When you want a bit more sonic quality than your phone or laptop can provide, it is a perfect pairing for any of our IEMs, whether you’re driving the demanding U18t or the easy listening A3e.

Audirvana is a remarkable piece of music playback software designed to optimise your personal computer for music playback. Note: In our tests, Apple's Lightning-to-USB 3 Camera Adapter (with charging port) sounds better and is more reliable than Apple's less expensive Lightning-to-USB Camera Adapter, while also providing the ability to charge during playback. Most DAC/amps have enough power that matching/synergy with various headphones tends to come down more to tonal preferences, and other technicalities. It offers versions and support for both Apple and Windows computers, and even has a remote app to run on your phone or tablet. DragonFly Red includes the latest ESS headphone amp and a bit-perfect digital volume control that resides on the 9016 DAC chip itself—a sophisticated implementation that ensures maximum fidelity, dynamic contrast, and signal-to-noise ratio.Complex vocal harmonies are easily separated, instruments whose fundamentals live in this space have good body and tone. Though it is not a night and day upgrade, I do feel that this refinement helps to improve the overall musical landscape greatly: the 1. One odd, but notable, aspect to the audible performance of this unit is that is seems more “settled” and “natural” when rendering content that is natively using a 48 kHz-based clock (e.

are designed to work with computers and laptops only; they are not designed for use with iOS and Android mobile devices.Also, my admittedly limited experience does include my beloved HT Omega eClaro, which I've reviewed on this site. But into an appropriate load, bass rendering is fully extended, well textured and properly tuneful; spin Dead Prez’ “Hip Hop” (Let’s Get Free) for a lucid demonstration of the Black’s ability to render a musical baseline … and not just a low-toned throbbing. Lastly, those more expensive DAC/amps have better soundstage (bigger, more depth, more width) and better layering of instruments. Then a big change happened to my life: the company starts sending me onto long business trips more and more often. However, it is absolutely inaudible the moment the music starts, even when that music is at a very low level.

This manifests itself as a little too much bite with brass instruments, and a somewhat steely edge to cymbals, and contributes to the occasionally “tense” or “strained” feeling to the unit’s top-end. When connected to an MQA Core signal (within TIDAL Masters or Audirvana, for example), DragonFly’s purple display indicates the unit is rendering an MQA stream or file. Laptops running the Windows 10 operating system with Intel’s new Tiger Lake processor may errantly apply the Intel Smart Sound Technology driver for USB audio output.

The USB connector type-A connector is gold-plated, as are it’s contacts, and is mated to the units case in a manner that exhibits no flex or movement at all. Treble balance is proportionate; there is no undue emphasis here - though it can sometimes sound that way if pushed hard into a demanding load. With DragonFly Black and Red, any computer, laptop, tablet, or smartphone can be used as a true high-fidelity music player, allowing music lovers to enjoy beautiful sound wherever they go, whenever they please.

You can also use DragonFly as a traditional fixed-output source component (such as a CD player, DVD player, or Blu-ray player), connected to a standard input on a receiver or preamplifier. AudioQuest believes that today's digital devices should evolve as technology itself evolves, thereby delivering musical pleasure for many years to come. AudioQuest’s new DragonFly Black is a USB digital-to-analogue converter (DAC) designed to deliver cleaner, clearer, more naturally beautiful sound from any computer, smartphone, or tablet.How well these factors are realized are heavily influenced by the headphones you choose to pair with the Dragonfly Black. AudioQuest unveiled the two models at CES, making the cut for various 'Best of Show' lists, including What Hifi's 'Best of CES 2016' award. Some mention that it is top quality, an excellent quality compact DAC / Headphone Amp, and totally reliable, while others say that it's quite expensive and has some build quality issues. For greater overall performance, the new DragonFly models also incorporate improved 32-bit ESS Sabre DAC chips—the 9010 in Black and the higher-performance 9016 in Red—both of which employ minimum-phase filtering for naturally detailed, more authentic sound.