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The back of the unit carries three connectors. At the left, indicated by an arrow pointing to it, sits the input connector. Straight in the middle is the charger input and to its right the output connector with an arrow pointing away from it. From its shipping box, the iQube is ready for use with any MP3 player or CDP by connecting their headphone outputs to the iQube input with the provided cable. While this setup will play tunes, it will by no means unveil the true potential of the amplifier since the source headphone amplifier remains in the signal path. An iPod provides not only a headphone output but, via docking station, a feed from its internal DAC. This requires only a cable with a docking station connector on one side and a headphone plug on the other.


Hans Oosterwaal makes various cables for portable devices under the Qables brand. Specifically for iPod use, he markets a line of LOD or Line Output Dock cables. With our iQube loaner, we received two top- line LODs, the Silver Cab (€ 54.5) and the Gold Cab (€ 297.50). The silver is made of 0.4mm solid 99.99% mono filament silver in PE and wool insulation. For the golden cable, 0.5mm solid gold threads run in a PTFE tube of which 3 leads are woven and sleeved in Techflex. In the photo, the cable with the white connector is the Silver Cab, the one with the black connector the Gold Cab.




Our iPod Video is loaded with a wide variety of music from piano to medieval and baroque, a few choir works and plenty of world music. All music is ripped with EAC from CD in WAV and stored on an external USB hard disk. From there the WAV files are transferred to the iPod using Red Chair's Anapod. As this iQube was fully run in just like the cable, we could start listening right away over a selection of headphones. From the Dutch importer of Ultrasone, we had the foldable €119 icons and the €99 HFI 450 beside our own Sony MDR F1 and a loaner Sennheiser HD-600, hence only one closed design since for long listening sessions, we prefer the open designs for being less tiring. Next to listening in the house as an alternative to the big rig, the iQube also went on the road and to a customer's site. Writing code or reports while listening to early music is very stimulating.


Two things with headphone use are always an issue. One is soundstaging and the other bass weight and tightness. While the first very much relates to how the recording was mastered, the second can be a result of the voicing and fine tuning of the amplifier. On well-balanced, non ping-pong stereo recordings, we prefer a soundstage that is not far outside the head or drilling a hole in the middle. The goal is a depiction of the musicians with enough air around them to move freely in a virtual floating 3D environment.


Here the iQube performed very. On the very well-recorded El Corazon Tiene Tres Puertas double CD by Dulce Pontes, the placement of the singer and band was strikingly realistic. The voice of La Pontes can be very hard on many audio systems. Her large range especially in the upper register can easily turn screechy. With the iQube, this did not happen. What's more, the Portuguese guitar too was devoid of glare or other artifacts.


Synthesized bass on Hadouk Trio's Baldamore was a joy to listen to. It kept its place in the soundstage and was low, tight and precise. With the iQube, this part of the audio spectrum suffered no undue emphasis and simply was rich, powerful and above all neutral. With large orchestral works, the mid frequencies were just as neutral, leading to a vista of the orchestra as though zooming in with a camera. As noted for the challenging Pontes recording, high frequencies were very well balanced and controlled. Noise was absolutely absent and ditto for any hint of aggression. The amp's clarity is squarely not the result of any form of even subliminal brightness.


Complex music like big choirs which need plenty of space was rendered with the same ease as chamber choir. When the image needed to be big, the iQube let it be big. When dynamic reserves were needed for either a drum kick or crescendo, the power supply never ran dry and made it happen. On the other end of the spectrum, when silence between notes was needed, the iQube added no residual noise to the blackness. With closed headphones, this silence could occasionally become deafeningly scary. Decays in recordings by Dead Can Dance or Lisa Garrard's The Silver Tree went all the way, stretching seemingly to forever.


The iQube has met its musical design goal of being neutral head on. With this amplifier, the seasoning factor is the headphone. The iQube's industrial design is gorgeous with a high caress factor. In our test, the low battery light began flashing after 92 hours of use - for as long we listened to the iQube over many days. On small criticisms, we have two. One is the lack of a little indent on the attenuator. It may be advisable to turn the volume fully down before switching the amplifier on in case you don't remember where you left off or someone monkied with it in your absence. The other is the special way required to open the amplifier for battery replacement. Even though the manual is explicit on how to do it, it wasn't easy. Ordering the iQube with rechargeable batteries preinstalled might be a good idea...


Click here for a YouTube demo on how to open the battery department.
Quality of packing: Outstanding in quality and design.
Reusability of packing: Yes.
Ease of unpacking/repacking: Easy.
Condition of component received: Perfect.
Completeness of delivery: Includes 4 AAA batteries pre-installed, simple interconnect, user manual.
Quality of owner's manual: Good and in English, includes photos and drawings.
Website comments: Good and informative though too many URLs lead to the same company.
Pricing: Steep but fair for a European-built, innovative high-quality product.
Human interactions: Prompt and very forthcoming with all information requested.
Suggestions: Standard offering might include preinstalled rechargeable batteries and USB charger cable. The qualities of the iQube merits a good interlink. The Gold Cab proved just slightly more revealing than the price-friendlier Silver Cab.
Manufacturer's website