[Reactcore]

I'm also a happy camper with my 400i although i modded it to take analog input..
i found it sad to read a magnificent product going from high praise to forgotteness cause of the service issues.

Will there come also a follow up for the 400i maybe with analog feature?

Again thanks for continuing your great work

 

[Questyle]

But have you hooked up a Susvara?

@glassmonkey Hifiman, like us, is also based in China, so you bet that we've hooked up a Susvara! It sounds excellent!

i always liked the look of the cma800i in silver and the cma600i in space grey. Any chance of offering the cma fifteen in a finish other then black?

@up late At the moment, we only plan on releasing a black version of the CMA Fifteen. This is due to our market research, almost all of our customers purchased black versions of our desktop DAC/amps in the past. But of course, if the market really calls for more colors, we will release them!

 

[Questyle]

I'm also a happy camper with my 400i although i modded it to take analog input..
i found it sad to read a magnificent product going from high praise to forgotteness cause of the service issues.

Will there come also a follow up for the 400i maybe with analog feature?

Again thanks for continuing your great work

@Reactcore We are also not proud of how things happened the last couple years. But at the end of our day, our products stand for themselves, and we are doing everything we can to get the customer service on the same level.

We are considering making a product similar to the 400i with an analog input, but we haven't finalized the concept yet. Hang in there, more products are certainly coming

 

[brams]

@Questyle Do these new products include a DAP that incorporates wifi streaming?

I realize that to date Questyle has tried to focus on sound quality above all else, but streaming is here to stay and in my opinion needs to be supported natively. As a result I am in the market for a unit that allows me to stream without having to connect my phone, can drive the new batch of difficult to drive, TOTL headphones and hopefully has system PEQ (with a means to save the settings for multiple headphones/iems) so I can tweak the performance of these cans. Graphic EQ is imprecise and really only works well if the predetermined adjustment frequencies happen to align with those frequencies in the headphone that require adjustment. This is obviously highly unlikely!

Of course I would like to stay with Questyle and would wait if there was something coming, but there are tempting options currently available ...

If there are considerations to release such a unit it would be great if there was an elegant way to connect it digitally to the SBH2 to retain that functionality for those of us who bought into that ecosystem in good faith.

 

[up late]

@up late At the moment, we only plan on releasing a black version of the CMA Fifteen. This is due to our market research, almost all of our customers purchased black versions of our desktop DAC/amps in the past. But of course, if the market really calls for more colors, we will release them!

oh well - guess i'm out of step with the market. i would seriously consider buying it if it came in a silver finish like chord, schitt, burson and phonitor offer. thanks for replying anyway.

 

[rhart00]

i would vote for silver!

 

[Questyle]

i would vote for silver!

@rhart00 @up late Well, I'll certainly give that feedback to the team! Let's see if we can make that happen.

@Questyle Do these new products include a DAP that incorporates wifi streaming?

I realize that to date Questyle has tried to focus on sound quality above all else, but streaming is here to stay and in my opinion needs to be supported natively. As a result I am in the market for a unit that allows me to stream without having to connect my phone, can drive the new batch of difficult to drive, TOTL headphones and hopefully has system PEQ (with a means to save the settings for multiple headphones/iems) so I can tweak the performance of these cans. Graphic EQ is imprecise and really only works well if the predetermined adjustment frequencies happen to align with those frequencies in the headphone that require adjustment. This is obviously highly unlikely!

Of course I would like to stay with Questyle and would wait if there was something coming, but there are tempting options currently available ...

If there are considerations to release such a unit it would be great if there was an elegant way to connect it digitally to the SBH2 to retain that functionality for those of us who bought into that ecosystem in good faith.

@brams Noted as well. It's true, streaming is here to stay, that's for sure. We are in the process of coming up with products that support streaming natively like you said, but no precise timeline on their rollout yet. And don't worry, we haven't forgotten about the SBH2 either. We have plans for that ecosystem as well.

Of course developing and perfecting these products takes time, so if you're really chomping at the bit to get one of these streamers/DAPs, I'd say go for it for now. But we have a lot of new products in the works, to be released over the coming months/years.

 

[Voxata]

Nice to see some involvement from Questyle and an effort to make up for the terrible past service. I'll be keeping an eye on the progress your company makes.

 

[sennfan83261]

Let the North American tour begin!

Cans (L to R): HEKv1, LCD-3 (pre-fazor), LCD-2 rev. 2 (pre-fazor), HE-6 (4S-EP modded)
Bryston 3B-ST kept off while the CMA15 sits on top, probably going to sit the CMA15 in front when comparing the two driving the HE-6

 

[Questyle]

Let the North American tour begin!



