[DBaldock9]

Finally decided to order a Qudelix-5K.
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I've already got a Radsone EarStudio ES100, a Shanling M0, and a FiiO BTR5 - all of which can receive BT LDAC, and act as USB DACs.
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Looking forward to comparing the Q5K to these other devices.

 

[jsmiller58]

Finally decided to order a Qudelix-5K.
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I've already got a Radsone EarStudio ES100, a Shanling M0, and a FiiO BTR5 - all of which can receive BT LDAC, and act as USB DACs.
.
Looking forward to comparing the Q5K to these other devices.

There are lots of opinions, but to me the differences boil down to BTR5 has better build and look & feel, while the 5K has better BT range and a much more useful equalizer that includes an EQ and PEQ and it works over LDAC. I only use IEMs with these receivers so cannot comment on the power differences. And, really, after a year of largely sheltering in place during the pandemic I am not getting much use out of these tiny things... It will be great to see how you stack them after getting to compare them.

 

[rlw6534]

There are lots of opinions, but to me the differences boil down to BTR5 has better build and look & feel, while the 5K has better BT range and a much more useful equalizer that includes an EQ and PEQ and it works over LDAC. I only use IEMs with these receivers so cannot comment on the power differences. And, really, after a year of largely sheltering in place during the pandemic I am not getting much use out of these tiny things... It will be great to see how you stack them after getting to compare them.

I have all three (ES100, BTR5 and 5K). I would use the 5K exclusively except for the lack of aptx ll. For home audio/video sync, I use the BTR5. If we ever get BT transmitters that support aptx adaptive (or even LDAC), that may change for me.

 

[DBaldock9]

I have all three (ES100, BTR5 and 5K). I would use the 5K exclusively except for the lack of aptx ll. For home audio/video sync, I use the BTR5. If we ever get BT transmitters that support aptx adaptive (or even LDAC), that may change for me.

Check out the FiiO BTA30, for a home BT LDAC transmitter. I bought mine from Amazon.

 

[rlw6534]

Check out the FiiO BTA30, for a home BT LDAC transmitter. I bought mine from Amazon.

Thank you! I'll take a look. Got to do some research on LDAC latency...

 

[DBaldock9]

Has anyone else's Qudelix-5K order been "hosed" by Amazon?
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After receiving this email yesterday - "Hi David, your package will arrive: Wednesday, March 10"
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Another email came this morning - "Unfortunately, a problem occurred during shipping and we had to cancel your delivery. The package is being returned, and we will issue a refund within 3 - 5 business days after the return is processed. We’re very sorry for the inconvenience."
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The product page on Amazon says they still have 11 in stock, so I just ordered another one - hope they can deliver it...

 

[Palfim]

That is unfortunate...we lately got a fresh wave of q5s here in Europe, where it was notourisly hard to get but now you can just order it on eBay from their official distr. , I got mine in 2 days that way, they use ups.

My q5 is doing great, both on high and low impendance full scale headphones ( hifiman Ananda with under 30 ohm with a alot of bass eq, usually need a desktop amp), and Sennheiser hd600 (300 ohm) with ALOT of eq , again the q5 produces a wonderful full sound , like amiir said in their partly not so favourable review , it drives even his difficult headphones nicely without any hint of distortion.
IMO the double ess setup is brilliant since it produces good voltage and current. The mediocre sinad ASR forums found isn't audible at all , testing it against a desktop setup. And I can't spot any difference whatsoever on bt mode Vs usb fully cabled.

I'm using ldac 44.1khz and 24 bit, sounds just as good as a cable compared to my much more expensive topping. With these settings about 10 meters and a wall in between is possible, it drops from 909kb to 660 for a while there which isn't audible to me. I was even using a 470 ohm ath-R70x with it, which worked in balanced mode, but the battery is drained fast that way. But that this is possible in itself is crazy.
I wonder how they put a sufficient antenna in that small device, but I would have never thought to get cd quality over bt on such distances with a tiny clip device.
Positive side effect : I even terminated some of my older headphones like k701 to 2.5mm balanced myself, it does sound better thanks to less noise during charging (ground loops) , better stereo crosstalk values and much more power or headroom for EQ.
The app is awesome, I can even use it to properly peq her sennheisers, since it is stored in hardware and plug and playable for my older folks haha.

 

[mart1272]

Anyone using 'High' Output Power (under DAC/AMP in the Qudelix app) for IEMs? Or 'Normal' as recommended in the 5K app? I am driving my FH3 IEMs from the 5K with a balanced cable, wonder if High Output Power would give me even better sound quality (in theory?).

