QDC - Discussion and Impressions Thread
Jun 12, 2019 at 7:36 PM Post #783 of 2,722
QDC Anole V3 S

Bought these after much research, from which little more than basic specs and features could be gleaned. A leap of faith, then. Its always a risk when buying audio equipment unauditioned. In fact, according to some self-proclaimed audiophiles, its unheard of (ha). Let's just say I have reason to do this. So, got them in two days after ordering. I think we all know the price of the V3, and I try not to throw money around, but I became intrigued by these. They arrived expeditiously and well-packaged. The monitors themselves are a crystal sapphire blue shot through with (real) gold leaf. When I put them on they placed themselves right into the ear the first time and stayed seated with the Comply foam tips. I'd never tried an IEM that seated itself with no ear tugging and fumbling around like an eager prom date desperately trying to find glory. Score! They weren't kidding when they said these are comfortable. They're so light and well-fitting I actually did forget I was wearing them. I caught myself reaching for the volume control on the desktop system several times, it was that immediate. Just amazing sound. I didn't bother with the tone switches except setting to 'standard' from the factory 'high sensitivity'. I put them on and started.
First you notice the bass: firm, tight and fast. I auditioned Robin Trower's 'Too Rolling Stoned', then Nilsson's 'Jump Into the Fire' which led me to Jaco Pastorius' 'Opus Pocus'. Wow, no problems with bass here. Ran Jonas Hellborg's 'Art Metal' and 'Personae' with the late Shawn Lane. Guitars sound incredible, you can hear every strike of pick on string and on classical, bows scraping across strings. To test the high end, I started with Snarky Puppy's 'Silva' with the Metropole Orkest and the power of a full orchestra surrounded my head, yet I had no problem detecting each instrument's placing. I heard triangles throughout. Triangles. Triangles heard clearly in an orchestra and fusion jam band. What more can I say? The sense of presence and imaging was more than just 3D, it was all-encompassing. Amazing sound stage, just amazing from an IEM. I now know why they cost so much, you get what you pay for. Moving on to female vocalists, went straight to Jane Monheit's 'Come Dream With Me'. I know her voice is perfection, but the V3 made her sound better. The subtleties in her presentation, her control without sounding clinical was brought out clearly. I listened to various classical pieces, including Vikingur Olafsson's 'Johann Sebastian Bach'. His piano never sounded piercing, I noticed a great deal of highs that I'd found sibilant with other headsets. For one example, John Anderson (I know, not a real male vocal) would get to me after a song or two but I was able to listen to 'Close To The Edge' in it's entirety and it was smooth, man. I heard Steve Howe like never before. He really tore it up and I never heard it so clearly. I used mostly TIDAL and the ifi nano iDSD BL and the PC and the portable for these auditions due not only to the quality (and variety) of the MQA tracks, but the Hi-Res flac tracks that aren't Master Quality. The clarity surpasses CD, and DSD on my PC using JRiver Media Center flac files. Again, I forgot I was wearing the V3S's on several occasions, moving suddenly or reaching for the wrong volume knob, but they stayed in and seated; I've never had an earphone that fit this well and so, feel this comfortable. You'd have to yank them off they stay on so well. That's another thing, you won't want to take these off.

TL;DR: Amazing look, amazing fit and above all, amazing sound brings me back to that word: amazing. In my opinion the QDC Anole V3 is worth every darn penny due to the smoothed out sound and near-custom fit. They look cool too:L3000:
 
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Jun 12, 2019 at 8:55 PM Post #784 of 2,722
QDC Anole V3 S

Bought these after much research, from which little more than basic specs and features could be gleaned. A leap of faith, then. Its always a risk when buying audio equipment unauditioned. In fact, according to some self-proclaimed audiophiles, its unheard of (ha). Let's just say I have reason to do this. So, got them in two days after ordering. I think we all know the price of the V3, and I try not to throw money around, but I became intrigued by these. They arrived expeditiously and well-packaged. The monitors themselves are a crystal sapphire blue shot through with (real) gold leaf. When I put them on they placed themselves right into the ear the first time and stayed seated with the Comply foam tips. I'd never tried an IEM that seated itself with no ear tugging and fumbling around like an eager prom date desperately trying to find glory. Score! They weren't kidding when they said these are comfortable. They're so light and well-fitting I actually did forget I was wearing them. I caught myself reaching for the volume control on the desktop system several times, it was that immediate. Just amazing sound. I didn't bother with the tone switches except setting to 'standard' from the factory 'high sensitivity'. I put them on and started.
First you notice the bass: firm, tight and fast. I auditioned Robin Trower's 'Too Rolling Stoned', then Nilsson's 'Jump Into the Fire' which led me to Jaco Pastorius' 'Opus Pocus'. Wow, no problems with bass here. Ran Jonas Hellborg's 'Art Metal' and 'Personae' with the late Shawn Lane. Guitars sound incredible, you can hear every strike of pick on string and on classical, bows scraping across strings. To test the high end, I started with Snarky Puppy's 'Silva' with the Metropole Orkest and the power of a full orchestra surrounded my head, yet I had no problem detecting each instrument's placing. I heard triangles throughout. Triangles. Triangles heard clearly in an orchestra and fusion jam band. What more can I say? The sense of presence and imaging was more than just 3D, it was all-encompassing. Amazing sound stage, just amazing from an IEM. I now know why they cost so much, you get what you pay for. Moving on to female vocalists, went straight to Jane Monheit's 'Come Dream With Me'. I know her voice is perfection, but the V3 made her sound better. The subtleties in her presentation, her control without sounding clinical was brought out clearly. I listened to various classical pieces, including Vikingur Olafsson's 'Johann Sebastian Bach'. His piano never sounded piercing, I noticed a great deal of highs that I'd found sibilant with other headsets. For one example, John Anderson (I know, not a real male vocal) would get to me after a song or two but I was able to listen to 'Close To The Edge' in it's entirety and it was smooth, man. I heard Steve Howe like never before. He really tore it up and I never heard it so clearly. I used mostly TIDAL and the ifi nano iDSD BL and the PC and the portable for these auditions due not only to the quality (and variety) of the MQA tracks, but the Hi-Res flac tracks that aren't Master Quality. The clarity surpasses CD, and DSD on my PC using JRiver Media Center flac files. Again, I forgot I was wearing the V3S's on several occasions, moving suddenly or reaching for the wrong volume knob, but they stayed in and seated; I've never had an earphone that fit this well and so, feel this comfortable. You'd have to yank them off they stay on so well. That's another thing, you won't want to take these off.

