The sad truth is that every small loudspeaker, for which the manufacturer claims to be a "mini monitor", does not necessarily belong to this category. There are many good small loudspeakers out there and even some extremely good, but let's be realistic: Every tweeter/woofer pair in a cabinet of tiny dimensions is not a monitor, let alone a near field monitor in the true sense of the word.

On the other hand, when Quad presented, a few months ago, the 9AS they tried to make it clear in every way that the goal was not to present such a "studio" instrument, since they already offer one of those. Instead, they stressed a number of other features included in 9AS that make it an interesting product. For starters, it is an active design (relieving the user from the need to select a suitable amplifier), includes both a DAC (with a USB port for audio streaming) and analog inputs, offers a subwoofer output and a remote control. In other words, we are dealing with a product tailored to the needs of someone who wants to build a small but flexible desktop audio system focused on high quality audio playback rather than to set up what we might call a conventional home system.
As the review progressed, it was obvious that as a bonus to all the above, the proud owner of a 9AS will take home not just a stylish and and full featured, small loudspeaker with a price slightly less than €1000, - but, also, an accurate loudspeaker that has more to offer than one would expect. Let's look at the details…

Dimitris Stamatakos

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Original Publilcation: 2014/07/01	Last Follow Up: 2014/07/01	Original Language: Greek (English version)

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