 

[rkw]

Anyone using 'High' Output Power (under DAC/AMP) for IEMs? Or 'Normal' as recommended in the 5K app? I am driving my FH3 from them with a balanced cable, wonder if High Output Power would give me even better sound quality (in theory?).

Plausible arguments can be made that it will sound better, worse, or the same. The ultimate answer is, just try it and decide for yourself whether it sounds better to you.

 

[tkddans]

I just bought the Qudelix 5K. Love it. Best portable bluetooth DAC/amp in my opinion, from those I've tried.

I had the BTR5 on me to compare directly, and the BTR5 simply sounded less clear - almost flabby or fuzzy by comparison, bloomy with bass you could say.

I actually had the BTR5 after considering it better, for one reason or another, than...
- EarStudio ES100
- Shanling UP4

The sound quality overall was very similar, though slightly different in their own ways tuning-wise, between the BTR5, ES100, and UP4. Amongst those, the BTR5 won for me by a margin of build quality, button interface, and that bass bloom actually flavored it nicely in some way that the others seemed sterile by comparison.

But NOW...with the Qudelix 5K, it was just immediately better to my ear over the BTR5. The Qudelix is not only cleaner/clearer sounding, but I felt like the notes were somehow hitting me with more interest. I don't want to try to explain it too much because I'm not sure if I can, but that's how it felt to me. The 5K gave me a smile when notes struck where the BTR5 now felt flat. I dare say the Qudelix sounds "musical" (I know that doesn't help you all, but that's how it felt).

Not only all that, but the Qudelix was the only DAC/amp that would fit inside my Thieaudio Clairvoyanace carrying case alongside the IEM's. It's the tiniest portable with no wasted space in the build. And as cheap as the plastic buttons can feel compared to the metal and glass of the BTR5, the Qudelix somehow still feels nice with its flat faces, sharp edges, and compact weight/size overall. Buttons are intuitive after briefly looking at the button diagram printed on the shipping box. The sound effects it plays in the ear when shutting off and on are satisfying, and the colors on the buttons when turned off and on are different, so you know if it's on or off easily enough (the volume button turns red when on and pressed, with no light when off and pressed). It can also clip on to more areas of the body without feeling ridiculous or too big/heavy/cumbersome, because of its extremely small footprint wherever it clips on to. I could imagine clipping this on a collar during a call or presentation, for example, so the mic can be closer to the face as well. If you wanted to, you could even clip it on a watch band when running (not that you should run and sweat with expensive IEM's lol, but an interesting point nonetheless I suppose).

Highly recommend. Get the Qudilex and you should be happy with it for a portable solution.

 

[dw1narso]

I've submitted my review below on my Amazon account (since there was where I bought my unit) and currently waiting for moderation. It was really difficult to allocate time during this pandemic time.. (I'm might be belong to the group of people that working time much increased during this time around.)

I'd like to share my views here as well...

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Hi.. I'd like give my view on Qudelix 5K after using it for almost 3 months. Hopefully what I share below could help others to understand better about this device.

Qudelix 5K is a very sophisticated audio device. I notice it captures firstly/mostly the 'serious' audio lovers/enthusiasts. I myself like it so much and really amazed by its sound quality that I feel it necessary to introduce it to greater audience than just the audio enthusiasts. For this reason, I'm going to try explain it in a more simple than technical approach.

In simplest term, device like Qudelix 5K can do two things:

1. As Bluetooth receiver (receive BT audio and send out analog audio)
2. As USB to analog audio dongle (USB-C to analog audio out)

The USB-C port on 5K is dual function port. We could use it to charge the battery on 5K, or use it as interface for USB-to-analog audio dongle, or both.

Qudelix 5K send out analog audio via the 3.5mm or 2.5mm jack on top of the unit. On either of this port we could connect earphones/headphones or send the output across to the external audio amplifier (i.e. home audio or car audio).

(Note: the 2.5mm port is intended to operate in 'balanced' audio mode. If you have no idea what it is all about, please avoid to use it. Don't try to put in just any 2.5mm plug/cable, without proper 'balanced' wiring. 5K could be damaged by the wrong 2.5mm connector/cable.)

Depend on how we like to use 5K, how deep we want to dig 5K capabilities and tinker with their accompanying mobile app, we could turn this device from sounding great to amazing.

We could use Qudelix 5K just as simple BT receiver/audio dongle. The device have been pre-set up by manufacturer with optimum default settings. IMHO, the default settings on 5K is more than enough to make average/most listener to be happy with it. Enough to open them up to the world of improved audio reproduction and that while having the freedom of detached (i.e. wireless) earphone/headphone from their mobile phones.

