Qudelix 5K Reference DAC AMP

I just got this gadget for my inear monitors from Westone.I am using a Sony Xperia 5ii, which does have a decent dac and headphone jack integrated.The reason for buying the Qudelix are- I am not using the inear only with this phone- having a small external thing to connect the headphones is not bad, with a short wire maybe, and why not balanced out- I loved the fact the Qudelix has a DSP which allows to tune the out around my inear monitors and the setting is applied no matter the app or where you have connected the Qudelix to,it will always sound the same and to your likingOk, so a few impressions.The audio quality is brilliant, lets get that out of the way. The details are there, it sounds amazing and it has plenty of power for my Westone. Even playing unbalanced at 1V, I did set a bit of volume limiter, it works really well.The DSP is fantastic, as predicted, if not better. The equalization customization is brilliant and a little of colour changes the feeling of the music massively (see screen shot for an example of my setup).The buttons are definitely not intuitive, but honestly, I am not planning on using them, just powering on and off basically. I configured the light to be on so I know if the Qudelix is on, and I regognize the buttons.The device ia super small, so it is easy to just use! The clip is embedded and it is so light that it would be held by the cable easily if dropping by mistakeRemember if you have a new generation phone, I disabled the aptx adaptive thing (see picture), so the LDAC become available straight away. To get it to 990kbps, go ro your blue tooth aettings and set the qudelix connection to maximise quality. Then check the app, it should show now 990kbps like mine does.If you love your music, even more if you do not have headphone jacks, you are going to love this little thing

This tiny little DAC / Dongle is an absolute revelation in the world of DAC dongles!I have owned and used many of these headphone DAC amps in the past ranging from all the Audioquest Dragonflys, Apogee groove, FiiOs, Hidiz, Ibasso, Hiby, Shanling etc etc and this little guy is the best by quite some margin.This has superb bluetooth range in which this will connect from the other side of my house with little effort a distance of several metres through walls and up stairs etc although I do use it mainly via USB C connection into my PC.The DAC chip used in this is not the most modern or up to date ESS Sabre chip but its not always about having the latest chip inside but how it is implemented and the technology in this little guy is pretty awesome with good engineering and thought processes in manufacture.What sets this device apart from the vast majority of dongles is the amazing software which you can use with it, I downloaded both the control app to my phone AND the superb Chrome extension on my PC to give you an incredible range of options like DAC filters, power range like high or normal to drive an impressive range of headphones.The app also gives you battery life and management etc etc etc there is simply too many functions to mention although I do have to give a very special shout out to the parametric equaliser function which you can search for your headphone in the drop down list and dial it in and save it (the dongle saves all your stored information in its built in flash drive and even if you switch it off it restores all of the settings you dialed in) this EQ function will give you the best possible sound to the Harman curve to basically optimise your headphones of choice or you can simply play with no EQ and completely flat just using the standard settings for sound which is also superb in standard mode.This level of control and flexibility is unheard of even with the FiiO control app you don't get offered half as much.You can just use this dongle as a simple plug and play device without using the app or PC chrome PC extension and it would still be worth the money on sound quality alone.I suppose if I had to nit pick then a 4.4mm balanced socket rather than the slightly dated 2.5mm one would be prefered but I do not used any of my headphones in balanced mode just the unbalanced 3.5mm supplied also, so to me that is not important.6 stars all the way!

Phenomenal piece of kit. Sounds amazing when paired with decent headphones and works wired (Hi-Res) and via Bluetooth (Hi Res if Sony LDAC codec enabled on the android phone). Extremely tweakable using the iOS or Android app. The onboard mic works ok but not brilliant for calls because it pics up any noise made when holding the device. Minor irritant only. A must have for anyone who wants great sound quality when out and about - worth every penny!

This is such a good, balanced product in terms of features and price.But if you want better sound you can find it if you pay more.- it has good sound quality- it has great bluetooth connectivity, I can use it in different rooms, different floors, outside my bt source- LDAC significantly better sound quality than other bluetooth codecs, if you connect to mac or iPhone, use wire, because other codecs are hurting sound quality- I have it connected to 3 devices at the same time! 2 by bluetooth and one by USB and it picks the one that playes quite well.- I switched it eventually to be connected to mac by USB, same mac by Bluetooth and am Android phone, because mac does not support LDAC it hurts sound, but sometimes I just disconnect usb and go somewhere, so it switches from usb source to bluetooth in matter of secondsConnectivity of it is so much better than any other bluetooth device I have. Bose 700 does not connect half the time and take a minute to connect if it does, Topping G5 take a bit. This connects in a second, click, connected.The way how buttons are setup takes a bit of getting used to, app is good for nerds and equalization if you want to push your headphone somewhere else, but don't to make a reference headphones a consumer (V frequency response) curve headphones usually can't do that and it would only increase distortion and loose control.Battery life is better than Topping G5 which is 5 times the size and weight.