[Todd]

Hi All,

Here is the Questyle CMA600i loaner program I promised. The unit will be shipping to the first one to sign up on Thursday.


Loaner Program Rules:



Send your name and address as well as a telephone number and your Head-Fi user name to me at todd@ttvjaudio.com. Do NOT PM me as you will not be included in the program without an email.

You will get the loaner for 1 week to use in your home with your system. After your one week is up, you must send it to the next loaner participant. Email me (todd@ttvjaudio.com) the tracking info so I can pass it on to the recipient.

You MUST write a review and post it in this loaner thread. It must be posted in the same thread as this announcement for the loaner program. Please do not post it somewhere else!

Once you have received the loaner, email me to let me know you have it and I will send the address for the next person.

Our loaner programs are USA only. We are restricted from shipping/selling outside the USA on most products.

Signup starts immediately!

Todd

 

[Zark]

This looks awesome!

 

[Blueshound24]

Email sent.

 

[Todd]

Hi All,

So far I have 4 folks signed up for the loaner program and will post the order of recipients and ship the CMA600i out Friday (10/27). It will have about 100 hours on it so it should be at least most of the way broken in. I'm excited to hear your impressions on the unit!

Todd

 

[DoctaCosmos]

May I ask if you’ve received my email?

 

[Monsterzero]

email sent

 

[Todd]

List for Questyle CMA600i loaner program



Blueshound24

Cubed4life

Zark

DoctaCosmos

monsterzero

Zadok


The amp will be shipping out today! Enjoy!!!

Todd

 

[DoctaCosmos]

Awesome! Hopefully will have Aeon or HD660S to pair it with by the time it gets here! Kind of hoping that this will be good enough to keep me from needing a Hugo2.

 

[Blueshound24]

List for Questyle CMA600i loaner program



Blueshound24

Cubed4life

Zark

DoctaCosmos

monsterzero


The amp will be shipping out today! Enjoy!!!

Todd

@Todd Thanks for the opportunity to audition/review this amp

 

[Todd]

Blueshound24,

You are welcome... you should be seeing it very soon. Enjoy - and I look forward to your impressions!

DoctaCosmos,

I have the Aeon in stock if you want one quickly!

Todd

 

[DoctaCosmos]

Eagerly awaiting first review !

 

[Monsterzero]

+1

 

[Blueshound24]

The Questyle CMA600i came very well packed, sandwiched between thick layers of foam and its attractive industrial design is heavier than its appearance and size would suggest. It is very versatile with preamp functions, balanced in and out connections and has it’s own built in DAC. I don't have any cans wired for balanced operation so having this amp without that might be somewhat of a waste just utilizing just the SE outputs? I am not sure of that never having experienced balanced driven cans and therefore have not experienced the claimed improvements thereof. Also, I was unable to get the DAC driver to work for most of my time with it until the last couple of days of my time with the unit due to, I think, operator error.

I was able to compare the CMA600i amp performance against my Icon Audio HP8 MkII (JAN-CHY-5692, Amperex 12ax7), and Lyr (Telefunken E88CC). I mostly used my Elear to compare, and briefly listened to the AH-D7000, LCD 2.2, HD650 and HD700, (listed in order of my preferred signatures).

The first thing I noticed was it had good deep black background, slightly warm but yet still retaining excellent crisp detail and having good detail and crispness, it excelled at separation, micro detail, air and it is lively sounding even with it being slightly warm. Rim shots were clean with good solid bass whacks and thumps and had good texture with bass notes. Even being a solid state design it compared well in depth, width and sound stage with my tubed amps, and it seemed to drive my cans effortlessly. Coherent, flat response and transparency come to mind listening to the Questyle.

It compared better with my HP MkII than with the Lyr, with the latter not being quite as rich and refined as either. Vocals were warm and rich, but as said before still with good highs and detail. The HP8 excels at being clear and detailed for a tubed design and I think the CMA600i may have even been a little warmer than it is. It certainly had good flow to it as well, and in the sense of warmth and flow it maybe had just a touch more bass slam, but my ears may have been playing tricks on me.

Like I said, I was unable to get the built in DAC driver to download and to work for me until later in my audition, so I only had a day to play with it. Once I was able to give it a brief listen comparing it to my PS Audio Perfectwave II in my system, to me it sounded a little bright and grainy.

I’m sure significant expense went into the CMA600i’s balanced operation, and built in DAC, so for my SE purposes, if I were to upgrade I would rather get an amp that put more of that expense into the SE design. Having said that, I would be happy with it as my main amp because it just had great timber, flow, dynamics, detail and naturalness for a SS design, and I enjoyed my time with this great amp.

 

[Monsterzero]

Was the driver something you had to download from a site,came in the box on a disc or was a plug&play that failed to do so?

 

[Blueshound24]

Was the driver something you had to download from a site,came in the box on a disc or was a plug&play that failed to do so?

There is a disc that comes with it that I couldn't get to download, and I went to the website to try to download from there without any luck. Then I found the driver in my "downloads", but not sure if it came from the disc or website?

Or it downloaded just "plug and play"?

Or, I'm an idiot.