QLS QA361 Review

For those of you who know me, you guys know how much I respect QLS Hifi brand, and in particular the Chief Engineer, Clark.

They are about the only brand who are as transparent as one can be for their product development, without risking giving away their trade secrets.

The products they design and built around the philosophy to always be better than their predecessor without breaking the price bracket.

Also they only release a new product when that product has a substantial performance departure from its older model.

Following on from my recent un-boxing article I have now been able to put the QA361 through it’s paces.

The following items were used in the review:

IEM/headphone:

HUM Pristine, JVD FD01, Jays QJay, Sony MDR-EX1000, AKG K3003, AKG N3003, Dita Truth, Dita Fidelity, Etymotics ER4S, Fostex TH900, HD600, JVC SW-01, Ultrasone Edition 11, Ultrasone IQ

Sources: Lotoo Paw Gold

Enters the obscure

Unknown, having nothing to prove,  no pressure to sell you itself using all the fancy marketing techniques available to it, it enters your life. You press play, unbeknown to you on the journey you are about to partake, you find yourself drawn into the music. Congrats, you have just had a taste for the obscurity.

You search online forums for any detail you can get your hands on about the “thing” you heard.

You find yourself drawn more towards this product due to how little detail available about it. Besides a few posts in some foreign forums, there is literally nothing out there to assist you in your quest of understanding it. And Google Translate isn’t helpful. You wonder how can a product this great sounding be so unknown.

You want to make your mission to tell the world about your experience, congrats you have entered yourself into a world of obscurity, a world where the only thing that matters is the things others don’t see its obvious importance.

Ever since I got into the hobby of portable audio, I’ve always found myself attracted to the more obscure part of this hobby. And, so far this strange attraction hasn’t failed me. The best and most rewarding of my findings have been those lesser-known items, the so-called obscure DAP, IEM, cables, amps, you name it.

You might wonder if they are so good why are they so obscure. The reason for their obscurity isn’t to do with wanting to remain boutique, their obscurity is to do with their design approach, the approach to focus on one thing and that thing is to put sound first. And this makes them the obscure within the obscurity.

Despite the importance of sound quality, to increase the number of your potential customers you must tailor to their needs. This is why audiophiles and their interest, despite the growing market, are still in the minorities.

To please the apple loving masses that want a device that has an ‘apple-esque‘ UI and also have an audiophile sound status, one needs to come up with something like the ULTIMA SP1000, which cost 5000 AUD.

Yes, 5K, if any was curious and wanted to convert, they would have checked out by now, I know I would have if I began this hobby now.

What do the modern apple loving masses want? You know the usuals like streaming support, DLNA support, a device which can do their taxes, talk to their in-laws and look after their kids (you get the idea, right) and they want it to cost as low as possible. To be fair, those are things I also want, but it appears there isn’t a cheap way of getting such features without giving up on sound or keep the device affordable.

The hard decision the designer has to make is how much of those things is she required to include so they can expand their customer base, without making a product that compromises the key focus, which is sound.

So one has to give up on those features to produce a high fidelity sound, at an affordable price. That means saying bye to DLNA, Tidal streaming, etc.

Another challenge such a barbone device faces is converting people who browse their music file not by album/artist recognition, but by cover arts.

Most casual music listeners are cover-art browsers. They know little about the artist or recording they are listening. They need that cover art, the automatic playlist, the top of the chart recommendation, to find their music. The vinyl users will feel right at home when using the 361 (or the likes), as they know their music album by name, the artist by name, and cover art just pops in their head as soon as they see the album name.

What’s in the box:

1. SD card read
2. 32 GB red, gold Micro SD card which Clark recommend loaded with all sort of recording for one to try for one’s self.
3. Music Player
4. User guide
5. Extra screen protector
6. Leather case
7. 5mm female balance to 3.5mm male balance converter
8. USB type-C used only or charging
9. A bilingual menu in English and Simplified Chinese

Fit, finish and user interference

There isn’t anything I can fault on the design. The design is something I rarely talk about as it is too subjective. I do however care about functionality, and ease of operation. Despite QA361 simple UI, it’s designed is for rapid navigation through your music folders. Once you have your albums organized in folders, changing albums is a matter of pressing the right button while the screen is off. This means you don’t need to turn the display on, press home button or get to a particular screen to change album. For instance, on WM1A only way I can change the album is to go to home screen and do so there.

On QA361, while the screen is off, the right and left navigation’s purpose is to change to different folders. Left click taking you to the previous folder, and right takes you to the next. Down and up are FF and REW, respectively.

With the screen on, the right button will take you the album track list, and the left will take you to the folder view, and one more press will take you to the main menu.

On the right side of the unit, with the screen facing you, from bottom to top: you have a power button, hold button, M button (which is for setting changing), volume down and up.

Pressing the M button takes you to the setting menu where you have control of many things such as the gain, amplification setting, filter setting and many many more things.

You can change firmware easily. All you have to do is have all of them on your Micro SD card, have the unit turned off, hold the play button and turn the unit on. It will load all the firmware present on your memory card. You can select the FW you want, install and the unit will ask you to turn the unit off and on.

Overall, this is so easy I swapped between the two WAV only firmware almost all the time to suit my needs.

Amplification circuit explained

I have created a set of table based on the information that Quloos design team provided me.

Table 1: Recommended amplification mode for various headphone

Type	Impedance	Use:
Earphone	<15 ohms	Better driven in Large current mode
Headphones	<100 ohms	Large current mode
Headphones	>100 ohms	High Voltage
Very difficult to drive	Any	Dual High Mode

 

Table 2: Single vs balance out

Mode	3.5mm TRS Single out	3.5 mm TRRS balance out
Normal	1pc OPA1622, working voltage:10V	2pc OPA1622, working voltage:10V
Large Current	3pc OPA1622, working voltage:10V	6pc OPA1622, working voltage:10V
High Voltage	1pc OPA1622, working voltage:16V	2pc OPA1622, working voltage:16V
Dual High Mode	3pc OPA1622, working voltage:16V	6pc OPA1622, working voltage:16V

Note: All settings also have a low and high gain setting.

I use the “Normal” setting when I want maximum battery life, else for all IEM usage Large current will provide the best sound.