Chord Electronics Qutest DAC - Official Thread

[Christer]

Maybe a bit OT ,but I urgently need some advice for using my Qutest on my travels this winter if my laptop turns out to be irreparable as far as sound via dacs is concerned.
This morning it stopped working with any of my dacs but works via inbuilt speakers on both channels and the other even older one, still works as usual with my Qutest or other DACs.
I would like to know what might be wrong with my mbp first because that is where I have my music-player programs Pure Music and Audirvana .
And I would also like to know if there are better simpler ways to use my Qutest and HUGO this winter via headphones without connecting either to a laptop?
I could transfer my music from my hardrives and into a suitable smaller product than a bulky laptop. But how would I get my player programs into one?
Or would they be unecessary?
And if so which one would you more experienced guys here recommend?
Until today all my downloads and online listening has been via my main laptop and occasionally the old one.
I want no compromises SQ wise from what I had until today. But I would appreciate a smaller more portable, simpler easier way to listen to my daily dose of music than having to connect both amp and dac to my laptop.
Yes I know Chord have got their Poly for Mojo but I am not planning to buy either of those two this winter.
If anything more from Chord I am a bit tempted by the new M-scaler.
Are there other gadgets without its own DAC or a DAC that can be bypassed,similar to Poly out there that would work with a Qutest or HUGO?
Ideas and suggestions would be very welcome.
Cheers Christer

 

[VintageFlanker]

The building i live in was built in 1965

Same here. That's why I bought a Supra Mains Block filtered many years ago. It works fine this way.

Why go with Tidal when you can have the real thing?

Hum...perhaps because Tidal and Qobuz don't have the same catalog...at all?...

 

[Nik74]

Are there other gadgets without its own DAC or a DAC that can be bypassed,similar to Poly out there that would work with a Qutest or HUGO?

It may be too cheap to consider but it is worth as an experiment to try a Google Chromecast Audio.
Before I go the High End streamer or server route I thought I d check this little gadget and see how it might compare with the USB of my Mac book. I thought if it offered at least 80% of the SQ it would be worth the convenience and I m pleased to say that to my ears at least it does. And that is with cheap optical cable versus my Audioquest carbon USB - apples and oranges I know but SQ is what's imprtant-. My next step is to try a good quality optical cable to see if it will match or even surpass the USB connection. So far I m sensing that I miss some spatial cues like celing reflections in some orchestral recordings or a very slight blurring of the wider ends of the soundstage but nothing I d miss temporarily,specially if this was a travel set up.

Even if you didn't end up liking it , it would be just £30 down the drain.

 

[AndrewOld]

Hum...perhaps because Tidal and Qobuz don't have the same catalog...at all?...

Fair enough. Qobuz has enough music that I want to listen to for more lifetimes than I am ever going to have, so I am happy. But I am sure there is a fair bit of overlap in the catalogue, the majority of current and recent releases seem to be in HiRes on Qobuz, so if it were me I would try and make it my prime source and only fall back to the degraded MQA version if I had no alternative.

 

[jwbrent]

Fair enough. Qobuz has enough music that I want to listen to for more lifetimes than I am ever going to have, so I am happy. But I am sure there is a fair bit of overlap in the catalogue, the majority of current and recent releases seem to be in HiRes on Qobuz, so if it were me I would try and make it my prime source and only fall back to the degraded MQA version if I had no alternative.

Does Qobuz have an artist directory? When I was signed up with Tidal, I found the lack of this feature to be bothersome.

 

[Christer]

It may be too cheap to consider but it is worth as an experiment to try a Google Chromecast Audio.
Before I go the High End streamer or server route I thought I d check this little gadget and see how it might compare with the USB of my Mac book. I thought if it offered at least 80% of the SQ it would be worth the convenience and I m pleased to say that to my ears at least it does. And that is with cheap optical cable versus my Audioquest carbon USB - apples and oranges I know but SQ is what's imprtant-. My next step is to try a good quality optical cable to see if it will match or even surpass the USB connection. So far I m sensing that I miss some spatial cues like celing reflections in some orchestral recordings or a very slight blurring of the wider ends of the soundstage but nothing I d miss temporarily,specially if this was a travel set up.

