[Mboom]

Looking at getting the dragonfly black 1.5 for my Nexus 6, along with some portapros and sennheiser hd600. Will the hd600 be powered sufficiently ? How's the compatibility with Google music ?

 

[slackerpo]

Looking at getting the dragonfly black 1.5 for my Nexus 6, along with some portapros and sennheiser hd600. Will the hd600 be powered sufficiently ? How's the compatibility with Google music ?

 
not until they release the firmware update. i use google play, and the DFR barely pulled my um 30 pro through, i had the 600 and 650 at hand and it was a no go. just hold on till the update goes live.
 
unless you wanna use it with UAPP.

 

[west0ne]

Looking at getting the dragonfly black 1.5 for my Nexus 6, along with some portapros and sennheiser hd600. Will the hd600 be powered sufficiently ? How's the compatibility with Google music ?

Don't know about the HD600 but the DFB will power the portapro OK even with volume issues on Android. I am using the portapro with DFB and S7E and that's with apps other than UAPP.

 

[west0ne]

@estreeter- have you set up your DFB as the default audio device in the alsa configuration file, I seem to recall having to change the (~/.asoundrc) file to make the USB DAC default. If you start alsamixer does it show the DFB as the default device. Have you tried using Jack audio to run the DFB.

 

[Wilderness]

   
Are you seriously comparing a $250 USB dongle to a $10,000 DAC??
 
This is the problem I'm having with this thread. Everyone's slagging on the DFR and comparing it to far more expensive product (peculiarly, always Chord products...) rather than anything in its relative price range. *** if I'm shopping for a DFR I'm probably not gonna be dropping four digits on a Hugo. 
 
I mean good lord y'all might as well pop into mid-fi headphone threads and tell them they should be buying HE1000's and Focal Utopias. 

I have the Dragonfly Red as my desktop DAC for my PSB speakers and an SVS sub.  I am very pleased with this DAC's sound quality and ease of use.
 
I am confident that the Mojo must be a great sounding DAC, better than the DR in most respects, but it seems to have some drawbacks that the Dragonfly does not have:
 
1) The Mojo is too big for a portable DAC for some people, including me.  No way would I carry around something so big for headphones or keep in my car for my car's audio system.  The Dragonfly, however, is just the right size for portable and car audio system use.
 
2) Some users have reported that the Mojo emits unwanted sound while charging and playing at the same time on a desktop system.  Apparently there are chargers available that negate this problem, but still.... The Dragonfly, however, never needs charging and so this is a nonissue with the DR.
 
3) Volume with some (not all) computer applications is degraded when using the app's volume control instead of the Mojo's.  That eliminates any chance I would get the Mojo.  Again, not a problem with the Dragonfly with desktop systems.
 
See the Mojo FAQ on this site for information about problems and some solutions.
 
I am open to the possibility of getting a different DAC for my desktop system because I want the best sound I can afford. So, if there is a better DAC for computer use that costs less than $1,500 I am interested, but it would have to be a set it and forget it kind of DAC like the Dragonfly and it would need 3.5 mm output.  I don't want to have to fiddle with it or push any buttons to get it to turn on or charge or adjust the volume, etc.  The Red's ease of use has spoiled me and I will never want to give that up.  And the sound would have to be significantly better than what I am getting from the Red with my system.
 
For me, the $200 Dragonfly Red matches well with my speakers and sub, which cost $1,000 combined.  For folks with more expensive speakers, a more expensive DAC would make for a better match.

 

[foreverzer0]

Default safe answer: any multibit offering from schiit

 

[waynes world]

Edit : for those wondering what else you can get under 100USD, I can recommend the Topping NX2, but as a DAC it's little better than the chip in my laptop. You are very unlikely to get DFB-level sonics from anything else at this pricepoint - always happy to hear otherwise.

ZuperDAC.

 

[Xaborus]

Hello all!
 
I just received a Dragonfly Red and although it sounds fantastic, I'm having a really odd problem with it.
 
While playing music it will intermittently produce digital sounds. What i mean by this is obvious digital problems, I'm not talking about making the music sound bad, but producing totally obvious and loud digital distortion. It sounds almost like a 16-bit videogame version of paper ripping.
 