Please don't feel degraded/depreciate when I mention 'average'. By 'average' is I mean for people enjoying music more than concerning with how their audio equipment perform (that's why there's the term 'audiophile for this kind of love ). I myself is more of a music lover (80% of time) than audiophile, though I really love to hear my music sounding their best.

Qudelix provide 5K with an accompanying mobile app (available for iOS on AppStore and Android on PlayStore). The app is intended to do many things such as:
- to regularly upgrade the 'software' inside Qudelix 5K; to improve its performance and stability
- to formally start the warranty of the 5K with the manufacturer
- to adjust behavior when it is connected as USB dongle
- to enable/disable certain Bluetooth audio codecs (note: by default all codecs are enabled)
- to adjust the buttons behavior/actions
- to adjust the power/battery management
- to adjust it to get the maximum sound quality (remember: this one is not mandatory to get good sound out of 5K, as I mentioned above)
- to set the built-in equalizer in 5K to adjust it to sound more to our flavor (note: human hearing and ear profiles are never the same person to person), or to 'correct' the imperfect characters of earphone/headphone, or compensate the room response of home/car audio system.
- and few more

The interesting part with the app is, the Qudelix app is actually just a user interface to set these settings on 5K. All the settings we do on the app are not saved on the app but directly on 5K and the app is no longer needed for 5K to perform. Settings on 5K will follow it everywhere regardless of the mobile phone or computer using 5K as BT receiver or USB audio dongle. So if in one occasion I used 5K with my friend's mobile phone or I used to test a mobile phone in the store, all the settings (including the sound profile) will just follow with 5K.

With such capabilities of Qudelix 5K, the app then is a little bit complex to use. You'll need time to really understand and to use all the features. I myself confused on my first time using it. But don't feel too overwhelmed but the app, if you found it is too complex to understand it, just leave it. Qudelix 5K sounded already good with its all default settings.

I don't want to cover all the settings and Qudelix capabilities here. Those could be found on their user guide. I'm going to list the things that I found amazing on Qudelix 5K.

1. Amazing Sound.
I've repeated this many times above. It simply sound amazing. Be it used with just basic AAC/Apt-X codec, or very advanced codec like LDAC, or using as USB-audio dongle. It sounded many, many times better then my other BT receiver Maceton WM4U. It sounded two or three levels above my LG V20 phone; a phone that is highly respected for the sound quality: better resolution, better music layers, better power, more finesse.

2. Long battery life.
This depend whether we want to maximize it for longer battery life or set it for best audio performance, we can get between 10 hours to 20 hours of play.

3. Powerful Driving Power
Device like Qudelix 5K is technically referred to as DAC (Digital Analog Converter). DAC will receive audio in digital format and convert it into analog audio. Analog audio is then converted by the interaction of amplifier and transducer (i.e. speaker, headphones, earphones, etc.) to become audio wave so that we human can listen to it. Normally analog audio output from DAC alone is quite low and need external amplifier to sound louder. In Qudelix 5K case, it has built-in little amplifier that is powerful enough to drive various headphones/earphones load. The 3.5mm port is powerful enough to drive many headphones. But the 2.5mm balanced port would deliver double of power. In balanced, it's quite powerful to drive my very demanding Hifiman HE5LE planar magnetic headphone to sound quite loud.

4. Amazing Bluetooth range.
Qudelix hype about the 5K unique BT antenna design, and they are not just hyping it up. I could get 5K play 8 meters away from my LG V20 phones, accross 3 layers of brickwall (of about 6 inch each) at my home and that while I use LDAC as codec, and that streaming from my LG V20 that can only do BT4.2.

5. Amazing Equalizer
Qudelix 5K come with two flavors of 10 bands equalizer; Graphic Equalizer (GEQ) and Parametric Equalizer (PEQ). Equalizer is done on digital domain with 64 bits precision calculation, which mean the EQ could adjust the level of frequency and amplitude of the sound without degrading the quality of the modified sound. GEQ is something that most people familiar with. But PEQ is a beast of equalization tool. It provides a much more flexibility for us to shape the frequency of the sound to affect the response of our earphone/headphone or room response of external audio system. Note that PEQ is usually considered as professional tool. But not necessarily professional audio equipment would have PEQ in it. Some lower/mid end even only have 3 to 5 bands PEQ. Amazingly 5K come with 10 bands very high precision PEQ in such a small package.

By now, you should be able to see why I mentioned that Qudelix 5K is such a sophisticated audio device. Inside its understated appearance, Qudelix 5K is really an amazing, highly customizable and state of the art audio device.

