Questyle CMA Fifteen: power output and what it will drive

The Questyle CMA Fifteen is a desktop DAC/amp at $2499. It delivers 1.5 W into 32Ω and 188 mW into 300Ω, which ranks it 63 of 280 for raw power among the sources in this database.

Measured at 100 dB SPL it has comfortable headroom on 563 of the 567 dynamic and planar headphones catalogued here, enough but not generous on 3 and only marginal on 1. Power is published at 32Ω, 300Ω; the rest of the table is derived from those figures. Output impedance is not published. Output noise is not published, so the hiss estimate cannot be run.

The manufacturer publishes 1.5 W into 32Ω, 188 mW into 300Ω. Everything else in the table above is worked out from those figures, and this table says which is which.

The balanced output is rated separately: 2.0 W into 32Ω through the 4.4mm + 4-pin XLR jack.

Derivation holds output voltage steady between and beyond the published loads rather than output power, because that is what an amplifier actually does. The full method is written up here.

Source: questyleshop.com.

Ordered from easiest to hardest to drive. Headroom is measured at 100 dB SPL, which is louder than almost anyone listens — a small negative number means the source still plays loud, just without reserve for peaks.

These figures come from each manufacturer's own sensitivity rating. A handful of planars — the HiFiMAN Susvara and the Abyss AB-1266 in particular — are widely reported to need far more than their published sensitivity implies, so treat a bare pass on those as optimistic rather than settled.

The manufacturer does not publish an output noise figure for this source, so the hiss estimate that runs on every other page here cannot be run on this one. Rather than substitute a plausible number, this page leaves the question open.

If you know the noise figure from a measurement you trust, the hiss calculator takes it directly and tells you where that noise lands in your own in-ears.

The manufacturer does not publish an output impedance for this source. That is the one number that decides whether it leaves your headphones alone or acts as a tone control, so its absence matters more than it looks: without it, nothing here can tell you how this source will behave with a multi-driver in-ear.

If you find a measured figure you trust, the checker will work out the consequence for any headphone.

On every figure Questyle publishes for this headphone output, the Questyle CMA Fifteen is identical to the Questyle CMA18 Master. Each of them states power at 32 Ω and at 300 Ω — and each states the same values.

They do not cost the same. The spread across the 2 of them is $500, and none of that difference is visible in the figures above.

Identical published figures do not mean identical products. A spec sheet for a headphone output covers power, output impedance and noise. It says nothing about the converter, the inputs, the case, the battery, the volume control or how any of it sounds, and those are real differences that cost real money. What this section says is narrower and worth saying anyway: if you are choosing between these on what the maker printed about the headphone jack, there is nothing to choose.

15 groups of products in this database share a spec sheet this way, 36 products in all.

Of the 280 sources here, 70 do everything the Questyle CMA Fifteen does as a headphone output: reach 100 dB on every headphone it reaches. The cheapest of them is the Schiit Magni Heresy at $99, against this one’s $2499 — $2400 less, and a desktop amplifier rather than a desktop DAC/amp.

The cheaper one also publishes an output impedance, which the Questyle CMA Fifteen does not — so on the paperwork it is ahead, not merely level.

This counts a headphone output and nothing else. Inputs, converters, microphone preamps, balanced outputs, the volume control, the case and the warranty are all outside it, and any of them can be the reason to buy the dearer box. What the count does say is that the three numbers a maker can be held to do not separate them.

Worked out in advance against its closest rivals: vs Ferrum ERCO · vs Marantz SACD 30n. Each of those pages lists the headphones that tell the two apart.

Or put any two side by side in the source comparison tool, or run your own headphones through the amplifier matcher. Or see every Questyle source in the database, and how much of what this site says about them came from Questyle’s own documents.