As you'll have seen from some of my recent reviews here, I'm beginning to get into the world of audio in a bigger way than I had been. Of course, headphones are just one part of it, and speakers are another. Here to take a look at today I've got a set of the Q Acoustics M20 HD, a set of £389/$499 bookshelf speakers that are, quite simply, excellent - thanks to top-tier audio for their price category, great connectivity options and a stripped-down feature set that does everything you need without an app to complicate things.
Out of the box, the Q Acoustics M20 HD provide a solid first impression with more classic stylings than most computer speakers we see, with nicely rounded cabinets and minimal controls - just power, volume up and volume down on one speaker. There's also a small LED indicator that glows all manner of different colours depending on what source is being used, be it Bluetooth, optical, analogue or USB. Most of the other useful controls are found on the solid remote supplied with the speakers, which controls media playback, volume, as well as changing audio sources - and there are a lot of audio sources.
The M20 HD is a system that you can virtually put anywhere in your home - as long as you can run speaker wire between the two units - and feed all manner of inputs into. Think of it as an audio base station of sorts, especially with the vast amount of ports found on the back of the right hand speaker. Everything from optical to aux, USB-B and RCA line-level are included, as well as a subwoofer output if you want to add a bit more low end to proceedings. For wireless fans, support for aptX HD Bluetooth is also handy for streaming hi-res audio from compatible devices.