This Qutest comes in at 9/10 condition — well cared for with no defects noted — and includes the original box. No additional accessories are listed beyond what Chord includes its power supply; please refer to the photos for cosmetic condition.
The Qutest is Chord's dedicated standalone DAC, sharing the same custom-coded Xilinx Artix 7 FPGA and 49,152-tap WTA filter architecture as the Hugo 2. Inputs cover galvanically isolated USB-B (to 768kHz/32-bit), two BNC coaxial, and optical. Output is a fixed stereo RCA pair with user-selectable voltage of 1V, 2V, or 3V RMS — useful for matching gain to a wide range of preamps and integrateds. It is a pure DAC with no volume control, no headphone output, and no preamp stage. Four selectable digital filters and native DSD512 support round out a focused, no-compromise feature set. The Qutest has held a What Hi-Fi? Best DAC award continuously since its 2018 introduction and remains on The Absolute Sound Recommended Components list.
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Chord Electronics was founded in 1989 by John Franks in Kent, England, with roots in professional audio and avionics-grade power supply design. The company's DACs are built around proprietary FPGA implementations coded by digital designer Rob Watts — eschewing off-the-shelf converter chips entirely in favor of custom WTA filtering and Pulse Array DAC architecture. Chord's professional installations include Abbey Road, Skywalker Sound, and the BBC, and its consumer DAC line has accumulated more What Hi-Fi? awards than any other manufacturer in the category's history.