AudioQuest DragonFly DAC USB Digital Audio Converter - Cobalt

Product Information

Please note: TV and larger floorstanding speaker deliveries are not available to Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland, Isle of Man, Isle of Wight, Scottish Islands, and Channel Islands.

The Cobalt's output amplifier is the same as that used in the Red, an ESS Sabre9601. This is a DC-coupled, unity-gain device and runs off a single positive voltage rail. (An integral charge pump provides the necessary negative voltage.) The Cobalt is also said to feature improved power-supply filtering, increasing the audio circuitry's immunity to Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and cellular noise. I did most of my listening via Tidal and Qobuz, for their easy access to streaming high-res files, including MQA-encoded ones in the case of Tidal. I rotated among my three headphones: a fairly low-output, medium-impedance HiFiMan planar set; a moderately higher-output, somewhat lower-impedance NAD/Viso set; and my ancient Sony MDRV6 reference, a still lower-Z and higher-O option.Cobalt features the same ESS Sabre 9601 headphone amp and bit-perfect volume control that give DragonFly Red its unique combination of power and grip over the music. This solution ensures maximum fidelity, thrilling dynamic contrast, and excellent signal-to-noise ratio. The 2.1-volt output makes Cobalt and Red compatible with a wide range of headphones, including power-hungry, low-efficiency models. Firmware Upgradeable

The ES9038Q2M is a mobile version of the ES9038PRO, the PRO version is currently the benchmark in audio performance, and is the favored part in the audiophile community. People love them, use them 100% of the time, look for them if they get misplaced and keep thanking me for them. A dongle dac-amp is exposed to all these noises whereas most designated dacs have the option of a separate power supply. Separating power and data lines improve dac behaviour and there is no need to clean the computer’s VBUS noise.

AudioQuest DragonFly Cobalt USB D/A-headphone amplifier

UAPP sounds better than Tidal or Qobuz’s own apps. It also sounds better than Foobar when streaming music from an Android phone’s internal storage. You could spend your time analysing the music if you like, the Cobalt makes that easy with its wide-open soundstage and impressive clarity,but AudioQuest has not lost itself entirely in the detail, offering still a keen sense of rhythm and expressive dynamic range. Key to the Cobalt’s stunning sound is an advanced ESS ES9038Q2M DAC (Digital to Analogue Convertor). Highly regarded within the hi-fi world, this DAC uses precise filtering to deliver a smooth and natural sound. Simply put, you’ll hear subtle details in the music that your regular headphone output misses out on or glosses over. The AudioQuest DragonFly Cobalt features a new ESS ES9038Q2M DAC chip and Microchip PIC32MX274 microprocessor which draw significantly less current and offer a 33% increase in processing speed over the DragonFly Red. Our test with the DragonFly Cobalt connected to both an iPhone 6S and LG V30, saw a dramatic reduction in battery use providing additional hours of playing time.