Dragonfly cobalt review upgrade#

Rumoured to include elements from their successful Jitterbug USB noise filter, AQ evidently believes this upgrade to be of significant benefit as their previous advice to use a Jitterbug in series with Dragonfly Black and Red does not apply to their new flagship.

Dragonfly cobalt review full#

The built-in power supply filtering has also been upgraded, improving electrical noise rejection from wifi, Bluetooth and mobile phone signals to allow Cobalt to reach its full sonic potential. Its monoclock technology has a single, ultra-low jitter clock generated from the DAC chip that runs the ESS chip functions as well as all microcontroller functions. Like previous models, Cobalt uses Gordon Rankin’s StreamLength asynchronous-transfer USB code. The new ’Fly retains Red’s ESS Sabre9601 amplifier output stage, but AQ has treated it to a new USB microcontroller, the Microchip PIC32MX274, which draws even less current and apparently increases processing speed by a third. Unlike Red’s minimum-phase filter, however, AQ has chosen to roll-off ultrasonic frequencies less steeply in Cobalt to provide a “more natural sound”. It sports the latest ES9038Q2M DAC chip from ESS that – like the ESS 9016 chip used in Red – has been implemented with a minimum-phase reconstruction filter. While its size may have shrunk, Cobalt’s internals certainly haven’t been scrimped on. Measuring just 57mm long (2 ¼”), the svelte new model is 10% smaller than its siblings and its streamlined profile and immaculate deep blue finish is more reminiscent of a finely polished jewel than a USB dongle. Retailing for £269, some £200 and £120 more expensive than the £69 Black and £149 Red, Cobalt becomes the new flagship in the series and is AQ’s most expensive and ambitious Dragonfly to date. We now welcome the latest addition to the Dragonfly family, Cobalt. Both featured redesigned USB controllers that drew a fraction of the current and made them compatible with not just laptops but also tablets and smartphones and, with two prices of admission, brought high quality sound to an even wider audience. The original Dragonfly was supplanted in 2016 by two new models the even more affordable Dragonfly Black, and the more expensive but also more powerful Dragonfly Red.

It’s hard to believe that it has been eight years since the release of Audioquest’s ingenious Dragonfly, the memory stick-sized USB DAC/preamp/headphone amp that provides a simple, effective and affordable solution to the problem of mediocre sound quality from computers.