Whilst awaiting the loaner inbound from Germany's coastal city of Bremen, I hit up domestic web shop brack.ch, our proven purveyor of 70'000 different AV/computer accessories. Here I ordered a generic €36 Belkin micro USB dock. Where there's a will, there's a widget. Of course this would only charge and position. It wouldn't output audio. But that'd serve my desktop and nightstand to test the Cupid One as a stationary portable. On the nightstand, I'd connect via Toslink to Questyle's CAS192D DAC, then two mono-strapped Questyle CMA-800R amps to drive Audeze LCD-XC or HifiMan HE1000 fully balanced; or run analog out into a stereo Questyle amp. That would compare to my usual AIFF-loaded 160GB iPod Classic in a Pro-Ject dock outputting coax. On the desktop, I'd do the same, via the Toslink or analog inputs of my Swiss Eversound Audio active Essence speakers with internal Gordon Rankin USB DAC and headphone amp. This too would contrast to an iPod, this time in a Pure dock via Toslink; and to my Vinnie Rossi-modified Astell&Kern AK100 also via optical.

Note the slightly protruding black wheel in the back of the dock. It'll make sense shortly.


What you get in the cloth-covered cardboard box with magnetic latch: a deck flaunting its famous Corning Gorilla glass protected by translucent foil just like any iMac arrives. In the lower compartment await a cloth bag, micro USB cable, a 50cm stereo 3.5mm-to-3.5mm leash, a mini Toslink plug, a warranty card and a user manual. To test for GUI love, I took no note of the latter. If intuitiveness ruled, it should be redundant. And so it was. Anyone familiar with an iPod will be right at home, no question asked, no exams cheat retrieved from the loo.

Whilst the orientation of the Belden dock's micro USB plug was correct, Questyle's deep recess for its USB receiver meant no contact at first. As delivered, the dock's prick wasn't long enough. Coitus interruptus? It took a while to figure out that the black wheel in the dock's back will raise/lower its connector. Kamasutra was on though initially it seemed no double-tasking acrobatics of the erotic play 'n' recharge sort. The display went black, showing a lightning symbol and a battery symbol with a percentage figure for status as below.

Here too it took me a while to catch on. By briefly depressing the Cupid One's power button, the display revives to access the music menu. For fellow dockists, the hefty Belkin is the perfect solution for stationary 24/7 listen without ever running out of juice regardless of load or permanent display use at max brightness. Where I had no joy was with three different 3.5mm mini-to-2xRCA patch cords stuck into the line output. Seemingly a millimeter off to not stay seated, none of my plugs stuck to make permanent contact and conduct signal. Thus the bigger diameter of the headfi output's recess became my ticket. Instead of using the LO's fixed output option, I manually cracked the headphone port's 0-60 volume control fully open, gain set high. Now I had instant joy when connected to the analog inputs of my active desktop speakers shown next.

Inserting two 64GB micro SD cards on hand, the player formatted them on my prompt—if written to earlier, this erases them—before I went to my iMac to drag'n'drop some music. You can do this either with just a card and card reader; or connect the QP1R itself which then appears as three drives like below (internal memory and two micro SD cards).


Attempting to play back Adnan Joubran's solo album in .aif, the Cupid One pulled a stupid one. It claimed the format wasn't supported. It did however play the same album's 5th and 9th tracks fine. Thinking it a glitch, I tried again with identical results. Once I had a few hundred album/artist folders transferred, this also happened with a few others. The deck would selectively refuse certain tracks, then auto-forward to the next in the same folder which it'd play fine. This suggested remaining .aif issues which Questyle still had to sort out*. A lot of cover art transferred out of iTunes, some did not, likely because those jpgs were too large. Before we talk sound, a few more not foibles now but brilliant GUIbles.

* Checking their website under downloads-->drive for a patch file, v1.4Beta showed. My unit, under system settings-->about, showed version 1.02, thus not the latest. The instructions read "copy file QP1.FW to QP1 TF1 flash slot. Start the machine, select system settings-->firmware update-->yes. Afterwards, the display will show 'upgrade finished'. Restart the player." Unzipping the file in WinZip directly to the first SD card updated me to v1.04. Whilst altering some previous settings in the process, like display brightness and screen lock which I had to reset to my preferences, the same albums still had at least their first track misbehave, some a lot more. Whatever this patch addressed, my issue wasn't really resolved.

Just as iPod habit would demand, the click wheel's central button wakes the display from slumber; pauses a track when the music display is live; or confirms a menu selection. In each of the wheel's quadrants sits a touch symbol for home, menu back, previous and next track. If set in the menu, those commands can be confirmed by vibrate. Search functions are by songs, album, artist, genre and playlist. Play settings are shuffle, repeat one, repeat all, resume and gapless on/off. System settings include fixed volume setting, power-on volume, line-out volume (variable/max), gain (H/M/L), EQ on/off for two EQs, manual/auto library update, flip function on/off, screen shutdown on/off, brightness, home screen mode, idle power off in minutes, sleep, sleep timer, storage formatting, factory restore and upgrade. In short, all of it is clear as day, including small type that remained legible to these 53-year old eyes sans glasses. Battery status displays in percent in the left top corner, play mode in the right. View mode hogs the middle (say Playlists). The bottom shows track time, track number, name of track like 03 Aygiz.aif and below it, format like AIFF 44.1kHz/16bit.


Even the four default screen options for when there's no cover art are attractive black'n'white graphics. Scanning both cards and internal memory after I'd dumped a few hundred album/artist folders to them was very fast and done in less than 15 seconds. In short, Questyle get big love for their GUI. It doesn't rewrite expectations, just fulfils them. In this post-iPod age, that's a perfect score. Love is on also for physical execution. Unlike with the iPod Classic, this click wheel turns. It's how one scrolls up and down lists, be it for menu options or to select from music files and folders. The wheel's action starts out a bit stiff, then gets more twitchy in use. The four capacitive buttons are very responsive so mechanical items too pass muster. The QP1R really is a super-classy piece of pocket candy with major IQ. No dumb blonde jokes anywhere; except perhaps that beauty means maintenance, here regular finger smudge removals from the hard glossy glass.