As a fully functional MQA renderer, your DragonFly is ready to unfold and play MQA files through the Tidal music-streaming service. This added support for MQA (Master Quality Authenticated) rendering, when combined with a player/source that could do the initial “core” decoding.

At the heart of DragonFly Black is a 32-bit ESS Sabre 9010 DAC that uses a sophisticated minimum-phase digital filter to provide more naturally detailed and dynamic music. months later and I’ve now got both the one that started it all (Dragonfly 2012) and the newest one (Dragonfly 1. Regardless of whether the cable in question be an analogue or digital interconnect, speaker cable, subwoofer cable or anything with Audioquest's badge on it - only the finest quality materials and construction expertise are used to form an exceptional, industry-leading product. Contrary to common belief, making beautiful music out of 1s and 0s isn’t a case of simply getting all of the audio data from Point A to Point B.

I've long felt that the eClaro has a cool sound signature and I still do, so that's my point of reference. And my Grado cable is like a garden hose - meaning it feels pretty precarious sticking out of there and might snap. Previously, DragonFly's power consumption limited its compatibility to Mac and Windows laptops and PCs. And it is from the amp side of things that, with more demanding headphones, any issues - minor though they are, especially given the market segment hit unit is aimed at, seems to arise.

Hooked directly to any of my headphones (AKG K92, Takstar Pro 82, Samson SR850, Sennheiser CX300II, KZ ZSX. For iPhone users, checkout the Lightning to USB Camera Adapter or the Lightning to USB 3 Camera Adapter . In Gordon Rankin’s monoClock® technology, a single ultra-low-jitter clock generated from the ESS DAC chip runs the headphone amplifier, as well as all microcontroller functionalities, enabling DragonFly to produce greater resolution and clarity than DACs that employ multiple clocks. These digital devices include (but are not limited to) CD players, laptops, computers, tablets, smartphones, and televisions. MQA is an award-winning technology that delivers master-quality audio in a file that’s small enough to stream or download.Finally I can do nothing but HIGHLY recommend this DAC to anybody who is starting out listening to music in an audiophile way. Microchip's superb PIC32MX274 microprocessor draws less current and increases processing speed by 33%.

This superior clock enables DragonFly Cobalt to provide greater resolution and clarity than DACs with multiple clocks. Without pulling the unit apart, I can only speculate as to why; I suspect the unit is using a clock that is an integer multiple of 48 kHz and requires a non-integer divisor/multiplier to synthesize the 44. USB Stick-Sized Digital-to-Analog Converter Plays all music files: MP3 to high-res Compatible with Apple and Windows PCs, as well as iOS and Android mobile devices (requires Apple Camera Adapter or Made for Android/OTG adaptor) Drives headphones directly Fixed output feeds. The LED indicates the sampling rate of the music files it’s processing (Red for “standby”, Green for CD-quality 44.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 ESS 9010 DAC chip in Black and the higher-performance 9016 chip in Red employ minimum-phase filtering for naturally detailed sound.