The FiiO Q15 is the manufacturer’s new flagship portable headphone amplifier and DAC, but one with a “nice” price tag.
The new FiiO Q15 portable DAC headphone amplifier, is an advanced device. Under the hood you’ll find a dual-DAC, two chips of AKM to be exact: the AK4191EQ and the AK449EX. The maximum achievable PCM quality is 32 bit / 768 kHz and DSD up to DSD512. As for inputs, both USB-C and a coaxial digital input are available. As outputs there is the well-known standard 3.5mm mini-jack for unbalanced headphones. But a 4.4mm connector is also present for balanced headphones. Should you ever want to listen wirelessly via the FiiO Q15, you can do so via Bluetooth. Supported codecs are aptX Adaptive, LDAC and AAC, among others.
Desktop and phone mode
The FiiO Q15 also offers some interesting features. For example, there is the desktop mode. Here the built-in battery is passed by and power is taken purely from USB-C. Thanks to the already mentioned coaxial digital input, you can use the Q15 as an external DAC too. Incombination with a CD player as digital source, for example. Furthermore, thought has been given to a phone mode. In that case, only the internal battery is used, to avoid draining the phone battery.
Remains the price of this versatile musical gem: it is only $399, available from December.