Below is the list of audio device I used with 5K this far.
Earphone: Sony MH755, Blon BL-03, Fiio FH1
Headphone: Drop E-MU Purpleheart, Audeze Sine (in balanced), Hifiman HE-5LE (in balanced)
Source (BT transmitter): LG V20
Music/songs: I don't limit myself with certain genre of music. I listen everything: classical/romantic/baroque/renaissance, rock (progressive, rock'n'roll, hard rock etc.), jazz (all derivatives), metal, pop, folk/country, vocal, etc.

PS. Qudelix 5K has built-in microphone, which is very sensitive, but don't have noise cancellation. The voice coming out from the microphone is actually very good, but if we clipped Q5K to clothes it could easily pickup the noise of 5K rubbing the clothes and send across the sound to the other end. If we don't like this, and our earphone has built-in microphone, we can turn the 5K microphone off and instead using the external microphone on our earphone/headphone. In the other way around of usage, if our headphone/earphone don't have microphone (or we send audio output to amplifier for example) we could use the built-in microphone on Q5K for making a call.

PPS. In GEQ, frequency range of human hearing (20Hz to 20KHz) are divided into about factor of two frequency scale (31.5, 63, 125, 250, 500, 1K, 2K, 4K, 8K, 16K) with fixed width of frequency range 'impact' for boost or cut as peak/valley. PEQ is a much more sophisticated equalizer in that this frequency scale can be adjusted freely by us, for how wide the impact would be, and whether the impact is affecting as peak/valley or as shelfing filter. Don't be confused and overwhelmed by this PEQ. It seems complicated at first but is really not that difficult to use. What makes it complicated is to effectively use PEQ to shape a headphone for example, we would need to have the frequency response measurement of the headphone. With that we will know on which part of response the phones are the lacking or having too much of volume. Then we rectify these with the PEQ. Luckily some sites readily share their measurements such on this list: https://www.reddit.com/r/oratory1990/wiki/index/list_of_presets
The PEQ sample I attach as one of picture, show my way to correct the response of my Fiio FH1 IEM. Without the EQ, it sound smooth but flat and unexciting. PEQ turn it into a lively sounding IEM I never imagine it could.

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One thing that I do not share on my Amazon review above is a fact that when I received my Qudelix 5K, I was little bit disappointed. Received with all seals of the box still intact, but I found the 5K unit inside was not in pristine shape. There were some dirt around both the buttons. There's a mark on the front surface of the unit. I cleaned it with a soft cloth and manage to get it clean, almost all part except the mark on the front part cannot be removed. It seems a paint failure during production. I hope in the future the quality control of the unit is really taken care seriously before it was shipped out. Qudelix 5K is not about appearance but what is inside is more important. Still, for the total price I paid for shipping plus custom+tax make it almost $150 the price I paid, thus I hope to receive a clean and pristine brand new unit.

 

[DBaldock9]

The second Q5K that I ordered, arrived today (Amazon did provide a refund for the first one, that they said couldn't be shipped to me).
It's paired and working well using BT LDAC (990) with my LG V30 phone.
However, I'm not having any luck with getting it to show up as a USB DAC on my Kubuntu 20.04 Linux PC.
The cable, connected to a USB 3.0 port, does work with my FiiO BTR5, and other USB-C devices.

 

[deviltrombone]

My understanding is that the 5K supports multipoint. My intent is to use it with my Avantree Leaf (PC USB transmitter) and Apple TV.

1. Is it possible to manually switch between Bluetooth devices? Experience with other receivers is that the Leaf is always outputting something to keep the connection to it alive, so automatic switching doesn't work.
2. I know the 5K can be connected to two devices at once, but can it remember more than two, so you can connect without having to re-pair?
3. Can the iPhone app still connect with Bluetooth-LE if the 5K is connected to two other devices?

 

[morah]

My understanding is that the 5K supports multipoint. My intent is to use it with my Avantree Leaf (PC USB transmitter) and Apple TV.

1. Is it possible to manually switch between Bluetooth devices? Experience with other receivers is that the Leaf is always outputting something to keep the connection to it alive, so automatic switching doesn't work.

To your first question, yes. Inside the app, under Input >> Priority, you can choose which one of the connected sources the 5K is gonna play, whether Bluetooth A2DP #1 or Bluetooth A2DP #2.

 

[deviltrombone]

To your first question, yes. Inside the app, under Input >> Priority, you can choose which one of the connected sources the 5K is gonna play, whether Bluetooth A2DP #1 or Bluetooth A2DP #2.

Looking forward to trying it out. Without it, I'd have to unplug the Leaf to use the ATV.