New Portable Digital Player QA361

[Sligolad]

I have finally decided to replace my trusty iRiver iHP-120 which has traveled the world with me for the past 15 years and is still going strong.

Choices are diverse today and I looked at lots of new devices and had been tempted by several in recent years including some of the uber Astell & Kern units but hesitated at some of the prices for the top end devices.

I have finally decided to give a Chinese manufactured unit, the QA361 manufactured by QLShifi a try even without hearing one, reviews on most of whats available today seems to be mixed so I do not have any faith in reviews.

What swung me is the design philosophy based on reading their website on the device http://www.qlshifi.com/en/wzcapi/qa361.htm
Given we have gone the super caps route on the latest DAC from Nige and the fact that this unit follows that route helped swing me.
Also the use of single level basic code to control playback much like the SD Card Players we have been having great success with helps.
Finally playback from a micro SD card which I hope will work with an SLC card will hopefully give great sound.

I have it on order so hopefully by the end of the month i will have it and be able to report back on it and compare it with existing DACs i have.
The only concern for me is the use of AKM chips which never seemed to achieve what Burr Brown chips achieve but maybe I have never heard a good implementation yet.....hopefully this unit will impress.

If anyone has any experience of these new crop of Digital Audio Players I would love to hear some feedback.
I have loved what the iRiver was able to achieve over the years even with good IEMs from Shure, the SE846 pair I have been using for about 2 years.

[james]

I look forward to hearing about your experiences. I am not personally interested in a portable player but a friend is ...

[Sligolad]

I received the unit at the beginning of last week well packaged and no additional charges to pay.
It is a very well finished piece and the leather case fits like a glove and would be difficult to remove once fitted.
The screen is simplicity itself and browsing through folders of albums and songs is really easy and is in line with what I currently do on the SD Card Player I currently use connected to my DAC.
The firmware loaded plays just about every file type I have including WAV, FLAC, MP3, DSD 1 & 2x.

On initial listening i was struck on how super detailed and quiet the background was....a touch too detailed for me initially as this was a big departure from what i was used to.
I listened initially on the latest iPhone earbuds which are comfortable though not high end produce great sound for what they are.
I listened then on Shure 846 earbuds and I was impressed with the detail and background this unit was resolving so much so I was wondering what I had been missing on my room system, i was still not settling into the ultra detailed sound though.

I let the unit run for 2 days checking in each day and at the end of the second day now the sound had become much richer while still maintaining the detail but it was now drawing my attention to the music and not so much the detail.
I began listening on Grado RS1 headphones and after experimenting with the various settings I landed on Mellow Tuning Mode, Slow Sound Mode and Double High Amp Mode which really made these headphones sing sweetly.

These settings are where most listeners land with larger most demanding headsets and the Amp Mode is the key to making them work really well, using large current mode or double high means shorter battery life but it lifts the performance noticeably.

Next up was to load the WAV only firmware which is simple as can be and you can easily switch firmware in minutes, the firmware versions are small files and can be loaded in a folder on the micro SD card and changed quickly.
There are 2 versions of the WAV firmware and I used WAV 1.0.5.
Now i was really hitting some great sound with this WAV only firmware and I have not changed back since, so much so that I have been listening to the unit each day since for many hours of amazing listening pleasure.
Even at work just using iPhone earbuds the sound is pretty amazing and relaxing so that you can work for hours with great sound and atmosphere from them, down side is that you really switch off from all around you and you can get surprised really easily when someone goes into large gesture mode to get your attention.

I recently received a €7 cheap 3.5mm to Spdif digital cable and connected the unit into the Spdif in on the Lampizator Big7 and I was really surprised that the unit matched my best configuration SD Card playback system with expensive clocks, now that was a really nice surprise.
I was switching between both with the same WAV files in playback and the QA361 was as good as if not better at times than my current source.

I am waiting on a silver cabled 3.5mm to RCA cable to try it directly into my Amp to see what the DAC is like compared to the Big7.
So far it is a killer portable player and would highly recommend it to anyone who is purely focused on listening pleasure over fancy User Interface and graphics.

Battery life seems to be about 10 hours listening to earbuds on Normal Amp mode and with Grado's with Double High I expect to be about 6 hours but i have not pushed it yet to shutdown on low power.
Using it as a digital out unit I think it could be higher than 10 hours as I did not see much movement on the battery indicator during several hours of listening.
You can use it with it running off a USB cable to a C type connector in which is supplied with the unit and I have not heard and trade off on USB power so far.

[Sligolad]

For anyone with a real interest in this player and the background to it development there is a real interesting thread here where the developer of this player "Clark" speaks of the road to its launch with lots of testing and speaks a lot to what many of us have found with power supplies, slimmed down software, clocks, smd components sound signatures and all kinds of obsessive testing to get to where we are at.
http://www.qlshifi.com/bbs/dispbbs.asp? ... e=1&star=1
I like his philosophy on how to achieve good sound and I have read all 100+ pages !!!! :-))

Best read on Chrome Browser with Translate and some of the translation can be amusing but most is very good.

Firmware threads and download links can be found here:
http://www.qlshifi.com/bbs/dispbbs.asp? ... =2&Id=7502
http://www.qlshifi.com/bbs/dispbbs.asp? ... =2&Id=7542

[Fran]

Great read Pearse, hope to get to have a listen to it soon.

[Sligolad]

A quick report on analogue out which for me is the greatest attribute of this unit.
No sign of the silver wired 3.5mm to RCA cable so far so I ordered a cheap cable off Amazon and got it last week https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01 ... UTF8&psc=1
I was shocked when I plugged the unit into a set of RCA inputs on the Battery Amp courtesy of Nige.

To cut to the chase this single unit has blown away the Lampizator Big7 DAC and I cannot stop listening to music from it plugged direct into the Amp.
There is such a big improvement that you would wonder how it would fare against some of the best DACs out there, I am looking forward to bringing it with me to the Munich Audio show and see if any exhibitors will allow me to plug it into some of their kit by the RCA's and see what their reaction will be.

It produces a sound that feels just right and with the kind of realism and presence that makes you wonder how they could pull this off from such a small compact unit.
There are layers within music i have not experienced before and I would recommend anyone who is considering buying a real good DAC to test this unit first before you spend big money on a DAC and transport.

Might be worth a trip to Cloneys one day with it when the weather improves and see what the reaction will be.

For me it is now my transport and DAC of choice and having it for headphones is a distant second priority.
I really think this is a game changer and it will be interesting to see if the technology used in this unit will be transferred to some of the DACs the maker supply.

[HiFiFan]

Wow - that is quite a report. I have the Onkyo DP-X1A which I think is very good and am very happy with it as a DAP but it is not a substitute for my DAC (though I am just comparing it from the headphone outputs of both). Would be very interested to hear the unit you have but don't see how I could do that. Still looking forward to reading more if you get to try it as you have planned.

[Georgi]

Nice read Pearse, you said you have to bring that Big 7 for a test at home, you can bring that player as well, to see how good it is.
What you think?

[Diapason]

Well now I'm interested!!

[nige2000]

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/AK4495S ... 05055.html

was kinda curious about this dual mono version or what is exactly achievable, i see theres opamps... maybe there's a way round that. most of the issues is that akm have nda's on the chips no no useful datasheets available handy without getting inventive .
maybe i need to stop looking over the hedges