I finally got my hands on the new Dragonfly DAC from Audioquest and I can’t stop listening to it. Even as I type this I have Four Sticks from Led Zeppelins’ fourth album pounding and crashing between my ears! The sound is huge but how did I wind up in my office with headphones on? And what the heck is a Dragonfly?Image may be NSFW.
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If you don’t mind I will tackle the second question first. The Dragonfly is an interesting combination of devices. I think of it as an USB DAC that happens to do a great job as a headphone amp. At $249 the Dragonfly is certainly not the most expensive DAC we have on hand but it is the most convenient. The Dragonfly plugs into the USB port on your MAC or PC. It comes with a very straight forward quick start guide for windows and iOS, and took me less than a minute to set up. I plugged it into my work laptop a Dell Latitude E5410 running Windows 7 Professional on which I use iTunes for music. I store my CDs on my laptop on AIFF as 48 kHz 16 bit files. I grabbed a pair of the well regarded Grado Labs SR80s ($99 retail) as headphones. The Dragonfly has a standard 1/8th inch stereo output on it. Due to the ease of set up I was able to switch between the Dragonfly and the on board headphone output in a matter of seconds and the results were nothing short of stunning.
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A look inside this remarkable device
I started off with one of my favorite tracks, Diana Krall’s “Peel Me a Grape”, I love how minimal the arrangement is and how on a great system it feels like it is just you and Diana. I started with the Dragonfly and was impressed with how close, and how real her voice sounded. The vocals were silky smooth and the upright bass had impact and a sense of the strings on wood. That may sound odd, but an upright bass has such a special combo of low warmth and bite from the strings on the ebony neck. This unique sound is so often lost on even some very good gear and low and behold, as soon as I switched to the pc headphone output, it sank into the background and I had to actively listen for it. What was even worse is all the bite, intensity and intimacy I was sharing with Diana disappeared. She could have been singing for 10 thousand people rather than just me. Needless to say I quickly returned to the Dragonfly for the rest of the track.
Next I put on “Josie” from Steely Dan’s Aja. The first thing I noticed as I switched between the Dragonfly to the PC and back in the first verse was something I noticed and discounted on “Peel Me a Grape”, there is so much more space in the music through the Dragonfly. Usually I say that in the context of imaging between instruments, but here I also mean with the reverb. On the funk guitar part in “Josie” you can clearly hear the echo on the guitar even when the entire band is grooving. When I switched over the echo disappeared. Everything just sounds flat, weak and blah without the Dragonfly.
This is how we get to the first question. It sounded so damn good I couldn’t put it down. I didn’t experience the fatigue you sometimes get with headphones. What is more, listening through the Dragonfly was by FAR the BEST audio experience I have ever had with headphones on. I own several pairs of buds and over the ear head phones from well respected manufactures and though my Zune or iPod with lossless files and $500 a pair ear buds this experience was hands down light years better.
If you want to get into computer music and don’t want to spend big bucks look into the Dragonfly and a 1/8 inch stereo to RCA stereo cable and get started. You can use the Dragonfly as a DAC for your existing system or you can just use it with headphones. Either way you are going to have digital music that is more open, more alive, more intimate and more impactful. I do believe I will be taking one home tonight for just that purpose. Plus it is so small I can easily take it back and forth from home and work. You can have great sounding music anywhere you want!
Now if you will pardon me Diana is asking me “To Fly Her to the Moon”…….
And always remember; the proof is in the listening!
Do you have questions, ideas, or products you would like to see reviewed? Let me know what you want to see in this blog in the future! Contact me at JHeld@hifihousegroup.com