Audioquest DragonFly DAC and headphones amp

Now that this is in the wild, anyone has one or used one?

http://www.audioquest.com/usb_digital_analog_converter/dragonfly-dac

 

AudioStream.com is about to review, Lavorgna has his.
Seems like a nice little unit with good pedigree.

 

I reached out to AQ for a review unit. I like to compare it to my HeadStreamer and D1.

 

It's pretty awesome! We're almost done with our review as well..

 

Sounds good from my MacBook Pro Running Pure Music and iTunes. Also sounds good from my ThinkPad 420s running JRiver media Center 17. Got it from Music Direct. Had it pre-ordered.

 

Is it better than the HRT HeadStreamer? I find that to be a decent unit for the money.

 

Way better than the HRT.

 

Oh, I may just have to click Buy on Amazon.

 

I wonder what it's output impedance is for headphones? The brochure says the minimum driving impedance (i.e. minimum headphone impedance) is 12 ohms. That makes me suspect that it may not be a good match for balanced armature IEMs and other headphones/earphones that like a really low output impedance. It may be better to have the little Dragonfly thing drive a portable or desktop headphone amp rather than trying to power headphones directly.

 

Good point. Can someone with experience on this unit chime in?

 

I can confirm that the DragonFly sounds good with the AKG 702's in my rig. Had not tried my higher-end headphones yet until this evening. The DAC sounds great!

 

I am intrigued. That thing is *little*!

 

I like the lack of a USB cable.

 

On one hand the lack of a USB cable is a good idea. On the other hand there is the risk of damaging the DragonFly if you move your laptop and inadvertently strike the DragonFly. Audioquest is in the process of making a small USB 2.0 A Male to A Female Extension called the Dragon Tail in order to address the issue. The Dragon Tail is advertised on the DragonFly box but it won't be available for a couple of months. Short USB 2.0 A Male to A Female Extensions are not hard to find though:

http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=103&cp_id=10303&cs_id=1030304&p_id=5431&seq=1&format=1#largeimage

 

I'd love to hear more about the sound of this DAC. Strengths, weaknesses? Sonic character?

A buddy is interested in getting a sub-$350 DAC, and it seems like the Audioengine D1, HRT Streamer II and II+ and this new guy are the main contenders. I'd love to know how they compare, or just get a btter idea of the Audioquest's sound.

 

It's only been out since Monday....

 

But that's like 4 days ago...

Yes, I should be more patient.

Anyhoo, ooking forward to impressions of the sound whenever they may come.

 

Tonepub,

Would you please do some testing with different headphones? I would love to hear your thoughts on it as a headphones DAC/amp. Thank you!

 

The volume control on this is so cool. Very impressive implementation of an analog volume control.

 

Is the volume changing done digitally at all (losing bits), or is it all in the analog domain?

 

All in analog domain, but the analog control is using the volume control on your computer (not sure if it is all volume sliders on the screen, or just the main volume slider, or a few different sliders [iTunes, main volume, etc] but not all). Look forward to reading the details in the reviews to come.

 

There's no knob for the volume right?

 

Right, you use the computer's volume control on the screen to control the analog volume control in the Dragonfly.

 

I don't trust a computer controlling the volume. I no longer even trust a digital volume control on an amp. I had a digital volume control (it had push buttons for increasing and decreasing the volume) on a headphone amp go bonkers, jump to full volume, and blow my Denon D2000 headphones. I trust a volume control controlled by a computer even less, especially if it is tied to an audio driver. Sound card drivers can be very unstable. They crash. They lock up. They reset for unknown reasons. They are written by imbeciles who don't care about stability and don't care about making sure the volume control will fail in a safe state (i.e. go mute in the event of a failure rather than resetting to full volume).

If you have an audio driver controlling your volume you are risking having your speakers or headphones blown by the amp if the audio driver goes bonkers. Ditto for a digital volume control on an amp or pre-amp.

There is a reason why the control systems for things like industrial control and nuclear power plants are very robust and designed to fail to safe states rather than dangerous states. I don't trust digital volume controls to be that robust and well designed. I trust audio drivers controlling the volume even less.

 

Hmm, then I'd say that you might not be a candidate for this DAC. Or just use it at full blast with another form of volume control.

Also just because you had a bad experience with one implementation doesn't mean that this one would have the same problems.

But yes, thanks for the warning on this. Something to be wary of.