Best Buys – Audio & AV – July 2019

Best Buys Audio & AV 2019-#2

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subject that lovely high-res audio output to a
wireless connection, you need fear not, as this is
a dedicated wireless path (Questyle went as far
as securing its own frequency from the FCC in
the United States), and is capable of transmitting
as high as DSD256 wirelessly. So this additional
unit, priced $2299, would add an extra level of
versatility without destroying the hi-fi quality.
But you don’t, in any case, need to lean over
and control the QP2R player using its jog-wheel.
Once it’s in the Super Hub you can use the
supplied remote control to navigate the player
without ever having to touch the unit.
Returning to the switches on the Super Hub,
each has an amber LED above it to indicate its
status, while four press buttons operate as a source
select and as transport controls for the Questyle
player when it’s in the dock. On the right is the
main volume control. A small amber-on-black
display shows the volume setting, the selected
input, and the sampling rate of the current digital
audio. By ‘sampling rate’ we mean the sampling
frequency for PCM or DSD64, DSD128 or
DSD256 as appropriate. This provides assurance
that you have your computer player software
correctly set up.
There are two more controls underneath
the unit, both recessed ‘DIP’ switches. One can
disable the front volume control, handy if you’re
running the signal into a separate hi-fi amplifier.
The other DIP switch sets the analogue output
maximum level, with the default suitable for home
equipment use via either the unbalanced RCA
outputs or the balanced XLRs, while the higher
setting nearly doubles the output, which makes
it more suitable for studio use — Questyle has
its fans among the professional community too.
There are also digital outs: coaxial digital and
studio-style AES/EBU via an XLR connection,
so you could use a preferred DAC next down the
line. Plus there’s that wireless connection available.

one of our usual computer music players —

Foobar2000 on Windows — but only because

this was packaging up DSD files as DoP —

DSD over PCM. Once we switched Foobar from

DoP to direct, it worked perfectly. And whatever

the file-type, music was as delightful delivered

by PC as it had been playing from the Questyle

portable player, but rendered large through our

reference audio system. We noted that the unit

seemed to lock on to the signal via USB after a

delay of a second or two, sometimes missing the

very start of tracks whenever, we suspect, it was

being fed any significant length of ‘digital zero’.

But there was no doubting the audio quality.

CONCLUSION

Whether you’re already a fan of Questyle and

perhaps a current owner of the QP2R, or whether

you’re looking to buy a portable high-res player

and want one which will interface properly with

your system at home, this is a high-qaulity way

of doing things. The QP2R player allows you to

keep 64GB of music on its internal storage, plus

200MB more on a microSD card you can insert.

It supports regular and balanced headphones for

on-the-go playback. Then the Questyle Super Hub

SHB 2 can take that established portable high-

resolution audio expertise and provide a high-

quality and convenient way of using it with your

main audio system. The whole package of Super

Hub plus player (and perhaps plus that wireless

receiver) is definitely a solution that is worth

investigating, for it yields fine results indeed.

Round the back, the Super Hub’s preampli-

fier abilities are revealed by the input selection,

being more than a mere dock. There is a USB

Type-B socket for using the unit for playback

from a computer. There is an optical input and

a coaxial digital input, and an RCA pair for the

stereo analogue input. Questyle says that the unit

will support up to 384kHz, 32-bit PCM and

11.2MHz DSD (that’s four times standard DSD)

via the USB Type-B connection.

There is no headphone output — but for the

QP2R, at least, you’d just undock the player and

plug headphones straight in.

PERFORMANCE

The Questyle Super Hub SHB 2 proved to be

a great way of getting music out of the QP2R

portable player and into a sound system. The

player charges when in place, except when

you’re playing back music. It automatically stops

charging at those times to, it says, preserve audio

quality. We loaded the player with a little MP3

stuff, a fair bit of FLAC material in CD format,

a lot more high-resolution FLAC and several

albums’ worth of DSD. Every single bit of it

played back perfectly, cleanly and to the highest

audible quality. The remote control was very

effective and obviated the need to actually touch

the unit. In short, if you have a QP2R portable

player, you’re going to be very pleased with the

Questyle Super Hub SHB 2.

Next we used the unit’s USB-B input to play

from computer. We had some initial issues with

Questyle Super Hub SHB 2

& QP2R portable player

• Excellent pairing with an additional
  wireless transmission option


• Impeccable high-res audio quality


• Useful pro audio features


• Prefers DSD direct, not DoP

Price: $2999, or $4599 with QP2R player

Inputs: USB-C (for Questyle player),

USB-B, coaxial digital, optical digital audio,

stereo audio RCA

Outputs: stereo audio RCA), stereo balanced

XLR, coaxial digital, AES/EBU digital

Dimensions (whd): 330 x 81 x 220mm

Weight: 3.3kg

Contact: Audio Dynamics

Telephone: 03 9882 0372

Web: http://www.audiodynamics.com.au

▼ The QP2R high-res portable player

in its alternate gold livery. You can read

our full review at avhub.com.au/qp2r

.

“Whatever the file-type, music was as delightful

delivered by PC as it had been playing from the

Questyle portable player, but rendered large

through our reference audio system...”