Comparison new & old Quad Cortex

Quad Cortex
22

if someone has the new qc with the ESS chip and willing to open it to make some pictures of the internals, that would be great.

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23

Got my QC in December and it appears to still be the “vintage” unit coming from Andersons. Input mic/line is manually selected, whereas I understood the new ones to be automatic?

24

you are right, you will probably have the one like I have, it looks like the new one from the first posting but still on the old audio chip, where you select the input.

I got mine in December as well.

26

So do you think our QCs are drawing 18W or 24W?

27

everyone who measured the quad cortex with the old chip saw a draw of 1.8A at 12V so it will be a bit less than 24 watts. The quad cortex mini has a spec of 1.2A at 12 V so that can be the same for the quad cortex from August 2025 with the ESS chip.

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28

Guys, the ESS chip is not the reason for the difference in current between the QC (which is now being manufactured with it) and the Mini.

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29

This would be awesome

30

I got a new QC from the official store(JPN) in December, but it was a old one.

But as mentioned on this forum, QC(2025 with old ESS) was completely different from QC(2021).

It’s weird there’s nobody who got the QC(2025 with new ESS), but I decided to buy a QC mini, so I will work on it instead.

31

You mean old “cirrus logic”, I think.

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32

So there have been 3 versions and all sound the same? When did the QC start drawing 18w instead of 24W?

33

Yes (at least obvious revisions), cirrus logic “revisions” 1 & 2, then ESS. A good question about the power draw!

34

Photos of circuit boards shown on this forum, so NDSP made silent updates on the hardware, but not sure they changed gradually or at once.

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35

Yes, that’s normal during a few years of electronics production. A few components will be obsolete and replaced (if possible) by form/fit/function alternatives.

And they have maybe done a cleanup of the layout/PCB for easier manufacturing.

But this does not mean that there are any changes visible or hearable at user level.

The only time this happened is when they had to exchange the audio codec and there they communicated it.

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