This is a short review of the Qudelix-5K headphone amp/bluetooth DAC.¹

I recently wrote in a profile that listenig to music is a hobby, and it really is. I like to think have decent ears, mostly from doing live sound in college. I also have spent more money than I care to admit on headphones and headphone amps. I’m here to say you don’t have to break the bank to get an amazing sounding headphone setup.²

First things first. Spend your money in the right order. Speakers/headphones first, amps second, DACs third. 20 years ago, there was decent differentiation between an expensive DAC and your phone/PC crap. Nowadays, cheap DACs are really good. For example, if you need something for your desktop, the Topping D10s is really quite good.

If you want a nice set of headphones for home, get the Sennheiser HD 6XX. They are are $199, sound great, and are very comfortable. These aren’t headphones you are going to wear on the train or working out; they are for home listening. The law of diminishing returns is very true once you go beyond these headphones—save your money and don’t be me. If you want something for commuting/working out, go get a pair of bluetooth Sony/Bose/Beats/whatever for ~$200 and be happy.

You are probably listening to some streaming service from your phone. Your phone may or may not have a 1/8" headphone jack. This is where the Qudelix-5K comes in. It’s a tiny bluetooth unit with a jack and a battery. You plug your headphones into it, connect it to your phone, and listen to music. Why is it so great?

Well first, it’s small and has a battery. Which means a) convenient and b) can drive most headphones. If you don’t know what ‘drive most headphones’ means, don’t worry. There’s a lot of stuff to say about impedances, sensitivities, and frequency responses, but there’s no real need to go there. I’ve not had any issues driving my low and high impedance headphones with this little unit. That’s not to say that there aren’t configurations that might have problems, but you are going to have to spend a lot of money to have issues. Weird, right? Buy the HD 6XX and you won’t have to worry. You might not have the same experience if you get some little 1/8" dongle to plug into your phone.

You can run the unit by connecting to bluetooth or by plugging in with USB. USB has lossless audio; bluetooth uses one of several bluetooth codecs.

The second great thing about the 5K is the EQ. There’s a 10 band parametric EQ where you can tweak your headphone’s frequency response. Don’t be a ‘purist’—take advantage of this. Every headphone has some inadequacies so you should tweak them to be more ‘flat’. You can look up curves in the Qudelix-5K app or program in your own.³ In addition, you can set an additional 10 band ‘house curve’ (and save different presets), so if you want to boost the bass or tame the treble, you can do that independently of the headphone adjustments.

This thing is a steal. Does it sound as good as much more expensive units? Maybe, maybe not. I can’t tell and you probably won’t be able to either. Will you get 2-10x the performance by spending 2-10x the money? No. This is one of the best audio purchases I’ve made in years and I highly recommend it.

I’ve been shooting a Leica M for many years now. I appreciate a small setup, and that includes my camera bag. For a long time, my go to bag was the Lowepro Sliplock 50 AW (archive.org). Back in 2009, I tried to buy a second one but they had been discontinued.¹ At some point in the intervening 15 years, the plastic clip on mine broke and I had to retire it. I’ve been searching for a similar sized bag since then.

In a quest for a really small but useful bag like that old Lowepro (1 camera + 2 lenses), I’ve tried several. One thing I have been specifically looking for is a small enough bag to fit in my backpack while traveling, for plane stowage reasons. I like to travel with all carry-ons, so my clothes and stuff are in a shoulder bag, and my ‘personal’ item is a backpack, which needs to hold all the other crap + my camera bag. Once I get to the destination, the camera bag comes out and can be used with or without the backpack.

I think for the next trip we take, I’ll probably go with a small bag appropriate for a camera with 1-2 lenses, and then a few other lenses in a cube or individual pouches in my backpack.

This post is for anyone looking at these bags for a similar camera setup. There is info out there, but it wasn’t enough to prevent me from buying several bags I’m probably not going to use very much. Learn from my mistakes.

Bags

Think Tank Retrospective 5

I’ve been really happy with Think Tank Retrospective bags. I have two 5’s, the original version and the v2.0. The v2.0 is fantastic for M rangefinders, easily holding 1 or 2 cameras, several lenses, batteries, film, and a travel tripod. Definitely the default storage for stuff at home and often goes with me on car trips.

