- Wide headphone support, lossless aptX and LDAC
- Can record analog sources to external storage and PCs
- $899 (so around £675 or AU$1,352)
Questyle is the company behind the brilliant little QCC Dongle Pro, which is a superb audio upgrade for smartphones: it’s a small transmitter that adds all the key high-resolution, lossless codecs to phones, tablets, gaming handhelds and more. And now Questyle has launched a larger and much more powerful device, the Sigma Pro portable DAC and headphone amp.
The Sigma Pro is a new version of the company’s flagship DAC, and it promises desktop-class specs and sound quality from a device the size of a smartphone. It may be small, but it packs four sets of amplifier stages, an ESS ES9069 dual-mono DAC array, and a USB interface with 768kHz PCM/DSD512 support and full MQA deployment.
Questyle Sigma Pro: key features and pricing
The exterior of the Sigma Pro is made from sandblasted aluminum and Kunlun glass, and the majority of the front is transparent so you can see its electronic innards.
The Sigma Pro has two USB-C ports that allow you to charge the Sigma Pro while listening to it, and you can expect up to 12 hours of playback on battery mode. There are 3.5mm, 6.35mm and 4.4mm unbalanced balanced outputs, SPDIF and optical digital inputs as well as 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 up to 24-bit/96kHz quality. Specs to rival the best headphone DACs we’ve tested then? You bet.
The fully balanced current-mode discrete amplifier has a maximum output power of 8W, and Questyle promises ultra-low load distortion and “outstanding” noise floor control.
One of the nice features of the Sigma Pro is its recording support. You can connect its 3.5mm or 4.4mm inputs to analog audio equipment, then turn that audio into a digital file for external storage or to a PC or Mac.
The Sigma Pro has an RRP of $899 (around £675 / AU$1,351) and is available in the US directly from Questyle, from hi-fi retailers and from Amazon. There is also a more affordable model with a different DAC configuration, the Sigma at $599.
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