along with a somewhat unusual, simplistic 2.5-way design.
Building off the success of the two-way Prestige 3 floorstander, a new 184mm mid woofer was constructed, as was the cross-over system. The mid woofer utilizes only flat foil inductors and non inductive metal film resistors. Speaker terminals are WBT Nextgen connectors and the cabinet is based around QLN’s proprietary Qboard tech. Much of what consumes the focus of the speaker is an attention to “non resonant behavior”. This type of emphasis on casework in the QLN Prestige 5 is something that often separates the higher end of audiophila from more budget options, and usually bears some delicious sonic fruit when closely tied to well executed transducer manufacturing. More from the press release:
“For the QLN Prestige 5 a new 184mm mid-woofer was developed, featuring an under-hung magnet system where the voice coil is in the magnet gap continuously, resulting in a totally linear motor system. This together with the open basket allows for air flow without compression or turbulence producing greater micro detail while also lowering acoustic noise typically found in standard baskets.”
The QLN Prestige 5 is currently available for pre order, with shipping expected for September of 2020. Retail pricing rounds in at $16k for a pair.
More info: QLN