TL;DR: Amazing look, amazing fit and above all, amazing sound brings me back to that word: amazing. In my opinion the QDC Anole V3 is worth every darn penny due to the smoothed out sound and near-custom fit. They look cool too:L3000:

Great review.
 
Jun 12, 2019 at 9:24 PM Post #785 of 2,722
Thanks, I put them up for a little bit of everything and they delivered big time.
 
Jun 12, 2019 at 10:09 PM Post #786 of 2,722
I’ve been listening to the V3 IEM a lot lately, they are sounding better than ever. I simply love their personality? For some reason the soundstage sounds even bigger?
 
Jun 12, 2019 at 11:41 PM Post #787 of 2,722
This is all I wanted, I just like to provide a counter argument to this discussion. Tho I can be less aggressive... I am happy that you are re-visiting the V3, if you end up liking it even more, thats fine; and if you end up agreeing with me, thats fine too...

There will never be any productive discussion if we all agree with each other, and if anything we are both very passionate about qdc as a company and I'm sure we both want to see qdc to make more amazing IEMs. I apologize for my outburst and if you feel any hostility from me, it wasnt for you.

Revisited this thread again after a while, good to see this! I wasn't upset at your thoughts, I find them more than valued, and agree with a lot of your opinions. I just didn't like the way you were presenting them and the unnecessary hostility you were undertaking, but glad that's all cleared up.
 
Jun 13, 2019 at 2:42 AM Post #788 of 2,722
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Jun 15, 2019 at 6:38 AM Post #789 of 2,722
Double post
 

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Jun 15, 2019 at 6:39 AM Post #790 of 2,722
Copied from my reddit post cos I'm lazy: I just attended a product launch event at E-Earphone featuring some unreleased products from qdc and Faudio.

qdc 6SE, 8SE and 10SE are Japan-exclusive IEMs much like their existing SE line for their budget and midrange offerings. All previous SE IEMs have been merely different shell designs so I did not expect that these 3 new IEMs would offer anything too different from qdc's lineup, and I was not wrong.

6SE is a V6 with bass switch up. It has no switches.

8SE is a new shell design for the 8SS.

10SE is a VX with mid switch up. It similarly has no switches. It will retail for 250,000 yen which is approximately 3,200 sgd or 2,320 usd.

Basically nothing new, as expected. I came here for Faudio's Prototype Y anyway. 8SE's faceplate looks great tho.
 
Jun 15, 2019 at 6:43 AM Post #791 of 2,722
Copied from my reddit post cos I'm lazy: I just attended a product launch event at E-Earphone featuring some unreleased products from qdc and Faudio.

qdc 6SE, 8SE and 10SE are Japan-exclusive IEMs much like their existing SE line for their budget and midrange offerings. All previous SE IEMs have been merely different shell designs so I did not expect that these 3 new IEMs would offer anything too different from qdc's lineup, and I was not wrong.

6SE is a V6 with bass switch up. It has no switches.

8SE is a new shell design for the 8SS.

10SE is a VX with mid switch up. It similarly has no switches. It will retail for 250,000 yen which is approximately 3,200 sgd or 2,320 usd.

Basically nothing new, as expected. I came here for Faudio's Prototype Y anyway. 8SE's faceplate looks great tho.

So better to buy in China then? If the VX goes for ~$1750 there
 
Jun 15, 2019 at 6:51 AM Post #792 of 2,722
So better to buy in China then? If the VX goes for ~$1750 there
It was always better to buy VX in China. qdc prices in Japan are more expensive. VX uni costs 267,960 yen or about 3,480 sgd or 2,490 usd. For the Japanese market, 10SE saves them about 230 sgd if they like VX with mid switch up only and don't want switches.
 
Jun 15, 2019 at 6:54 AM Post #793 of 2,722
The 1750ish price is for people who can take a trip to china, and you cant get that online. So yeah,if you can make it to china, get yourself a pair of VX. That being said, I dont even use the switches on my VX so I wouldnt mind if qdc release a switch less VX and just let customer pick the tuning they want. And put it at a lower price.
 

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