Напольная акустика — QLN Prestige Three

The Prestige Three is a two-way, two-driver floorstanding loudspeaker from the Swedish maker Qln, with a reflex loaded enclosure. It is the more compact of the Prestige towers and keeps the familiar Qln outline of a slanted baffle and a sloping truncated pyramid top. Current listings show five finishes, Walnut Piano, Walnut matt, White matt, Piano Burl Walnut and Piano Black.

Key specs that matter

The quoted low frequency limit is -3 dB at 28 Hz. Sensitivity is 87.5 dB SPL for 1 W at 1 m, impedance is 8 ohm, and Qln recommends amplifiers of 25 to 250 W RMS. A soft dome tweeter of 25 mm, with wide surround and AirCirc magnet system, sits above a single 177 mm Kevlar cone mid/bass driver. The cabinet measures 900 mm high, 210 mm wide and 420 mm deep, or 954 x 310 x 483 mm with its feet, and each speaker weighs 27.0 kg.

Engineering and use context

Both drivers were specified and custom developed with the Danish manufacturer Scan Speak. The coated Kevlar mid/bass unit has copper rings built into its magnet system, which Qln says gives symmetric drive while suppressing intermodulation distortion. Its long stroke motor uses a 19 mm voice coil, and together with the large internal volume of the tower it is designed to reach below 30 Hz. The slanted front aligns the two drivers in time, the reduced top surface limits baffle effects, and Qboard panels are used to eliminate structural resonances. The port is trumpet shaped at both ends to reduce air turbulence. The constant impedance crossover is hardwired, with non-inductive capacitors in the tweeter section, oil-filled capacitors in the woofer section and flat foil inductors at the most critical positions. Components are fixed with damping glue, and the remaining coils are baked to prevent internal resonances in the filter. The crossover was completely redesigned for the second generation of the model. At the base, cones and pucks of hard, high-damping material separate the cabinet from the surface it stands on, so vibration passed into a wooden floor is reduced.

Pairing

The easy load and the low starting point of the power window suit low-powered tube amplifiers, while the upper limit allows far stronger transistor units. The narrow front keeps the tower unobtrusive in a living room of about 20 m2. Connection is single wire through WBT Nextgen terminals.

Alternatives

The Qln Prestige Five is the larger 2.5-way tower in the same series, adding a second 184 mm bass driver.