Cans (L to R): HEKv1, LCD-3 (pre-fazor), LCD-2 rev. 2 (pre-fazor), HE-6 (4S-EP modded)
Bryston 3B-ST kept off while the CMA15 sits on top, probably going to sit the CMA15 in front while comparing the two driving the HE-6

Very, very excited to hear what you think!

 

[larsv]

Measurements: https://www.l7audiolab.com/f/questyle-cma-fifteen/

 

[camocim]

european tour

 

[TheMiddleSky]

Finally able to tested CMA 15!

Reference tuning, neutral tilt a little to bright character. A precision machine. Nothing between treble/midrange/bass that stand out too much. Tight decay, fast pace, and micro detail is clean, easily heard. Not mellow or overly sweet, but also not at hyper analytic or super aggressive. Well, reference.

On initial impression, what impress me the most is how CMA 15 structured the imaging, very neat and easy to locate position of each notes. Soundstage is definitely at spacious side. Not only width, but the depth performance also nice here.

Manage to compare the DAC part versus Chord Qutest (Thanks to analog input on CMA 15). Chord is chord, more relax, and more laidback character, with fluid transient. CMA 15's ESS perform a little more clinical on treble/midrange side, but also "kick" more impact on bass notes. I would give nod to Qutest for pure micro detail but the difference actually is not that far.

Qutest focus more on being organic and relax, CMA 15's DAC more onto clean strong impact and closer to analytic character. Both perform well in soundstage, Qutest only a little wider, with more or less same depth/height.

I can imagine CMA 15 would please many Audeze/Meze user out there.

 

[OldRoadToad]

It is pretty cool looking and does a lot of stuff but I think I will keep on keeping on with my Emotiva XDA-2. Because it too is a high quality piece of equipment and MQA free.

ORT

 

[sennfan83261]

Amps that I tested here:
Musicbee (FLAC) > SPDIF optical > CMA 15 (bias control set to High) > LCD-3, HEKv1, or HE-6
Musicbee (FLAC) > SPDIF optical > CMA 15 (DAC mode / fixed) > THX AAA 789 > LCD-3 or HE-6
Musicbee (FLAC) > Bifrost 2 (unison USB) > passive preamp > Bryston 3BST > HE-6

To my ears, the sound of the CMA 15 is neutral with a slightly bright tilt. I will compare it to the THX AAA 789 since I believe a lot of people here are familiar with the character of the 789 and amps of its ilk. Bass impact (i.e. slam) is noticeably strong with the CMA 15, considerably more so than the 789. The 789's slam sounded dull and mushy compared to the CMA 15. This difference is most apparent on the opening bars of "Protection" from Massive Attack on my LCD-3's. Also, the 789 sounded more closed-in, congested, which meant that imaging was far better with the CMA 15. To my ears, the 789 has a nasty habit of overly sharpening the edges of notes, which makes it sound a bit cold and unnatural. Thankfully, notes on the CMA 15 sounded a bit more rounded and fuller, and thus more natural, in my experience. Overall, the CMA 15 presents a clean and spacious sound with wonderful macrodynamics.

I really enjoyed listening to my LCD-3 and HEKv1 through the CMA 15. The HEKv1 is known for its soft character and the CMA 15 provides it some of the macrodynamics that it lacks on most other amplifiers (power amps help alleviate this issue with the HEKv1 but that's a whole 'nother kettle of fish). However, the CMA 15 came second best to the 3BST when it came to driving my HE-6 (modded 4-screw). To my ears, it was interesting that the 789 performance was not far from the CMA 15's when it came to driving this monster can. The increased bass impact from the CMA 15 with the LCD-3 and HEKv1 was a bit more muted when driving the HE-6. I noticed the size of the image increasing when going from the 789 to the CMA 15 and then to the 3BST. The slight bright tilt from the CMA 15 came to the fore with the HE-6's, whereas the 3BST+BF2 combo exhibited better control and sounded far more spacious than the other two amps. This spaciousness might reflect the character from the BF2, which I noticed exhibited more soundstage depth than the CMA 15's ESS DAC when switching back and forth between the two sources using the CMA 15's remote during my brief testing of the BF2 with the CMA 15 (see review).

Overall, I think the CMA 15 is a nice all-in-one unit that synergizes well with planar cans and offers a lot of convenient features.

These are off to the next reviewer @jieranli.

Full review posted here: https://www.head-fi.org/showcase/questyle-cma-fifteen-—-flagship-dac-headphone-amp.25594/reviews#review-27932