Questyle CMA Fifteen

Commemorating the 15th anniversary of Questyle’s revolutionary Current Mode Amplification Technology.

At its core, Current Mode Amplification uses current, instead of voltage, to amplify audio signals. It is a state-of-the-art technology in audio amplification, leading to tremendous performance differences when compared to traditional audio amplifiers. As the “engine” of the audio system, Current Mode Amplification features a fully discrete and topological structure, and can achieve ultra-high sound performance that reproduces music so faithfully, it feels like you are in the original recording room. Using Current Mode Amplification technology, listeners can attain a much better listening experience, even when using consumer-grade headphones and speaker systems.

After 3 years of pre-research with ESS, Questyle selected the flagship DAC ES9038PRO, a decoding chip with the most powerful performance of any DAC invented to date, and jointly launched CMA Fifteen with ESS, supporting 32bit/768K and DSD 512 master band formats.

To chase extreme performance, almost all high-end DAC chips from world-renowned manufacturers feature current-type output, which in most traditional amplifiers, is then coupled with an IV converter and classical amplifier architecture. But Questyle wondered: if the DAC’s output is already current-type, why don’t we also amplify that signal in current-mode? And that’s exactly what they did in the CMA Fifteen: they use the ES9038PRO current-mode DAC, and couple that to four Current Mode Amplifiers, which together operate in fully balanced mode to achieve “system-level lossless” purity.

Continuity and Inheritance

Questyle believes that the greatest products are born from the smallest details. The CMA Fifteen continues the classic design concept and perfect manufacturing technology of its previous lines of products, while further improving on all the details. Resonance, for example, is always a detail that could easily be ignored in the design process. However, mechanical vibration does indeed affect audio signal processing and the resulting sound. To avoid this resonance, the CMA Fifteen chassis is formed from 10mm-thick aircraft-grade Aluminum 6063, with precise machining tolerances of ±0.02mm.

In designing the CMA Fifteen, Questyle also analyzed the layout balance before and after the machine is connected to cables, to ensure that any inherent resonance is minimized. The CMA Fifteen also has a complete output protection function: if the device fails for any reason or detects other abnormalities, it will automatically cut off the output to protect your headphones and stereo system.