It is a bit bigger and doesn’t really fit in a backpack well. It can be a bit more than I’d like to carry on those all-day on-your-feet outings I often have on vacation.

Think Tank Retrospective 4

The Retrospective 4 is also great. A bit smaller in a noticeable way, and a great bag for 1 camera with a few lenses. It has fewer pockets for accessories, and unfortunately loses the expandable water bottle pouch on the side. The strap is also a step down. You could probably make it fit into a backpack if needed.

Wandrd Rogue Sling 3L

Nice little bag but too small for an M camera in my opinion. The camera fits, but you have to kind of force the zipper closed because a camera with lens is just a little too deep for the interior space. It would comfortably fit the camera and lens if the lens was dismounted. The bag is a lot bigger externally than it needs to be for its internal volume as well. Maybe the 6L bag is the sweet spot, but I suspect it’s not going to meet the ‘fits in my backpack’ criteria.

Clever Supply Sidekick Pro

I thought this little bag would work, but alas, it didn’t. My camera has a grip on it and the slightly thicker base plate prevents it from fitting in the padded insert. Even without it, the camera is too tall for the bag to zip up. It fits without the padded insert, but now your camera is just rattling around with no protection.

It’s a nice little bag and a lot of the promo material on the website features Leica M’s, but it didn’t work out for me.

Wotancraft Pilot 3.5L

This bag gets good reviews and is pretty nice. The strap is good and easily adjustable and the front closure has a quick release mechanism which is very cool. Easily holds a camera and and two extra lenses. What’s the problem then? In my opinion, it’s a weird shape for a Leica M; it’s just too deep in way that makes it hard to use the internal space. A nice bag if I’m not worried about keeping it as compact as possible (e.g. a car trip) where I would appreciate having not to cram things in Tetris-style to maximize efficiency. It would be pretty amazing I think if it was 2" shorter.

I’ve bought both small small and medium velcro accessories for the interior, and they kind of get in the way for a bag of this size.

Wotancraft Pilot 2L

This is the bag that I’ve been looking for. Fits one camera with a lens mounted and one other lens. No bigger than it needs to be. Forget about the small-sized internal accessories; they interfere too much. The external clip-on pouches are need if you want to carry a bit extra, i.e. another lens or a small notepad.

The Peak Design FlexFold divider for their Everyday Sling 3L bag is perfect for this bag (and probably the 3.5L Wotancraft as well). It lets divide the bag perfectly for a camera with lens mounted plus another lens, with the 2nd lens hidden down under the folded down divider.

A camera with a 90 Summicron mounted fits fine. A camera with a 75 Summilux mounted also fits, but it’s a wee bit tight.

Domke F-5XA

This little bag is pretty darn close to the Lowepro as well. It’s got a great strap, though it doesn’t have the quick adjusting nature the Wotancraft does. Easily stores one camera with lens, another lens, and even a bit more. The ‘bit more’ can be another lens (as shown in the photo) but it gets a bit tight. It’s the perfect spot for an external finder, batteries, or something similar. Between the 2L Wotancraft and the little Domke, I’d say the Domke wins out on being more space efficient. It’s essentially the same size externally, but it can carry a bit more.

Domke F-5XB

I don’t have this bag but I am tempted. I think it’s going to be a bit wider than what I want, but I’ll probably end up with it at some point. A lot of Leica shooters seem to like it.

Thoughts

While the Think Tank bags are excellent and highly recommended, for my specific purpose of a small bag that can easily fit in my backpack and carry just a camera and 1-2 lenses, I’m using the Domke F-5XA and the Wotancraft 2L.

The Wotancraft 2L wins out on the quicker adjusting strap, a nicer closure mechanism (the Domke has some pretty loud velcro), and the strapping for mounting external accessories. It also feels a bit lighter and will probably be a bit more comfortable since you can adjust the strap so easily to reposition the load. The Domke holds a bit more and seems a bit more space efficient.

Both are good bags and I’m not sure which one I’m going to like more in the long run. I took the Domke on my last vacation and it was pretty good.