🎧 Optimized AudioQuest Dragonfly USB Headphone Amplifier for Enhanced Sound Experience Review

Wow. I've been using the Dragonfly v1.2 through headphones and through my decent desktop speakers almost every day for the past year. I was very happy with the sound quality so didn't bother to improve it even though I knew the Dragonfly Red. However, the recent development of Tidal releasing their MQA encoded "Masters" albums got me thinking about an upgrade. When I listened to the Master on my Dragonfly v1.2, the difference was amazingly significant. MQA has its fair share of critics (for…

I was thrilled to see that Audioquest have released another red and black dragonfly inspired USB DAC/amp. I really like my Audioquest Dragonfly Red (DFR) - I use it almost every day as it's connected to my work laptop and powering my Final Audio Sonorous IV headphones at work. I was hoping for more DFR airiness and tasteful sparkling highs, but unfortunately that didn't happen with the Cobalt. Cobalt is noticeably less airy, tighter, with the separation of the instruments being a bit more…

I haven't seen any improvement using this on my Mackbook Air 2018 with a Grado SR-80. You can get a higher volume, but that's about it. I tried lossless files. It's hard to believe the claims about the difference between day and night. Do people hear with their ears or with their minds? Are you convinced that you have "golden ears" and can hear the tiniest differences inaccessible to ordinary mortals? I consider myself a perceptive listener. I am a classical music lover and I would like to have

Highly recommended. I bought the DragonFly to use as a headphone amp/DAC on the go with my iPhone/Shure 535. I stream Tidal Lossless (CD quality) and sometimes Spotify. Without DragonFly, the sound on the iPhone/Shure sounds good, but there's graininess across the spectrum - the instruments lose their juiciness, the sound gets a bit compressed, and the music tires after 30-60 minutes. Type Dragonfly and the music sounds clear, emotional, juicy, transparent - and I can forget annoying graininess

I entered the audiophile's world (or the rabbit hole, depending on who you ask) a few months ago and Enjoyed During this time I tried different headphones + DACs/amplifiers + Hi-Res tracks. My goal is to (1) find combos that I like and stick with, rather than endlessly drooling over things I don't own, (2) find good stats that fit my lifestyle and make sense ( z my kids, they can't go to college because I need new headphones, but I also don't kid myself that a $20 pair is going to sound kinda…