Being a daily Qudelix 5k user and absolute fanboy of it, I saw this and went into it thinking “I’m going to see if I agree with everything he says, and I’ll ask/say what I would like to add or discuss.” But after reading it, bravo! This guide is very in-depth and well thought out, and your feedback for Qudelix regarding some changes for the app are pretty much spot-on. So, the only things I feel like I can add are my opinions and thoughts on the Qudelix 5k, eq in general, and some other stuff. Seriously great job on creating this guide, and I hope Qudelix gets back with you on some of that stuff.
For me personally, the app can of course use some improvements, but for the time being, I am absolutely more than willing to live with the quirks and not-perfectly-user-friendly things about the app because…Qudelix simply doesn’t have any real competition in their niche of the audio market. As I know of, this is the only product that has a 10-band fully parametric eq along with its form factor, power, performance, etc… At least you can fix most of nit picks you mentioned in settings, and you don’t have to change them again (such as USB having priority over bluetooth). I’m young and technically inclined, so navigating the app has actually been fairly easy for me. It just took about a week to get used to.
The only area I diverge from your guide is that I personally keep the power mode in normal and keep the maximum hardware volume set at -3dB because I only ever use iems and efficient dynamic-driver headphones with the qudelix.
For anyone reading this that might be new to this hobby and/or are considering buying the Qudelix 5k, know that it is a dongle dac/amp that is not meant to drive medium-to-hard to drive headphones, especially power-hungry planars, nor is it meant to be used as only a dac going into a more powerful amp. It is an excellent, imo best in its class, device when used for its intended purposes, which is being a tiny portable dac/amp for iems and efficient headphones. If you’re looking for something in that use case that has a fully parametric eq, than this is currently the absolute best thing out there imo. For iPhone users like me, the Qudelix 5k is actually the only option for system-wide parametric eq, besides much more expensive desktop stuff like the RME ADI-2, which only has 5 bands. I’ve used the Qudelix daily for the past couple of months, and it has still not dipped below 50% charge: the battery is AMAZING. I recommend switching the maximum charge to 80% in the app because lithium batteries last the longest when between 20-80% charge.
Amir from audiosciencereview measured the power that the Qudelix 5k can put out:
(the 2.5mm output provides 4x the power!)
For anyone new to eq or just wanting to learn more, check out Resolve’s video guide for eq
, and I actually recommend checking out the rest of the Headphone Show’s educational playlist as well as Crinacle’s video on eq.
Step one: set the pre-gain (pre-amp, whatever it may be called) as minus the maximum gain of your eq preset. For example, if the highest peak of your eq preset is at 4.8dB, set the pre-gain to -4.9dB.
In the videos, Resolve and Crin make clear and I will say it again, the Auto-eq presets are not the end-all be-all heaven-sent silver bullet. They are simply someone else’s preference preset and should be treated as such. You may like them and tweak them to perfectly match your tastes. In my experience, the Koss KPH30i preset is amazing, and after dialing tweaks to my tastes, that $40 headphone is absolutely spectacular (tonality-wise). However, they may not sound good to you, and you may have to type in someone else’s preset, such as Resolve’s, or you may just have to do it by ear. So far, all of the presets for iems have been a miss for me. Even if you like a preset, still try to eq to your own ears and preferences because everyones’ are different.