Even if you didn't end up liking it , it would be just £30 down the drain.

Thanks for your input. But looking at it online, I don't think Chromecast really is what I am looking for at all.
What I need if I can't use my laptop any longer seems to be some kind of DAC-less usb or optical connectable portable audio-player with a way to store and play back my music without any losses into and via my Qutest and possibly at a later stage also an M-scaler.
I have seen that there is a lot of talk around different types of renderers and streamer solutions in other Forums to beat the problems with usb among other things.
I want a simple way to continue to listen to my music at the SQ I am used to with Qutest and usb via my laptop,but without having to connect my dac/headphone amp to my mbp.
But if that fails I may have to get another laptop and hopefully be able to transfer EVERYTHING I have in this laptop to a new one, or ditch both my Qutest and HUGO in the future and go for some kind of portable player for my travels.
The problem is I also use my 17" mbp for a lot of other things apart from music. And I need the big screen for my photos.
I haven't given this much thought before.
But now I can understand the frustration of those who are obviously so far ,in vain, waiting for a To-Go unit from Chord for their HUGO 2s.
My limited knowledge of technical things and searches online have only retrieved small portable player units with DACs already onboard.
And those are NOT what I am looking for.
But are there cheap ones one could use just for storage and playback purposes while still using a Chord DAC and high quality headphones and amplification??
My problem is I am a bit addicted to really good hi res SQ which Qutest via my latop and has been doing quite well so far. And with the few sessions I have had with my laptop and DAVE/BLU2 I still think some of it was about the best I have ever heard from digital reproduction.
In other words I don't want to compromise. I want even better SQ but without the hazzle of connecting harddrives and dac via different ports to a big heavy bulky laptop.

Cheers Christer

 

[dc71]

Thanks for your input. But looking at it online, I don't think Chromecast really is what I am looking for at all.
What I need if I can't use my laptop any longer seems to be some kind of DAC-less usb or optical connectable portable audio-player with a way to store and play back my music without any losses into and via my Qutest and possibly at a later stage also an M-scaler.
I have seen that there is a lot of talk around different types of renderers and streamer solutions in other Forums to beat the problems with usb among other things.
I want a simple way to continue to listen to my music at the SQ I am used to with Qutest and usb via my laptop,but without having to connect my dac/headphone amp to my mbp.
But if that fails I may have to get another laptop and hopefully be able to transfer EVERYTHING I have in this laptop to a new one, or ditch both my Qutest and HUGO in the future and go for some kind of portable player for my travels.
The problem is I also use my 17" mbp for a lot of other things apart from music. And I need the big screen for my photos.
I haven't given this much thought before.
But now I can understand the frustration of those who are obviously so far ,in vain, waiting for a To-Go unit from Chord for their HUGO 2s.
My limited knowledge of technical things and searches online have only retrieved small portable player units with DACs already onboard.
And those are NOT what I am looking for.
But are there cheap ones one could use just for storage and playback purposes while still using a Chord DAC and high quality headphones and amplification??
My problem is I am a bit addicted to really good hi res SQ which Qutest via my latop and has been doing quite well so far. And with the few sessions I have had with my laptop and DAVE/BLU2 I still think some of it was about the best I have ever heard from digital reproduction.
In other words I don't want to compromise. I want even better SQ but without the hazzle of connecting harddrives and dac via different ports to a big heavy bulky laptop.

Cheers Christer

Maybe the Allo Digi One or possibly the Pro-ject stream box S2 ultra might do what you want. I think both can be used with an external usb drive or stick with stored music plugged in. Both may need a WiFi connection for control, although the Pro-ject can be controlled from a touch-screen plugged into the HDMI port.

 

[Christer]

Maybe the Allo Digi One or possibly the Pro-ject stream box S2 ultra might do what you want. I think both can be used with an external usb drive or stick with stored music plugged in. Both may need a WiFi connection for control, although the Pro-ject can be controlled from a touch-screen plugged into the HDMI port.

Thanks again . I wonder if the Digi might still let me use the same laptop which refuses to recognize my dacs via usb.
But everything else seems to work via my usb ports when connected? But a quick look at both seems to indicate that neither would be able to take full M-scaling advantage with my Quetest in a possible future connection with a Chord M-scaler. Both the Project streamer and many other gadgets seem to be limited to 32/384.

