A Type of Dragonfly Is the Fastest Insect. The Graph Shows How Far the Dragonfly Can Travel

The latest 'DAC in a USB stick' may await like AudioQuest's previous efforts, but it's a very different beast – and a conspicuous deal for use in the home or on the hoof

If the sincerest form of flattery is imitation, then AudioQuest must exist feeling very flattered indeed. Since information technology launched its original DragonFly DAC/headphone amp in 2012, housed in a USB stick and aimed at laptop users, information technology has seen a raft of similar designs hitting the market from rival manufacturers.

Not that AudioQuest has rested on its laurels: it upped its game by spinning the first model into the highly affordable DragonFly Black (around £89) while enhancing the specification to create the DragonFly Red (effectually £170), with improved internal circuitry and notably ameliorate headphone driving capability [HFN Oct '16]. Now comes an even more elevated version, the £270 DragonFly Cobalt, in an even more compact bright blue housing with silver lettering.

A Cracker
Those familiar with the existing DragonFly models may wonder whether pushing the price up towards £300 might be a leap too far for this tiny device, but the Cobalt not just shows its stablemates a clean pair of heels, but achieves remarkable levels of functioning for an outboard DAC, regardless of dimensions. Information technology'southward an absolute cracker, and worthy of use way beyond its intended portable applications.

At showtime glance information technology seems similar to the Carmine, treatment content natively upwardly to 96kHz/24-fleck (higher rates are downsampled), has built-in MQA decoding, and claims a two.1V output from its straight-coupled ESS Sabre 9601 amplifier. That'due south more sufficient to drive most headphones, as well as operating every bit a truthful line-level device with pre- or integrated amps when its 'flake-perfect' digital book control is advanced to max.

However, there are differences even though, like all AQ's DragonFly models, the Cobalt is based effectually the 'StreamLength' asynchronous-transfer USB lawmaking adult by digital designer Gordon Rankin. Information technology also uses his 'monoClock' engineering science, in which a unmarried clock derived from the DAC chip also governs the microcontroller functions.

In the Cobalt, close attention has been paid to power supply noise, with additional filtering aimed at improving amnesty to interference from Bluetooth, mobile phone/data and Wi-Fi signals, all of which can impinge on audio quality. Like all the DragonFly models, the Cobalt is designed for use with Windows, Mac and Linux computers besides equally Android and iOS portable devices. Although other adapter cables may be needed for some handheld equipment, the compact Cobalt comes complete with a USB-C-to-A DragonTail to enable it to be connected to units using USB-C ports.

The DragonFly Cobalt is designed to be plug-and-play with all those operating systems, and like all its siblings lights upwardly its insect logo to identify the incoming signal: green indicates 44.1kHz, blue 48kHz, yellowish 88.2kHz and magenta 96kHz, with purple when the MQA renderer is triggered by a betoken from software offering MQA unfolding, and red when the Cobalt is in standby.

Rather Silly
Our esteemed editor is non often given to shows of emotion, simply when I collected the Cobalt from him for listening, he was positively beaming at the exemplary results it had achieved in lab testing. Withal, even the impressive graphs didn't set up me for just how good this tiny DAC sounded, whether connected to my iPhone using the Apple tree Camera Adapter, hung off a budget Archos tablet via the DragonTail, used with one of my computers or – especially – fed from a Melco music library [HFN Jun '19].

All of that bears out AudioQuest's 'plug 'north play' claims, particularly as we've had problems with previous DragonFly units on the stop of diverse Melco players: this i just works, seemingly whatever y'all connect information technology to. And works superbly, with a power, dynamic ability and definition sufficient to make many a conventionally-sized DAC seem rather silly. Yes, if you play compressed files from a phone into a top-quality system, the Cobalt can't work miracles – after all, the limitation is in the source cloth – but at CD quality and across, this is a quite remarkable piece of digital hardware, whether used to drive decent 'phones or as a line-level source.

Full Conviction
Playing Led Zeppelin'south Mothership compilation [Swan Song/Atlantic; 8122-79961-5], the Cobalt'south fast, impactful drive is superb, simply even more attending-grabbing is the combination of bass weight and openness this trivial stick delivers. I've heard this gear up played through many a piece of much more expensive digital hardware without this conviction, and even so the Cobalt achieves all this without emphasising the sometimes hard edge of these recordings: it's raw and exciting, but never fatiguing.

Similarly with Chichi'due south Risqué fix [Atlantic 80406-ii], which arguably saw the band at its peak, the Cobalt DAC manages to lay open up all the skill of the layering of the tracks, which are deceptively complex and well-crafted. All this while also snapping out the grumbling – and highly influential – Bernard Edwards bassline of 'Good Times', highlighting the coaction betwixt the keyboards, strings and the guitar of Nile Rodgers. Magnificent, all eight minutes of it!

What's more than, the Cobalt demonstrates its deft touch even with the well-nigh demanding classical works, with a big, assuming and atmospheric rendition of the classic 1960 Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra/Dorati recording of Respighi's Pines Of Rome [Mercury Living Presence; 432 007-2]. The sound is fast, brilliant and well-baked when required, and at turns deeply sonorous, but above all the Cobalt delivers total musical involvement.

This is a real no-brainer buy.

Hi-Fi News Verdict
The latest inflow in the DragonFly range is a huge step up from the already impressive Blackness and Cherry models, being capable of levels of performance that are nothing brusque of stellar. Fast, weighty, dramatic and super-clean, the sound is superb with portable devices, and more than than impressive enough for 'master system' employ, likewise – at which point it will be embarrassing many a larger, and pricier, rival.

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