[szore]

5K Bluetooth connection is much stronger/reliable than that on the BTR5. As a result you will be able to maintain a higher bandwidth LDAC connection with the 5K under many conditions, particularly where the 5K or the BTR5 are not physically next to the transmitter.

Yes, the LDAC on the BTR5 sounds good, it just drops too easily and is unusable. The signal strength on the Q is what made me buy it....And I heard it sounds better, too.

 

[Rattle]

This little person is legit. Arrived today, using a S20 5g, Surprised how good LDAC sounds. This is powering a pair of ZMF Aeolus 300ohm headphones out of the 3.5 on low 1v. Sounds surprisingly damn good. I've only heard these headphones out of a bifrost 2 dac and $400 + amps and I dont find the 5k bright. In fact I can't believe it even sounds this good. UM 3DT coming Monday.

Should I spring for UAPP ? I am having good luck with BT and LDAC so far but no matter what it says 24bit.. I only need/want 16/44 for BT. Will I be able to control that with UAPP ? I'm getting 909 with screen off and 606 with screen on.

 

[szore]

Just got my Q5K delivered as well 30 min ago... definitely sounds MUCH better than the BTR5...Right now listening with my custom Valkyries and a silver/copper hybrid cable...sounds fantastic...bass bleeds a little, but they sound satisfying... Using with my Shanling M8 LDAC mode.

 

[jsmiller58]

This little person is legit. Arrived today, using a S20 5g, Surprised how good LDAC sounds. This is powering a pair of ZMF Aeolus 300ohm headphones out of the 3.5 on low 1v. Sounds surprisingly damn good. I've only heard these headphones out of a bifrost 2 dac and $400 + amps and I dont find the 5k bright. In fact I can't believe it even sounds this good. UM 3DT coming Monday.

Should I spring for UAPP ? I am having good luck with BT and LDAC so far but no matter what it says 24bit.. I only need/want 16/44 for BT. Will I be able to control that with UAPP ? I'm getting 909 with screen off and 606 with screen on.

Only get UAPP if you will be using the 5K in USB mode, not as a BT device.

 

[dw13]

First post from a long term lurker. I bought the Qudelix-5K soon after it was released based on the recommendations of this forum. I'm enjoying it very much with my ER2XR and a balanced cable - both also bought on recommendations from Head-Fi.

Recently my unit developed a problem that is apparently present in some of the early units. I emailed Qudelix asking how to get it repaired. Within 12 hours I got a reply asking for my shipping address so that they could send me a new unit. No 'send it back at your expense', no 'we'll have our engineers examine it and get back to you', simply 'send us your address so that we can replace the unit'.

I'm making my first post on Head-Fi to let people know that not only is the Qudelix-5K a stellar product but Qudelix's customer service is stellar as well.

Tremendous customer service. Great product. Great app. Looking forward to their next endeavor.

 

[Rattle]

Only get UAPP if you will be using the 5K in USB mode, not as a BT device.

There's no settings to force 16bit even for BT ? I have it set to 16/44 in developer options but it always reports 24bit

 

[szore]

Listening to DAC/AMP mode; sounds great! More dynamic than BTR5

I just connected Q5 on my M8 in LDAC connection priority mode, with my M8 on my desk and the Q5K clipped to my pants by my stomach (which means body was blocking signal), I left the room, crossed the livingroom and went to kitchen, then bathroom to brush my teeth (with several walls and my body blocking signal) and the Q5K never dropped a signal once! THATS impressive....

 

[jsmiller58]

There's no settings to force 16bit even for BT ? I have it set to 16/44 in developer options but it always reports 24bit

Sorry, my comment was about the lack of benefit of using UAPP with Bluetooth.

 

[TK33]

There's no settings to force 16bit even for BT ? I have it set to 16/44 in developer options but it always reports 24bit

The attached screenshot from the Qudelix app (I am on Android) may help. This was a new feature that they added recently. I have never bothered trying it myself but please let us know your thoughts if you try it out. Qudelix has also been great about listening to feedback from users if you post on their official forum (not here) so if this does not help, you could try reaching out to them.

I also agree with the above that UAPP probably wont help you with BT.

