DAP or portable DAC/Amp. Which to choose?

You didn’t state in your OP what you were planning on using with this, but mentioned you wanted “a little more power” than a Fiio M5 which does 24mW into 32Ω.

So I suggest to you a device that does 10 times the power, 240mW into 32Ω.

Qudelix 5K is really more than enough for any IEM, including the 7Hz Timeless, I have that and use it with the Qudelix (and a BTR5, which is basically the same in terms of sound output). I have the Starfield as well, it also works great with that. You probably have literally thousands of times headroom in terms of power for something like the Starfield.

The Timeless is harder to drive, but it’s still an IEM. It’s not THAT hard to drive and I’m still way down in low gain on the low power mode with it. It’s an IEM.

I also use overears with it including the Hifiman Ananda (relatively easy to drive) but also the Audio Technica R70x, Hifiman Edition XS and HE400SE, which are harder to drive. I think it sounds good (and certainly loud enough) even on the hard to drive stuff. I’m running all of this balanced, which has substantially more power (3-4x) than the single ended.

If it was going to be my only amp, for hard to drive overear planars, I’d want more than the Qudelix. And I have. But for something portable as supplementary to my 1.5W desktop amp that’s going to primarily be used for IEMs, it’s perfect. For IEMs, I wouldn’t pick something else up to $400, no.

It’s a very flexible device.

Okay, here you go.

Now, that’s not to say I wouldn’t take any of my other headphones. 5XX, K550, or Dekoni Blue(if it can be properly powered) would be among them.

The only one of those that is really hard to drive is the HE4XX. Qudelix actually have a chart for that headphone specifically in their “Power Budget” section:

The limit with the planars is not voltage but current saturation. With the HE4XX balanced at the max 240mW you will be at 2.9V / 83mA and 117dB SPL. Above that I think you would get clipping. But that’s pretty loud, and that’s the worst case, all the other stuff you are talking about is much easier to drive. My HE400SE is a bit harder to drive, and listening to that on the Qudelix, even that is fine. Loud, no distortion, clean bass, and 1V (which is more than 2x below the current saturation) is already too loud for me for sustained listening.

I mostly use these overears with a desktop Fiio K5 Pro which does 1.5W. But I occasionally plug them into the Qudelix, either for portability or to mess with the excellent PEQ it has built in.

If your primary usage for this is IEMs, the Quedelix is more than enough. Even the 7Hz Timeless. It’s a planar, but it’s still an IEM with a 14.2mm driver. You don’t need to wire it to a speaker amp.

It seems to me like you already know quite well what you don’t want so by process of elimination, you should be more than capable of finding what it is you want.

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Doesn’t mean everything has been reviewed, or things like Amazon reviews can be completely trusted. If people are simply going to ignore everything that’s been said and just keep recommending what’s already been turned down, then yes, I’m going to call them out and start pointing out everything they seem to have blatantly ignored. Beyond that, numbers don’t tell a full story, nor are they always accurate. Thusly, we reach out to those who may have more experience, or have experienced certain products I’ve never had a chance for hands-on time with, for their recommendations or what to steer clear of.
Now, if you are going to suggest that I should disregard this idea because I understand which types of products might fit me better and which features might be desirable, then please, come out and say so. Maybe I might believe that reviews and reviewers have no place by that logic, just like YouTube believed there was no place for the dislike button.

You are being exceedingly abrasive to people you are asking for advice, you know that? Good luck with your search.

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When I’m repeatedly having to go back and quote and requote because people clearly are not paying attention, trying to give me a lesson, just basically say, “sorry for giving you a lesson, that wasn’t my intention, so I’m gonna do it again”, or recommend products that won’t work for me due to incompatibility because they weren’t paying attention, and so on… Do you really see no reason for the abrasive treatment, or do you need me to stroke your ego?

Paying attention? Perhaps you should have laid out what you actually wanted in your OP, where you say you want “a little more power” than something that does only 24mW, “bluetooth would be nice” and “balanced would be a big plus”. We’re not mindreaders, and I’m not particularly inclined to pick through a thread where you have scattergun quotes all over the place and are being deliberately and needlessly rude to anyone trying to help you.

If you want good advice and people not “wasting your time” with stuff you’ve already mentally discounted, lay all this out in your first post as to exactly what you want, rather than just come back at people as to how they should have understood what you didn’t say and they haven’t picked through a lengthy thread of you being rude, which could have been avoided if you only said what you wanted in the first post. Anyway, good luck with it.

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If you’re so personally wounded by the abrasiveness, then why do you keep coming back?