Armour Home Electronics is a relatively recent operation that brings together a number of well known British names - QED, Alphason, Myryad and Goldring, to name just four - into a specialist hi-fi conglomerate that's particularly strong in the budget price accessory sector.

Armour also used to distribute Mission's budget M-series speakers, but that arrangement came to an end when the Mission brand was purchased by IAG in mid-2005. Armour looked at the options and decided the best strategy was to develop its own speaker brand, and a year later it has brought a clutch of brand-new models to the marketplace, under the new Q Acoustics banner.

Since this hefty floorstander is the largest and most costly of four stereo pairs, yet carries a surprisingly modest £330 price tag, this is very much a budget range. It's therefore no surprise to find it's made in China, though all the basic design and engineering work was carried out by Armour personnel, alongside European consultants.

It's also therefore inevitable that the finish is predominately vinyl woodprint. That said, the silver-painted front panel is both thick and sculpted. The whole thing feels very solid, as confirmed by its 18kg total weight.

However, the most impressive feature, again in a price context, is the alloy plinth that lifts the speaker a few centimetres off the floor, extends the stability footprint and generally tidies up the appearance. It incorporates top-adjustable spikes, but there is no lock-nut provision.

This is a two-way design, based around twin 165mm bass/mid drivers mounted above and below a solitary tweeter. It's an arrangement that combines muscle with simplicity, and has an impressive pedigree - in last month's high-end The Collection edition, the thoroughly impressive £40,000 Audio Acoustics Sapphire Ti-C SE adopted just such a configuration.

The two main drivers both have 115mm doped paper cones and are loaded by a fat front port. Twin zig-zag terminal pairs are integrated with a cable-tidy, and a fabric-covered perforated metal grille is supplied.

Sound quality

Okay, it's not perfect, but this good-looking floorstander is capable of batting way beyond its humble price point, sonically speaking, and indeed can hold its head high among models costing twice as much. Expectations for such affordable floorstanders have never been high - all too often the sonic cracks that result from engineering cost constraints are clearly audible. But that is less obviously the case here.