EDIT: I just realized you were asking about bit depth and not sample rate so maybe this does not address your concern. However, I am not sure that 16-bit vs. 24 bit really makes a difference if playing 16 bit content (may just be extra 0s) and my understanding is that sample rate is really what matters. Someone more knowledgeable about this could probably chime in and explain this better than me.

 

[Rattle]

I guess this happens automatically using LDAC to take the android audio stack out of the mix ? No biggie ! I'll probably use it wired mostly anyway.

 

[JasonCA]

 

[HiFlight]

I am not sure if this has been asked before, sorry if this is a repeat.

Does 5K offer an option for Line Out to feed to another amp? because I am looking for highly compact LDAC capable companion for my Shure KSE1200. The pairing of KSE1200 + Cayin N6ii DAP as you would imagine is quite hefty and thick. So having some option for very compact LDAC receiver that will then feed analogue lineout to my KSE1200 energizer would be nice

You can use a 3.5mm male to dual RCA male jacks adapter cable. It works just fine for me. No need for a dedicated line-out function on the 5K.

 

[monsieurfromag3]

I guess this happens automatically using LDAC to take the android audio stack out of the mix ? No biggie ! I'll probably use it wired mostly anyway.

UAPP does have an option to optimize for BT connection where I think it attempts to bypass the Android mixer (“audio may arrive cleaner before it is sent to the BT receiver”, so it says). The disclaimer is that it doesn’t work on all phones. Better get the trial version.

Many thanks to @TK33 for bringing this new freq limiter functionality to my attention - I keep breaking BT playback by selecting 44.1kHz LDAC output in my phone’s Developer Options, so it’s great to know I’ve now got one Rx at least where it should work without forcing it on the Tx side.
I’ll check if I can get bit-perfect BT playback this way, with UAPP transmitting of course.

I don’t know for sure why your phone keeps reverting to 24-bit for LDAC; it seems Android not only upsamples all LDAC playback to 96kHz by default but also pads bits to 24. Thankfully those empty bits should be harmless audio-wise and shouldn’t degrade connection stability since they are empty. Upsampling 44.1 to 96 is where the problem lies, wrong multiple means approximation. I don’t know whether Android itself is doing the upsampling, using the same terrible algorithm that ruins regular FLAC by guessing how 44.1kHz content would sound if it had been produced as 48kHz, or if LDAC is involved in the upsampling, in which case it’s at least optimized for audio.

 

[OspreyAndy]

You can use a 3.5mm male to dual RCA male jacks adapter cable. It works just fine for me. No need for a dedicated line-out function on the 5K.

Thanks, and what volume you set on the 5K? Max? at high gain?

 

[Rattle]

UAPP does have an option to optimize for BT connection where I think it attempts to bypass the Android mixer (“audio may arrive cleaner before it is sent to the BT receiver”, so it says). The disclaimer is that it doesn’t work on all phones. Better get the trial version.

Many thanks to @TK33 for bringing this new freq limiter functionality to my attention - I keep breaking BT playback by selecting 44.1kHz LDAC output in my phone’s Developer Options, so it’s great to know I’ve now got one Rx at least where it should work without forcing it on the Tx side.
I’ll check if I can get bit-perfect BT playback this way, with UAPP transmitting of course.

I don’t know for sure why your phone keeps reverting to 24-bit for LDAC; it seems Android not only upsamples all LDAC playback to 96kHz by default but also pads bits to 24. Thankfully those empty bits should be harmless audio-wise and shouldn’t degrade connection stability since they are empty. Upsampling 44.1 to 96 is where the problem lies, wrong multiple means approximation. I don’t know whether Android itself is doing the upsampling, using the same terrible algorithm that ruins regular FLAC by guessing how 44.1kHz content would sound if it had been produced as 48kHz, or if LDAC is involved in the upsampling, in which case it’s at least optimized for audio.

The hilarious part is I can set it to 44.1k and it sticks but it has to be 24bit ! It's cool though, with BT I'd rather have it set to 44.1 than the android auto of 48 which makes no sense.

I'd like to try UAPP but the trial is 20 minutes ...