As I noted in the chat box a week or so ago I picked one of these up for cheap, Best Buy appears to be getting rid of these through epay. So far I've only tested this through headphones and at the same time I've been fighting to get JRiver installed and working properly at home. So I'd consider this a limited review with more testing to follow.
Build Quality: It's slightly larger than a memory stick and has some weight to it as you'd expect from everything they've crammed into this thing. It has a coated plastic resin material covering the body. It has a slight bump out on the top where the 3.5mm jack is located on the end. It comes with a nicely fitted cap on the usb end and a fake leather pouch to store it in.
Initial Setup: I had to spend some time getting it to sound correct when I initially connected this to my macbook. Although I followed the instruction sheet that came with it, there was a good amount of noise/static during playback. After adjusting the Midi setting and restarting my computer it sounded correct. I did not have this issue connecting it to my Windows 7 laptop. On both machines I was able to get it to recognize other Hz ranges as the logo lights up different colors to note the Hz range you are using.
Testing via Macbook: I used two programs for testing purposes with a pair of Shure 535 inner ear headphones. I started with my media server which can only stream 320Kbps. Initial impressions are that it sounded better than using the internal mac hardware but it wasn't a huge noticeable difference. I then used JRiver which has no streaming limitations. In fairness I had the audio setup specifically for headphones and a few audiophile settings in the setup. Man, it sounded killer. The Shure's are no slouch, even for inner ear, and it brought them to a whole new level. I'll stop here because it's probably more of an indication of how well JRiver preforms than the Dragonfly. I'll have to review JRiver at another time.
Testing via Windows 7: Testing was done only with my media server this time as JRiver is an internal setup and i was testing this at work. Testing was done in conjunction with a pair of Ultrasone HFI-2400 headphones. It's competition is my HiFiMAN EF2A tube headphone DAC with Mullard tubes. Sound was set at 24bit 44100Hz for the Dragonfly but the HifiMan only recognizes 16bit. I used a Pinback album, "Autumn of the Seraphs" which is a standby I like to use for calibration.
The Dragonfly is very clear and precise. Clarity was through the roof. I heard items in the background that are more pronounced then the tube dac. It could benefit from a few EQ tweaks but very impressive for the size and the cost. Where it does fall to the tube dac is were you would expect. Warmth. Again, with a few tweaks I think this can be corrected. I went back and forth between the Dragonfly and HifiMAN song for song and my final conclusion was that I still prefer the tube dac for headphones. Yes its not as precise and you do miss some of the hidden clarity/background jems that are a definite surprise, but it's hard to get over the warmth and overall feeling of the HifiMAN. But for cost it would be tough to find something in the same class as the Dragonfly, new or used. A memory stick sized DAC able to ouput 96000 Hz? Great idea and a great product.
My next round of tests will involve my home stereo where I will test using my Mac Mini with JRiver and my old as hell PS Audio Superlink DAC vs. the Dragonfly. More to come.
