the one issue i feel about the cobalt is that its way too expensive (you can get a dragonfly red for 160 bucks now so why not drop the price of the cobalt at least to 250)… only 96K, MQA but only for stuff like tidal and roon, no other support like DSD… you aren’t getting much features for a price that you can get a solid IFI product with more features or even a used chord mojo
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DSD isn’t a very prevalent format, but I agree that it’s priced rather high.
$250 would be a better price point. 
agreed… but if your DAC is costing more than 150 or so DSD is standard in most DAC
Really want to thank Luke, M0N and Duke. Got the message – my idea isn’t going to fly. The DF Red is $250 and the Cobalt is $400 in these here parts. The Sabaj is $160 but it’s not the thumb-drive type gadget I was envisioning.
Yep, I’ve certainly put lots of thought into the Mojo, Micro and their brethren over the past couple years. Don’t rule this out but I’m frightened by all the reliability reports on the Mojo, and feel IFi would be a gamble as to whether I’d be fine with the house coloration. What I’m more inclined to consider along that line would be the A&K Kann DAP. Don’t need portability/battery, but the Kann would be a true AIO option for me. A presumably quality amp, plus DAC, plus file management, plus an actual usable EQ in a single unit.
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Try and find a lotoo paw gold (or paw gold touch, they are eq kings and absolute units imo)
Also you might like the cayin n6ii where you can change dac and amp cards in the unit (also apparently they are working on a card that would have a tube in it)
If you wanted something extremely solid as a dac amp combo, look for a used chord hugo 2 imo, that sounds super up your alley for sound but most likely not price
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Lotoo is $2400US and has tiny screen but looks fascinating. Cayin does not show anything about having EQ on its web page. Do you or anyone have any impressions, even reports from acquaintances, of the Kann? The few reviews seem favourable.
https://www.head-fi.org/threads/f-s-lotoo-paw-gold.897842/
If you look used you can find them for more reasonable prices, reason I mention it is because it has a Blackfin 514 DSP processor (I think the gold touch has an even better one) that’s really nice
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I haven’t heard the Kann, but this thread might be useful.
Thanks. Found a review of the Lotoo Touch that shows the EQ. It’s parametric but only 5 bands. The Kann has 31 bands, so is much more attractive to me.
IAC, DAP with some amp power heft and usable EQ is only one of the paths I’ve been considering. FWIW, if I were to upgrade to a Clear (Pro) I could swear off EQ and wouldn’t need as much amp oomph, both of which in turn would open a lot of other doors.
Thanks! It is indeed. Did you ever settle on a DAP?
I just went with the Cobalt for now. It’s been good for my early morning/late night listening.
My review is linked in this thread.
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Correction, crank the volume to 100% on the cobalt and the amp shuts off putting it into line out mode.
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tbh the red might actually be useful for me because i have no need for DSD and more a use for MQA as i might join tidal (yeah i know its lossy but it could be a good experience). its about 160 bucks on amazon, unanimously loved, and i can get a OTG cable for USB C… plus no files i have are 192
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The red is preferred. IMO, the only thing the cobalt has is the built in USB filter which you will only care about when you hook it up to your phone as it’s one less adapter. I don’t think it’s necessary.
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just didn’t know because some were telling me to get something else instead of a dragonfly red (the dragonfly black was OK but not that big a difference) so i can have a volume wheel and other details
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FWIW, Monoprice has a single DAC that’s supposed to compete with the DF trio, and is on sale now for ~$65. Haven’t used it, so can’t speak from experience how it performs or what functionality it has.
Also, the ES100 can be used Bluetooth or USB, has 10 band parametric EQ, and line out mode. I mostly use it for IEMs, but in a pinch it’ll drive my HE4xx to serviceable volumes on high gain.
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Interesting, maybe there’s been a firmware update? Last year Archimago was finding it starts to distort if you push it to max and also that it has worse overall subjective and objective performance than the Red and seems completely not worth the price increase: https://archimago.blogspot.com/2019/08/measurements-dragonflies-audioquest.html
It’s a feature.
Just received a replacement for my defective dragonfly cobalt. It came very quickly. The unit would turn off if you moved or touched it. The replacement unfortunately started to intermittently blink red and goes silent when you slightly tap or touch the unit. Audioquest immediately sent me a new RMA within 10 minutes of sending them an email regarding that issue. They greatly apologized for this inconvenience.
Hence at least the service has been top notch.
But the cobalt is now $ 330 so it is suprising to have these problems.
Btw i have another cobalt which works flawlessly.
So, Cobalt users, how do you rate it vs e.g. Zen or the Toppings in the price range, or G6?
Just recieved my second cobalt replacement. Works perfectly now. But there was a pleasant surprise. The sound signiture of this"gem" unit is noticeably smoother than the 3 others that i had. I basically only use line level out to my amplifier.
I think that audioquest needs to do a better job with sound tolorances. I have especially noticed immediate sonic differences with their dragontails.
Btw you know you have a later version of the dragonfly because the dragontails that come with the units are now shorter.