mwhals
Headphoneus Supremus
- Joined
- Jul 26, 2015
- Posts
- 3,295
- Likes
- 2,184
Still no recent news in English.
Still no recent news in English.
I really hope tariffs don't cause the price to rise. I already don't like the price difference from the QP2R and the QP master ($1300 vs $2000) when the difference is only the amp section. I really enjoy the QP2R and when I heard about this one I was looking forward to an upgrade but now I'm not so sure.Tariffs will apply to electronic gear like the QPM. If this is the case, the USA price might be 25% higher. I ended up buying a QP2R. They are reduced by $400 at Moon Audio.
I agree with what you said, I think in the beginning Questyle may have been on the right track but in the long run, missed the mark. I don't need all the special features but I do understand where the market is going.I think Questyle's angle on this is to promote their focus on sound quality and elimination of any feature that does not directly contribute to this goal. Keep it simple.
The implication is that it is not possible to have great sound quality and a competitive feature set at the price points at which they offer their various units. To access these features one must therefore use a phone with the QPM acting as dac/amplifier.
At the original price of the QP1R that thinking was probably true, but likely became less so with the QP2R. With the announced price and feature set of the QPM it is highly doubtful this strategy can be supported.
Ultimately the market will decide if they are correct or not. Without access to the sales data one cannot say for sure, but I get the impression that relatively few people bought into the QP2R and even less so the HB2 dock.
What Questyle does not appear to get is that, beyond sound quality, features that were seen as a "nice to have" just a few years ago (speedy performance, great interface, nice screen, streaming from on-line services) are rapidly becoming minimum requirements in today's market ... regardless of price point. In generally users would prefer not having to stack their cell phone with a dac. Moreover, other companies have already shown that a high level of sound quality can be achieved from an all in one unit while still offering a competitive feature set.
If the lack of action on this thread is any indication, Questyle has an uphill fight on their hands, but maybe I'll be proven wrong.
Adding Bluetooth and WiFi will inevitably create some interference with the internal audio. So I see Questyle’s position on that. Connecting to smartphones is a decent compromise for streaming.
But to make a price bump worthwhile they should have done more upgrading of the audio system, such as going to dual DACs. Also, adopting the 4.4 standard for balanced output will make existing users have to re-terminate or replace 2.5 cables. Do they think they are Apple?
It is nice though eh