Been looking for the most portable dacs, and the wireless USB dac form has really intrigued me. However, I’m having a hard time deciding between which one to get. Hoping to hear from some people about these DACs because I couldn’t find much about them compared price wise.
I also saw this extremely cheap DAC on aliexpress. Didn’t see many reviews for it, but I’ve seen people say this is pretty decent, although dragonfly is still better.
Currently I’m inclined towards Dragonfly Red, simply because it has so many good reviews, though I’ve also heard some things about how it’s overpriced and and the built quality isn’t too good.
Just looking for the cheapest, best sounding one out of these. Dragonfly Cobalt is out of the question as it is way too expensive for me.
So I haven’t heard the monolith or aliexpress one, but I do think the dragonfly red is the highest tier one mentioned imo. Also check out the sabaj da3 if that counts as a dongle dac (well idk if that counts lol)
some people like no theme claim that the monolith is just as good if not better than the dragonfly because it can do higher than 96K and DSD and costs less but then again i dont like his super snarky cynicism…
as for @inory i remember audioengine being a fairly trustworthy brand but i dunno if i would put my money on it for the same price as the monolith and the dragonfly black… if you want the best sound quality then get a dragonfly red… they are made to make up to 96K audio sound good and the sound difference between the black and the red is seemingly a lot and worth it from what i heard (plus the red will support much more powerful headphones than the black)… the major issues you miss are no volume adjustment so thats ALL software based. the monolith does have that but its super small because of the convenient size (compromises have to be made)
the aliexpress DAC is much more a gamble… it could be better, it could be worse
just was saying from his video… he basically says that audioquests are hacks because of the USB jitter fix stuff the cobalt mentions (he really wants to be a snale oil debunker) and the fact it costs more than a similar dac that has more features and cost him 60 bucks on amazon even though its supposed to be 100
Fair enough. I am personally not the biggest advocate of dragonflys either, but you really shouldn’t only judge based on them using the same or similar dac chip, implementation is important as well, the same chip can sound fairly different implemented well and poorly
Yeah, its a good idea to consider both mindsets. I will look at specs, internals, and design, and if there is nothing glaringly wrong then it’s all on subjective sound for me. You want to find a balance between objectivity and subjectivity when you make your choice
no theme is almost completely objective based (and also clickbaits all his videos with the same # about the chord mojo battery)… saying that if there is not an objective immediate improvement in sound there no reason to not buy the cheapest thing that can do it. not realizing that some people can buy the more expensive thing because the parts are composed a bit better
so do people just think the dragonfly red is not worth the price… the one thing keeping me off it is the lack of higher than 96K support and no DSD or other features, but it also seems perfect for me since it fits my budget, is super small so it can fit my bed, has MQA support for tidal, and aparently is one of the best sounding DACs available
About 2% of amazons catalog is >96K, no other streaming service is close to that, and unless you have DSD content, which you can trivially transcode to PCM, it’s not worth worrying about.
i dont have any but i did think about trying it with say a beach boys from acoustic sounds or thriller on HD tracks.
i only cared about over 96K because i thought of getting on HD tracks the american idiot remaster they have which is 192… though i can probably do 96 there is still that temptation
I am using a Dragonfly Red in my makeshift bedroom setup… Macbook Air-Dragonfly Red-SMSL AD18-Micca RB42s and that setup sounds really nice…so much so, I am not looking for anything else to replace it at this time. I have also used the Macbook Air, Dragonfly Red with headphones and IEMs. The Dragonfly Reds DAC is so much better than the DAC in the Macbook. I have multiple PCs in the house that I have also compaired on… Definitely more power to drive heaphones, as well as a detail, soundstage and imaging upgrade.
how power of headphones can they do… because im thinking of a dragonfly red or an ifi and the max requirement is they can run HD 6XX and a beyerdynamic headphone (i need the sennheisers for no one is around casual listening and the beyer 770 250ohm for when i am in a room with another person and need isolation)
I only have Audio-Technica ATH-M40s, Sivga SV006 which are easy to drive and get very loud. I have Sundaras … which are touted as easy to drive, but definitely like more power… I have used them on the Dragonfly Red… it powers them just fine, but I can turn up the sound to 75-100%… It is plenty loud, but I can definitely tell the Sundaras can take more. With harder to drive headphones, I guess it would depend on what listening levels you listen at.
I’ve read the cobalt has the same amp section as the red. The cobalt has an updated dac and a miniaturized version of their jitterbug usb filter all in one chassis.
but i heard there was a decent amount more power on the cobalt than the red…
but then again it IS from no theme who said it had 25% more power so i dunno maybe the red is all i’ll need… hoefully sundaras/6XX (a little nervous that the sundara might be a little TOO cold) and beyerdynamic DT 770 250s will be able to run on the 2.1V power
