Quested F11

Although not very common in semi‑pro environments, Quested is a well respected name in professional music studios. The company's new F11 active nearfield monitors are likely to bridge that gap and introduce the Quested name to a much wider audience. Hugh Robjohns lends them his ears...

Every monitor manufacturer has at least one nearfield model in their range — and the fashion seems to be for amplified or active designs, providing a very convenient one‑stop solution. Although the new Quested nearfield, the F11, is an active two‑way design in a compact ported enclosure, however, it is not simply a me‑too product. This new model employs an innovative cabinet design, benefits from the characteristic Quested attention to detail, and is priced to compete with the likes of ATC SCM10s, Dynaudio BM6A, and Mackie HR824. In particular, the F11 has been designed to take on the Genelec 1030A...

The Box

One of the most striking things about the F11 is the distinctive blue‑grey cabinet — a one‑piece moulding of a polyester composite, loaded with glass‑fibre reinforcing and a mineral which increases the density and enhances the appearance. It feels cold to the touch and is certainly very dense, which is key to controlling cabinet vibrations. Apparently, Quested are the only company in the UK to use this novel material for loudspeaker cabinets, although there are a few American companies employing it. The polyester resin has about one and a half times the density of conventional MDF and, in the case of the F11, allows a cabinet wall thickness of only 9mm, but a hefty all‑in weight of 11.2kg.

The cabinet also features an internal bracing strut running from the rear of the bass driver to the bulkhead at the back of the cabinet. This pressure‑loads the driver and adds a high degree of structural integrity. It is also thought to be the reason the bass response of the F11 is as taut as it is — but more on that later! The rear panel houses the amplifier pack, complete with input connectors and the usual controls for power, volume, and tonal correction.

The front of the cabinet features two crescent ports echoing the Quested Q logo; internally, however, these flare into a conventional oval shape. The drivers are standard off‑the‑shelf units — the 165mm bass speaker is a Vifa design and the tweeter a 28mm softdome Morel unit. Three removable protective wire hoops guard the tweeter, and the 24dB/octave crossover is tuned to 1.5kHz.

The base of the cabinet carries a thin rubber mat giving it a non‑slip surface — an excellent idea, but one very few other manufacturers seem to bother with! Hidden under the rubber mat are four pre‑drilled (but soft‑plugged) holes, which accept bolts for an Omnimount bracket. This thoughtful feature has an entire page devoted to it in the User Manual, with advice and instructions about the various mounting options.

By the spring of next year a dedicated subwoofer, the B3, should be in production to complement the F11 and provide full‑range reproduction. The B3 will be active and employ a pair of 8‑inch drivers, but there is no other information available at present.

The Specifications

The User Manual is well‑presented with lots of useful information, but strangely omitting some fundamental data too. I was pleased to see a section on hearing damage and recommended listening levels, an aspect of health and safety which far too many loudspeaker manufacturers ignore. Two pages of the booklet deal with loudspeaker placement. The F11 can only be used vertically, with the tweeter above or below the woofer — partly to avoid degraded stereo imaging, but also because the amplifier heat sinks must be vertical for adequate cooling.

The integral amplifier pack incorporates a 100W module for the bass driver and a 50W section for the tweeter — both pretty standard MOSFET designs developed in‑house. The crossover divides the signal before the amplifiers which connect directly to their respective loudspeakers. The amplifiers are fully protected and a green power‑on LED on the front panel glows red when the input signal approaches the clipping point.

Strangely, the User Manual does not include a frequency response plot, nor any technical data on the 'Contour Selectors' (switched bass and treble controls). However, this information is available on a one‑page spec sheet and states that the HF control boosts or cuts the response above 3kHz by +/‑3dB, whilst the LF switch provides the same below 300Hz. These controls are intended to allow room matching, and to tailor the response to personal taste. The LF cut position will also assist in matching the F11 to the impending sub‑bass cabinet.

Rigging And Listening

Connecting the F11 is straightforward, with an IEC mains lead for powering and electronically balanced, paralleled XLR and TRS quarter‑inch jack sockets for the audio input (as well as permitting easy daisy‑chaining to other F11s in multi‑speaker installations). All of these connectors are mounted at the bottom of the amplifier pack, arranged to face directly downwards. This makes plugging a little fiddly, but permits placement very close to rear walls if desired.

The operational controls consist of a rocker‑style mains power switch and a detented volume control covering a range of +/‑10dB, both being located on the top plate of the amplifier pack. Two three‑position slide switches on the rear panel provide HF and LF contouring, but I found these to be too coarse for trimming the spectral balance of the speaker, particularly at the HF end. According to the User Manual, the boost positions are intended for correction of extreme HF and LF when listening at low levels (primarily for use in installations such as restaurant chains). The LF cut is useful if the speakers end up close to a rear wall, but I found the HF cut dulled the response too much to be any real use in subtle tailoring of the speaker.

My overwhelming impression of the F11 was of a close similarity in presentation to the Genelec range of loudspeakers. This is an entirely subjective opinion, as I did not have a pair of 1030As for direct comparison, but I felt the F11s were more similar to Genelecs than, say, ATCs or my trusty PMCs. This opinion is based on the clarity and detail of the upper portion of the spectrum — a slight forwardness if you like — and could be interpreted as a tendency towards brightness in rooms which were more reverberant than average. Overall, I found the speaker to be commendably neutral and revealing of minor technical flaws in source material, exactly the way a good monitor should be.

The F11 is rated at greater than 100dB SPL at 1m, and is certainly capable of going very loud — louder than the Genelec 1030A apparently, should that be important to you! However, the loudspeaker always sounded clean, never strained, and was not fatiguing after long listening periods — always a good sign. The manufacturer suggested that the F11 had slightly more midrange energy than the Genelec equivalent, and although I am unable to confirm this the spectrum sounded well balanced to my ears, in my listening rooms.

One of the most impressive aspects of the F11's performance is at the bottom end. Although falling steeply from around 70Hz or so, the lower registers have a very taut and fast character which integrates superbly with the mid and high frequencies. The bottom end gives the impression of being deeper than it really is, with remarkably solid, weighty presentations of acoustic bass instruments. This characteristic is, in part due to the cabinet material and the internal bracing, but also to some modest equalisation in the amplifier pack.

Stereo imaging was precise, with very stable central images over quite a wide listening area when set up as recommended with the axes crossing slightly behind the listener. Another sign of high quality lay in the F11's ability to convey a good impression of depth on suitable material, and the very natural handling of room acoustics. The F11 could also accommodate very dynamic music with ease and always gave the impression of total control.

Summing Up

The F11 finds itself in the midst of some highly respected nearfield monitors, but compares very well. The distinctive and innovative cabinet gives it an advantage in terms of aesthetic styling (to my eyes at least), and the sound quality is certainly on a par with the Genelecs which the F11 has been designed to challenge. In some environments, the F11 could sound overly bright and the HF contour is too coarse to be much help in taming the sound, but in well‑damped rooms, the spectral balance is well‑judged and the bottom end surprisingly articulate — amongst the best I have heard from nearfields. Definitely a worthwhile addition to the shortlist of recommended reference nearfield monitors.