- Extensive headphone support, plus aptX lossless and LDAC
- Can record analog sources to external storage and PC
- $899 (around £675 or AU$1,352)
Questyle is the company behind the brilliant little QCC Dongle Pro, which is a great audio upgrade for smartphones – it’s a small transmitter that adds all the key high-resolution, lossless codecs to phones, tablets, handheld gaming devices and more. And now Questyle has launched a bigger and much more powerful device, the Sigma Pro portable DAC and headphone amplifier.
The Sigma Pro is a new version of the company’s flagship DAC and promises desktop specifications and sound quality from a device the size of a smartphone. It may be small, but it includes four sets of amplifier stages, a dual-mono ESS ES9069 DAC array, and a USB interface with PCM 768kHz/DSD512 support and full MQA deployment.
Questyle Sigma Pro: Key Features and Pricing
The exterior of the Sigma Pro is made of sandblasted aluminum and Kunlun glass, and in a nice touch, most of the front is transparent so its electronic innards can be seen.
The Sigma Pro features two USB-C ports that allow you to recharge the Sigma Pro while listening, and you can expect up to 12 hours of playback in battery mode. There are single-ended 3.5mm, 6.35mm and 4.4mm balanced outputs, optical and SPDIF digital inputs, and 3.5mm and 4.4mm balanced stereo inputs.
Bluetooth is 5.4 with LE Audio, Snapdragon Sound, LDAC, aptX Adaptive, and aptX HD lossless audio with up to 24-bit/96kHz quality. So specs to compete with the best headphone DACs we’ve tested? You bet.
The discrete, fully balanced current-mode amplifier has a maximum output power of 8W, and Questyle promises ultra-low load distortion and “exceptional” noise control.
One of the cool features of the Sigma Pro is its recording media. You can connect its 3.5mm or 4.4mm inputs to analog audio equipment and then convert that audio to a digital file for external storage or to a PC or Mac.
The Sigma Pro has a recommended retail price of $899 (around £675 / AU$1,351) and is available in the US directly from Questyle, in hi-fi stores and on Amazon. There’s also a more affordable model with a different DAC setup, the $599 Sigma.
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