QLS QA360 audio player review: the unit came in a black box and sounded like Chaliapin!

Not so long ago, players with quality portable sound were mainstream devices from Apple, Cowon, iRiver, Sony and other giants. More sophisticated audiophiles played sound from Tascam, Sony, Kenwood and Korg recorders. Then Hifiman and Colorful products came out of the Celestial Empire like a ray of sunshine, shocking the public with their high quality and high price.

QLS QA360 portable audio player

Hifiman HM-801 and Colorfly C4 Pro quickly won the hearts of audiophiles and audiophiles around the world! There were also more budget-friendly products, such as the CK4, HM-601/602 and Teclast T51. Years passed, people went crazy modifying the available hardware and with bated breath waiting for the appearance of every time a new audiophile wonder. Now the market is full of Hi-Fi players.

Following “Made in China” came famous companies iRiver, Sony and others. Now the public without much surprise meets devices of different classes and price categories. Such brands as FiiO, HiFiman, Hidizs, Xuelin and iBasso let us touch the “beauty” for rather reasonable prices. Today we will look at one of the novelties – QLS QA360 portable audio player!

Specifications:

Thermally compensated low jitter quartz oscillators for PCM and DSD.

For digital volume control uses PGA2311.

SDHC/SDXC up to 128GB with FAT32 file system.

Firmware update.

Class A headphone amplifier.

4-layer printed circuit board.

Supported formats:

– 16bit/24bit, 44.1-192Khz, DSD 1bit 64FS.

– Audio format supported:

– WAV : 16/24bit, 44.1~192 kHz.

– AIFF : 16/24bit, 44.1~192 kHz.

– FLAC : 16/24bit, 44.1 kHz~48 kHz, compression level 0~8.

– APE : 16 bit, 44.1 kHz, compression levels fast and normal.

– ALAC : 16 bit, 44.1 kHz

– MP3: 16bit, 44.1/48 kHz, 96k bps~320k bps, CBR/VBR/ABR encoding.

– CUE : ANSI UNICODE UTF-8 Encoding.

– DSD : DSD64 1bit, Stereo—DIFF、DSF、SACD ISO.

– Digital output: PCM Dolby Digital output DTS Digital output DSD DoP V1.0 .

Digital Outputs: Coaxial*1(3 .5mm , Optical*1(Round Port .

Analog Output: 3.5mm Line Out.

– Analog Line out: 2V RMS , frequency response 0Hz-20KHz, SNR 116dB, Distortion 0.0006%

– Headphone output: 490mW/16&Omega 245mW/32&Omega LED front panel 55mW/300&Omega Frequency response: 0Hz-20Khz

Output impedance: 0.075 ohms

DAC Chip: CS4398.

LVP : AD8620.

Battery Type: 3.7V 3000-3120mAH Li-Po battery.

Usage Time: 10 to 11 hours for PCM, 7-8 hours for DSD.

Weight: 0.26kg

Dimensions: 117x72x27mm

Appearance and Set

The device came in a black box made of durable cardboard. All pretty neat and nice. The player comes with a soft case, charger, cable to connect the charger via USB adapter, card reader, SDHC Sandisk memory card for 16GB, protective film on the screen, screen care cloth and documentation.

The look of the device is very nice. A kind of muscular beauty! Comes in silver and black.

I chose a black color, although the silver one looks just as good. Ergonomics is comfortable in its simplicity, all the buttons – within one finger: the navigation buttons are here, under the screen. A little to the right – lock and on./off. Memory card is inserted from the left side.

As it should be convenient for the wiring, headphone output 3.5mm is located at the bottom, it is combined with line and optical output, there are also coaxial output 3.5mm and connector for connecting a charger. On the top end of the player there is an input for wireless remote control unit optional .

The player is quite “in the body”, it must be said, quite heavy and bulky. Fits on the hand like a brutal handshake! Feels good. Anodized finish after all. Color black matte.

The menu is simple and intuitive. Took me about 15 minutes to figure it all out. You can search by artist or by folder. The screen can automatically fall asleep – the time of going to sleep is determined by your own will. You can adjust almost everything: enable/disable digital outputs, delete files, choose backing color, font, balance, adjust the key response and switch between two modes of digital filter Fast and Slow .

All folder levels boil down to one, a list of all the folders that are on the memory card. No internal memory.

QA360 build quality looks pretty reliable. Nothing clinks or bangs. The battery hasn’t been tested yet, but it seems to me, that it keeps 11-15 hours, which is a lot for a player of such class.

Sound

The device was tested with MyST Nail 2, Ortofon e-Q8, Westone UM3X and with Audio-Technica ATH-SX1a overhead monitor headphones. With all headphones the device played properly and I didn’t have any vagaries.

Music I listened to: Tom petty and the heartbreakers “Hypnotic Eye”, Erasure “The Violet Flame”, Morrissey “World Peace Is None of Your Business”, Peter Murphy “Lion”, Johnny Marr “Playland”, AC/DC “Back in Black” and many more.

I did not notice any genre preferences in the unit. It handles pop, rock and club music with no problem. In general QLS QA360 disposes to a long-lasting listening to the musical material. The sound of the player is not strained, the tonal balance is rather neutral. The material comes through slowly, but it doesn’t feel clunky and mushy. Every sound, every nuance and every detail is clearly audible.

The timbres are quite natural. If it’s a guitar, it’s really a guitar. The drum kit beats are firm and accurate, the bass guitar does not blend in with the drums, the vocals are alive. In the first couple of days there was a feeling of something “foreign” in the sound, a feeling of some synthetic overlay on the treble/frequency, but after a while everything fell into place.

I don’t know what it was, a mystical warm up or an adaptation of hearing/brain, but now the situation has changed for the better.

In general, the QA360 amazes with its powerful, meaty, big, neutral delivery. But there is a peculiarity that I heard after switching from one DF mode to another. In Fast mode the sound was more open, with a high frequency bias. In Slow mode the sound became a bit “darker”, with an accent in the low range.

This difference, however, is not pronounced and someone simply will not notice it. But still there is a difference. I would advise to make the following “correction for wind”: in Slow mode it is better to listen to brighter headphones, in Fast – neutral or headphones with a dusky sound.

No apparent problems with the sound of the device.

However, as late at night, when I connected the player from the line output to the MyST PortAMP-II amplifier, I was suddenly somewhat disappointed. I thought that the sound this time became something simple and flat. Having postponed cardinal conclusions till the morning, the next day I plugged QLS QA360 to MyST PortAMP-II again – I was almost sure that “hole was made for a tick”. ♪ I put on my headphones, turned on the player, pressed play ♪. A smile spread across my face! “You get me high” by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, touched me to the core! In general, it seemed like a night out..

Conclusions

I liked the machine. The sound, line out and digital output, most modern formats including DSD, build quality, playback time – everything is superb. The sound level of the unit is quite high. I believe that the QLS QA360 is as good as today’s cloud-based premium priced tops.

The price at the time of the review was 25-26 thousand Dollars. The dollar rate is about 40 Dollars. I also paid a lot of money but I think it was quite adequate for a device of this level.

Sound, build quality, support for many modern formats, about 11-15 hours of battery life, line out and digital outputs, the ability to connect the remote control.

Pretty heavy and large case.