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If you're using a 3.5mm adapter with your Android or iPhone to enjoy your favorite wired headphones, you're missing out. Upgrade to the QueStyle M15 Mobile Lossless DAC / Headphone Amp and you'll be *blown away* by how much better it sounds. Better yet, the QueStyle M15 also has a wonderful design that will make it the envy of all your audiophile friends. Audio fan and tech expert Dave Taylor checks it out in this unboxing and review.
You can check out the QueStyle M15 at:
https://www.BluebirdMusic.com/
or https://questyleshop.com/products/m15
Then visit Dave's Q&A Web site at: https://www.AskDaveTaylor.com/
#questyle #dac #headphones #iphone #android #windows #mac #askdavetaylor
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A lossless mobile DAC and headphone amp
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Let's check this out. Dave Taylor here, and in this box is the Q-style M-15 mobile lossless DAC and amp
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It lets you plug wired headphones like these into your Android, your iPhone, your tablet
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really your computer, any device that doesn't have. a 3.5 millimeter jack or even ones that do but that you want better sound from. So let's open
0:37
the box and see what's inside. So this is the upgrade to the Q style M12, which I have
0:46
already reviewed here on YouTube. You can check that out. And let's see. Got this and they
0:53
are careful about making sure it stays sealed and see if I can get this all cut
0:59
without any untoward experience. And there we go. All right. So in the box
1:09
R is a welcome note that looks like it's in Chinese, but luckily
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there's in a lot of languages. Let's see if we can find English and this mix
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There's a lot of options here. Here we go. M15, Mobile Lossless DAC
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with headphone amplification. So clearly international packaging, which I always find kind of fun
1:34
I don't know that there's anything in here that's critical. So let's keep looking
1:38
Here's the warranty card. And then, oh yeah, here is the Q-style M15, and it is famous
1:48
for having a transparent surface so you can see the circuitry inside
1:54
which I think is phenomenally cool. Let me give you a close-up so you can see what it looks like
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It's pretty cool looking actually, but that's not all that's in the box
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So let's see what else is there. There's another little pull thing. So we can pull the DAC out and now you can see the dimensions
2:11
It's actually about the size of an old pack of gum and the surface that you can see through
2:19
feels like it's glass or a really tough plastic and the rest of it is actually a brushed
2:25
aluminum and it has a really nice hand feel to it. Let me go ahead and give you some close-up so you can see on one side is the gain control
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and you can switch between high and low or just leave it on low if you prefer
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And then on one end are the 4.4 millimeter and 3.5 millimeter audio jacks
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On the other side there's nothing and on the bottom is a USBC connection
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That's how you connect it with your audio source. On the front it has the branding and it's very attractive
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And on the back, of course, is that clear view of everything going on inside the unit
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So really cool looking unit. I mean, they have definitely got a great idea by having it be visible on one side
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But what else is in the box? Well, there are two cables
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So this is USBC to USBC, and that's going to work really well with things like Android phones
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and computers. And then USBC to USBC to USBC B the rectangle and that work with older computers So if I take something like this which is the Google Pixel 6 Pro it has USBC on the bottom
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So I can just plug it in and then I can plug in the DAC directly because you don't need any drivers or anything special
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And now if I plug in my headphones, the music that the Android will play will come through
3:56
through the M15. I could do the same, obviously, with a computer
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And then if you want to use it with an iPhone, it's completely compatible, but you'll need to B-Y-O-C
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or bring your own cable. So this is an example of what you would need
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with lightning on one end and USBC on the other. And let me clarify that this is not included
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This is a separate purchase. You can buy it from Q-style for a modest copy
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or you can go on somewhere like Amazon and you can find hundreds of companies that make these cables
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You want to get a really high quality one because you don't want any signal loss when you're actually
4:37
Feeding the music to the DAC and amplifier so it's going to give you the best possible sound
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So third-party solution easily done now let me give you some specs on this. Let me unplug it again
4:49
So it is a total harmonic distortion of let me get this right
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0.0.003%, which means that I don't care how good your ears are, you're not going to hear any distortion on this at all. None. That is basically zero as far as I'm concerned, and it has bandwidth up to 1,000 kilohertz. There's a lot it can do because it has four separate amplifier circuits. And it's powered by the ESS, let me get this right, ES9281
5:23
AC processor, which is like the state-of-the-art DAC processor. It just has a ridiculous amount of power and
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capabilities. And the 3.5 millimeter connection is what's known as a TRS or unbalanced connection
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That's probably what most of you will use. But if you have 4.4 millimeter balanced TRS headphones
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it can work with those directly too. Balanced headphones are probably going to sound better
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but they're a lot harder to get a hold of, and they're really more at the audio file level
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So what I have here for my tests, these are the Biodynamic T90s
6:00
These are these classic headphones that have had for a long time. I really love them
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And what do they have on the end? They have, you guessed it, a 3.5 millimeter jack
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So that's how I'll be hooking this up for testing. Now, it has a little LED on it
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and I can't see where that is without plugging it in and turning it on, which we're going to do in just a second
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but the LED gives you feedback on how the amp is being used and how the DAC is being used
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So if the light is green, then the audio sample you're giving it is 48 kilohertz or less
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So that's basically what you get off of most streaming services like Pandora or Spotify
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If it's red, then you're getting a PCM signal 88.2 kilohertz up to 3884 kilohertz or a DSD-256 signal
