[DJW50]

Is this the one?
https://www.mcru.co.uk/product/mcru-ultimate-linear-power-supply-for-chord-qutest-dac/
I'm wondering if they ship to the US.

Yes, they are a pretty organised company so I guess they will. Combined with the PS Audio Powerplant 3 it really has made a difference.
Having said that not sure if they do USA voltage.

 

[DJW50]

One black mark against the Qutest recently the power plug connector inside the unit came loose and the unit stopped working. I've sent it to Chord so hopefully it will be back soon.

 

[ctrlm]

One black mark against the Qutest recently the power plug connector inside the unit came loose and the unit stopped working. I've sent it to Chord so hopefully it will be back soon.

The same happened to me. My unit is out of warranty and Chord is on the other side of the world so mine is sitting in a cupboard until I figure out what to do.

I have bought a spare micro USB input but it is not an easy soldering job, I was think of taking it to a mobile phone repairer or someone experienced in soldering very small electronics.

The choice of micro USB for the power input is bewildering.

 

[DJW50]

The same happened to me. My unit is out of warranty and Chord is on the other side of the world so mine is sitting in a cupboard until I figure out what to do.

I have bought a spare micro USB input but it is not an easy soldering job, I was think of taking it to a mobile phone repairer or someone experienced in soldering very small electronics.

The choice of micro USB for the power input is bewildering.

Sorry to hear that, luckily they are in the next county to me, I did notice when it first arrived that there was a bit of play you could move the plug up and down. I guess you have nothing to loose opening it up and seeing what's loose, as mine is only a few months old it was only right to send it back. It gets worse my new PS Audio Stellar Powerplant 3 has just died on me as well.

 

[Benno1988]

Any DAC in the Qutest price region I should consider? I've owned the Qutest twice before, contemplating going back to it. The Gustard X26 was fine but noisy power, noisy USB and susceptible to RFI. Qutest was always dead silent.

 

[Nostoi]

Any DAC in the Qutest price region I should consider? I've owned the Qutest twice before, contemplating going back to it. The Gustard X26 was fine but noisy power, noisy USB and susceptible to RFI. Qutest was always dead silent.

Can't think of anything personally. I had the TT2 for quite a while, and personally find the Qutest paired with a decent amp with excellent synergy, outperforms the TT2. Certainly to me ears, anyway. Probably you'd have to go to Dave levels to make any upgrade worth it.

I have recently installed an Sbooster MKii/ULTRA LPS into my Qutest with a decent power cable and am basically very happy with the performance. I love the simplicity of the Qutest, you leave it on, it does its job. As you say, dead silent, no USB issues, no bugs. I only wish it had another set of RCA inputs so I could run two amps from it.

 

[DJW50]

I agree with the comments above, it's simple and does a good job. I will when I've saved up enough money get a DAVE on loan/trial to see how much better it is. For the record I have been trying 6 other DAC's over the last few months some over 6 times the cost of the Qutest and all have gone back for a refund.
I have bought a MCRU Ultimate LPS to run the Qutest as well as a PS Audio Powerplant 3 regenerator.

 

[LegionofDoom]

I am leaning towards buying a Plixir BDC 2amp power supply as an upgrade to my Qutest’s wall wart. Any fresh perspectives from BDC owners whom have had time with the Plixir product in their set-up? Worthy addition to your chain?

 

[Atriya]

Hi ppl.
Recently joined the Qutest team!
Acquired myself one used for 1025 euros.
And tried feeding my HD800 straight out using digital volume in foobar. Have A-B with Mojo. And i can confirm that the analog stage of Qutest is more than capable of driving a 300ohm load.
And oh i like the transparency over Mojo!
I do guess adding an extra cap close to the 5v power inlet would give benefit cause of the more current being drawn specially for the peaks.
I'm also sure it works better with high impedance HP over low ones, its just the law of ohm: power is voltage x current and higher impedance use less current for the same power, so better for the op stage.

Could a setup like this possibly work for an Arya SE?

 

[Reactcore]

Could a setup like this possibly work for an Arya SE?

It should work ok as i drove my 16ohm earbuds too. But the higher impedance HP the better.

The Arya is 32ohm so set Qutest to 1v

 

[Atriya]

It should work ok as i drove my 16ohm earbuds too. But the higher impedance HP the better.

The Arya is 32ohm so set Qutest to 1v

Interesting! I'm going to try this ASAP with software volume control from the source, but I wonder how you'd describe the sound compared to using an amp. I feel like I'm missing something, otherwise no one would buy amps anymore!

Also, did you just use two RCA to 3.5mm cables?

 

[Reactcore]

It gives a more transparent sound.
The only reason is that this way the signal passes through less circuit.

I terminated a HP cable with 2 RCA plugs to minimise contacts in the chain

 

[MWeston]

Hey all. I was wondering how/if people are able to use their Qutest at 705/768KHz while running in Windows. The driver I use is Chord's official driver and it won't go above 352/384KHz and it also locks everything to that. It doesn't matter if I use Foobar or Audacious or maybe anything else. It means that most of my stuff will be over sampled or my hi res stuff gets down sampled to 44.1Khz with the bulk of my collection, depending on which setting I choose.

I don't see anything I can tick to give the apps control of sample rate. It seems locked by the driver in one configuration. How do my fellow Windows users deal with this? I'm starting to wonder if I need to buy a network streamer just to listen to stuff at its native rate.

Thanks!

 

[technobear]

Hey all. I was wondering how/if people are able to use their Qutest at 705/768KHz while running in Windows. The driver I use is Chord's official driver and it won't go above 352/384KHz and it also locks everything to that. It doesn't matter if I use Foobar or Audacious or maybe anything else. It means that most of my stuff will be over sampled or my hi res stuff gets down sampled to 44.1Khz with the bulk of my collection, depending on which setting I choose.

I don't see anything I can tick to give the apps control of sample rate. It seems locked by the driver in one configuration. How do my fellow Windows users deal with this? I'm starting to wonder if I need to buy a network streamer just to listen to stuff at its native rate.

Thanks!

Use ASIO.

Foobar2000->Preferences->Playback->Output->ASIO: ASIO Chord 1.05

 

[MWeston]

Use ASIO.

Foobar2000->Preferences->Playback->Output->ASIO: ASIO Chord 1.05

Thank you so much for the help! There was no ASIO driver but there was a Chord exclusive version to select and so I chose that one. The window started changing colors as I tried different tracks. I guess that solves that one! Now my only complaint is that all those higher rates are just purple, slightly less purple, or even slightly less purple.