A loudspeaker that sounds great and looks good from the Roger Manning camp - unlikely but true. Roger has been importing, designing and wholesaling speakers since before I was born and to my knowledge the DB Dynamics QM-42's are the only ones that are aesthetically and acoustically appealing (he usually gets one or the other right bit not both)

    If I didn't know better I'd say these are a rip off of the Mordaunt-Short MS 908's except the DB Dynamics sound better at around 40% cheaper. The driver complement is almost the same and the physical dimensions aren't that far off.

    The boxes are finished in either Maple or Black Ash vinyl, using a 25mm dome tweeter, two 130 mm polypropylene mid / woofers and a side firing 200 mm woofer. Incidentally, to save time I was going to plagiarize the review in Audio and Video Lifestyle magazine by a guy called Gavin Womersley except he must have written the review without either seeing or listening to the speakers (he even got the cone materials wrong) so I've done the right thing and actually looked at and listened to them.

    The boxes themselves measure 1000mm high by 185mm wide and 345mm deep so offer a very slim profile whilst giving nothing away in the bass department due to the side firing woofer. Efficiency is around 90dB so any decent amp or receiver of 30 Watts up to around 120 Watts would drive them nicely. Frequency response is said to be from 25Hz to 20KHz which seems highly unlikely and irrelevant (I don't even know why I mentioned it).

    Musically these things are really good (that's REALLY good) and would give most sub $2000 speakers a run for their money. The bass response is outstanding without being boomy and the top end almost as sweet as the KEF Q series tweeter. Imaging is spot on so when used in the Home Theatre mode, the sound stage is well set. Retail on the QM-42's is around $1299 - call for current discount - and for those of you who are not brand name affected (I was going to say wankers but I'm not allowed to) these speakers have to be one of the best new speakers released in the past 12 months, relative to price of course.

    For those who are looking to Home Theatre, there is a  matching Centre / Rear Speaker package to go with the QM-42's. The centre speaker uses the same mid / bass and tweeter array as the mains with the surrounds using the matching single mid / woofer and tweeter. The retail on the centre / rear pack is $499. As a package the whole lot can be bought for around the $1399 as a special deal. If you're in the market for a good looking / sounding speaker package, do yourself a favour and check out the DB Dynamics pack. Roger isn't paying me for this assessment of his speakers, in fact the tightwad wont even buy me a cup of coffee so you know this isn't a suck-up review.