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and that's going to be really good that's going to be what you're going to probably get from the higher quality audio but what you really want is you want that light to turn
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magenta because then it means it an mqa core stream and mqa is master quality assured and it basically means you getting a really big bandwidth
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signal, but you're getting a huge amount of audio data, which this is then converting and
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amplifying and pushing to your headphones to give you the best possible audio experience
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And what this means in reality or in practical terms is that if you have mediocre headphones
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they're going to sound good. If you have good headphones, they're going to sound really good
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And if you have really good headphones, you're just going to be blissing out because they're going to sound fantastic
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It's going to be an audiophile experience in a mobile environment where you just have your phone and this little gizmo and your favorite headphones
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and you're going to just be really happy at how well it sounds. So this supports ALAC, FLAC, MQA
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and it supports services like Title and Cobas, which are MQA or Master Quality Level Audio Signals
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So it's basically like a Spotify, but with much higher quality audio
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Pretty cool stuff. Now, as I said, this can work with Android or Windows or iPhone or a Mac
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So whatever you got, if you want it to sound a lot better, this little tiny device that's about the size of a pack of gum
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it's going to give you great results. Now, that's everything in the box
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So it's the two cables and the instructions and the warranty and the actual device
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So now we have it all. I am going to hook it up and I will check it out
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So hook it up, USBC, and then I will plug in some headphones
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And the first thing we should be able to see once I give it a signal. And I'm going to just go to Cobuz because I might as well start with it really high-quoise
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signal, right? So I will go there and play some music. And this signal is a high
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res 96 kilohertz and okay now you can see those big bright lights. So the red
9:10
light means that I'm actually getting a PCM signal and this is probably a PCM
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96 kilohertz signal. Hang on I'm gonna put my headphones on just to sort of
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experience it and these are great old headphones. I really like them
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Oh, I can't. You can't hear this, but what I can tell you is that, well, first off, I better pause
9:34
What I can tell you is that it sounds beautiful. It is a big, rich sound with an enormous sound stage
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It really, I'm listening to some violin solo from some concerto or something
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and it sounds like I'm in the actual symphony hall. I mean, it's that big and
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bright a signal and the bass was nice and the highs weren't
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broad weren't overly bright it was just a you know sort of a rich strong music
10:04
forward sort of signal and listen to a little bit more just because I'm giving
10:10
you live my music response so let's go to another track okay so this is
10:19
classical guitar and And it is just a really rich and strong signal The audio just sounds really really lovely And this one again so now we have two green lights So this is an older track So it obviously isn encoded in PCM or DSD That how it
10:45
goes with these tracks, right? If you listen to just MQA, you're going to have a very limited library
10:51
because there's a lot of music that isn't encoded at that level yet. But I can tell you that
10:56
anything you're going to listen to is going to just sound so much
11:00
richer. And that's really, I guess that would be the word I would use to describe this. It is a big
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expansive sound and it just, it sounds like I'm literally sitting with my head just a couple of
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feet from this guitar player and that he's playing some classical guitar and it's just like, wow
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this is, I can't really focus on anything else. I just have to listen to the music. So
11:25
better pause this before I'm too distracted. But suffice to say, it's really
11:30
really a great experience. And I have to say also, I love the transparent side
11:36
I love the design. It's just really interesting. And notice when I plugged this in and turned it on
11:43
I didn't have to go to an EQ. I didn't have to make any settings or changes on the device
11:49
or on the actual DAC amp. I just plugged everything in, plugged in my headphones
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press play, and just started enjoying the music. And that's really important
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because I think some people look at these sort devices and they're intimidated because, wow, it's a complex bunch of circuitry
12:05
How is this going to be something I can manage and deal with? And the answer is, you don't have to do anything
12:10
Just plug it in and enjoy it. And again, I couldn't listen to these T90s with either this Android phone or with my iPhone 13 pro
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Neither of them have a 3.5 millimeter audio jack. Kind of an annoying thing
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But if I have to do something anyway to be able to enjoy my. favorite headphones I might as well use something like a DAC and get a far better
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signal so that's all of God I really like this thing I'm definitely going to be
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using it and enjoying it whether I'm using title or cobas or even if I'm just
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using Spotify or honestly just listening to a YouTube video or something
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everything's going to sound better because that's what this thing does very very nice
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so we do need to talk about the price but before we get to the price I'm going to ask if
12:58
you could subscribe to my channel Go ahead and click or tap on that subscribe button and then turn on notifications so you know when I post new content because I do that pretty darn frequently and we're connected. Excellent. This, I can flip it over this way. This is the Q-style M15 mobile lossless DAC amp for headphones and it is $249 at Q-style shop.com. You can also find it on Amazon if you want to look there. It is a
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carry of a device. It is very nice. It is something that if you want to actually really enjoy
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all the music you listen to, then this is the way to do it. Definitely one worth checking out
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That's all I got. I hope to catch you in my next video
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