High End 2015: Questyle





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HE15_Logo_GB_01Current Mode Amplification” is a magical phrase that brings out the inner meerkat from the headphone enthusiast crowd, and will cause spontaneous synchronized head-swiveling. Only a couple of companies are pursuing this interesting approach to amplification — Questyle Audio is one of those brands.

Questyle is also a brand that’s received quite a bit of attention — and no little admiration — from the Part-Time crowd. Audio-Head‘s Brian Hunter reviewed the CMA-800R, and you can check out returning Part-Timer John Grandberg’s profile on Head-Fi for a list of Questyle products he’s investigated.

While I haven’t had the pleasure of exploring anything from the product line myself, I believe I might be able rectify that shortly with the upcoming QP1 and QP1R release. The QP1 is a portable digital audio player — I saw a mock-up at CES this year, and talked at length with Bruce Ball about the player and the specs. Key feature — we can expect more of the signature current-mode goodness in the DAP.

Also on display was the company’s 5GHz Wireless System — amps without input interconnects? Yes! That should clean up the floor more than a little, no? Unfortunately, there was absolutely no way that this system could have been played — much less heard — on the Halls of the Munich show, it’s one of those too-good-to-be-true technologies. Love to see that explored in the future.

Last but not least was the collaboration with Stax. This product, the CMA-800P ($TBD, but I was told to expect ~$3000), is a current-mode pre amplifier, and designed to work with Stax’ flagship STAX 727MKII/SR-009 combo. Paired with the matching CAS192D digital converter, what I heard out of the legendary SR009 headphones, in addition to the freaky-spooky clarity, was stunning bass performance. Definitely not a cheap adventure (the combo reaches quite uncomfortably close to $10k), but this may be one of the most insane headphone experiences you can get your ears into. Me likey.

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Aurender is the Proud Sponsor for High End Munich 2015








About Scot Hull 1063 Articles
Scot started all this back in 2009. He is currently the Publisher here at PTA, the Publisher at The Occasional Magazine, and the Executive Producer at The Occasional Podcast. There are way too many words about him over on the Contributors page.