And it looks both big and needs to be connected to the grid.
It also looks quite expensive for what it does?

With a laptop I can run things on battery.

I may have to resort to buying a new mbp laptop and clone my harddrive, to keep/get what I already have and really need.
I don't want to abandon my Pure Music or Audirvana unless absolutely necessary.

It also seems like a lot of these newer gadgets popping up on the market come loaded with internal stuff like MQA/Tidal /ROON and other stuff I have absolutely NO need of whatsoever.

But thanks a lot for trying to help.

I still hope one can bypass the dac in some of the better DAPs and just use it for storage and playback.
That would be an easy quick solution if I fail to repair my mbp.
Cheers Christer

 

[tesarpa]

Why not use any smartphone as a player, while you are travelling? Connected to USB DAC...?

 

[AndrewOld]

Does Qobuz have an artist directory? When I was signed up with Tidal, I found the lack of this feature to be bothersome.

Not sure quite what you mean .. but if you type in an artist name you’ll get all the albums by that artist, tracks by that artist, and all possible artists with that name or bit of name, and all multi artist albums involving that artist, Not bad. As with all streaming services you are the victim of inconsistent metadata, but I can usually find what I want quicker than I could ever do in a record shop. There’s a Qobuz hires free trial - give it a go and see if it is for you.

 

[Christer]

Why not use any smartphone as a player, while you are travelling? Connected to USB DAC...?

Thanks, I have been thinking of doings so as well, and may do so later.

Meanwhile I have a terrible and very embarrasing confession to make.

Upon closer inspection of settings on my mbp in audio midi, it has been revealed to me that the volume slider was for some reason unknown to me, suddenly at ZERO.
No wonder I got no sound via my headphones and dac.
The big fool I am, I now have to admit I did not expect a change in settings I had not administered voluntarily was the simple cause of my problem.
I simply did not pay enough attention to details the first couple of times I checked what might be wrong.
Sorry for taking both a lot of space here and your time all helpful fellows here !!!
Cheers Christer now again happy as a pig in ****.

 

[jwbrent]

Not sure quite what you mean .. but if you type in an artist name you’ll get all the albums by that artist, tracks by that artist, and all possible artists with that name or bit of name. As with all streaming services you are the victim of inconsistent metadata, but I can usually find what I want quicker than I could ever do in a record shop. There’s a Qobuz hires free trial - give it a go and see if it is for you.

Thank you for your reply. What I would love is a way to look up artists with an alphabet directory. I suppose if I put in a search, such as A, all artists that begin with A would list. This helps me with music discovery as well as finding artists whose name I’ve forgotten.

I didn’t know Qobuz was live here in the US. I’ll check them out.

 

[AndrewOld]

Thank you for your reply. What I would love is a way to look up artists with an alphabet directory. I suppose if I put in a search, such as A, all artists that begin with A would list. This helps me with music discovery as well as finding artists whose name I’ve forgotten.

I didn’t know Qobuz was live here in the US. I’ll check them out.

I think Qobuz is “imminent” in the States, but it is software, so you know what that means .. sometime between now and the end of time

 

[x RELIC x]

But a quick look at both seems to indicate that neither would be able to take full M-scaling advantage with my Quetest in a possible future connection with a Chord M-scaler. Both the Project streamer and many other gadgets seem to be limited to 32/384.

If your source can output 44.1 in to the M scaler then it would take full adavantage of it, just send it as a bitperfect file with no up-sampling or down-sampling. I’m not sure what you mean when you say ‘limited to 32/384’ when talking about the input of the M scaler. All you need to worry about is the dual connection from the M scaler to the Qutest.

You can look at many DAPs as a source that won’t break the bank, but stay far away from the FiiO X5 iii. It’s horrible to use as a transport with its downsampling of high res 192kHz music to 48kHz through USB out, and 96kHz through coaxial. On top of that I get static through USB and the player is quite unstable.

 

[Sound Eq]

can i ask with qutest and audirvana do u use asio or wasapi option to play from my library

and which is preferred with tidal streaming mqa, i know qutest does not support it,

can i ask as well which laptop is preferred that is known to be good for audiophiles that is not very noisy to use