So far I haven't isolated it down if it is a problem with my Dragonfly, or if its a problem with the laptop I'm using my dragonfly with.
 
When it gets really bad (happening 2-3x a minute) restarting the computer will usually stop the problem, but I just kept the dragonfly running after restarting my computer and it worked flawlessly for an hour; then i left and came back 7 hours later and it started doing it again.
 
 
Does anybody have any technical expertise on IF this can be a problem with my computer's USB output, or is it my dragonfly?
 
Audio straight though the built-in laptop speakers don't have this problem, and i haven't experienced this problem with my ODAC.

 

[psikey]

All I can add is that I listen hours at work on my business desktop and also on my XPS13 laptop and not experienced anything other than great sound.

Do you get same issue played via another PC or connected to a smartphone?

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

 

[brent75]

  Hello all!
 
I just received a Dragonfly Red and although it sounds fantastic, I'm having a really odd problem with it.
 
While playing music it will intermittently produce digital sounds. What i mean by this is obvious digital problems, I'm not talking about making the music sound bad, but producing totally obvious and loud digital distortion. It sounds almost like a 16-bit videogame version of paper ripping.
 
So far I haven't isolated it down if it is a problem with my Dragonfly, or if its a problem with the laptop I'm using my dragonfly with.
 
When it gets really bad (happening 2-3x a minute) restarting the computer will usually stop the problem, but I just kept the dragonfly running after restarting my computer and it worked flawlessly for an hour; then i left and came back 7 hours later and it started doing it again.
 
 
Does anybody have any technical expertise on IF this can be a problem with my computer's USB output, or is it my dragonfly?
 
Audio straight though the built-in laptop speakers don't have this problem, and i haven't experienced this problem with my ODAC.

 
I get a similar sound if I have Roon open and I start watching videos on YouTube. It's like a crazy digital static grating noise. What fixes it is either changing the YouTube video to HQ, or quitting Roon. I have no idea what the "formula" is that causes that sound.

 

[estreeter]

@estreeter- have you set up your DFB as the default audio device in the alsa configuration file, I seem to recall having to change the (~/.asoundrc) file to make the USB DAC default. If you start alsamixer does it show the DFB as the default device. Have you tried using Jack audio to run the DFB.

 
I have the GUI 'Sound' applet to change my default device - took a bit of digging but once I got it sorted, everything was gold. asoundrc seems to send VLC and other apps into a bit of a tailspin - not sure what's going on there. RuneAudio on the Pi allows you to change the default device via the web interface, but you have to dig through the Linux forums to find a command line mechanism for changing the default audio 'sink' to your DAC.
 
$ aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 0: ALC283 Analog [ALC283 Analog]
  Subdevices: 0/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 3: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: v15 [AudioQuest DragonFly Black v1.5], device 0: USB Audio [USB Audio]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
 
MPD fans will recognise the DFB as 'hw:1,0' based on ALSA's card/device IDs and it seems to respond equally well to 'hw:1'. I havent tried JACK - Pulseaudio is painful enough for now. I found a utility ('ponymix') to make it easier to identify the sink I need to activate.
 
$ ponymix list | grep output | grep -v monitor
sink 0: alsa_output.pci-0000_00_1b.0.analog-stereo
sink 1: alsa_output.usb-AudioQuest_AudioQuest_DragonFly_Black_v1.5_AQDFBL0100102730-01.analog-stereo
 
All of that leads me to the Pulseaudio command I need to ensure that audio is routed to the DFB:
 
$ pacmd set-default-sink 1
 
Looking at the above, it all seems so blindingly simple, but you can spend a very long time trawling rhrough all sorts of misinformation just to get to that point. I doubt that I'm the only one who finds the whole ALSA / Pulse / gstreamer melange intimidating, particularly when all I want to do is listen to music. I'm not afraid of the *nix command line - far from it - but I loathe wading through doco looking for one simple command. Apologies to my fellow Head-Fiers for taking this thread slightly OT - hopefully this post might save someone else hours of digging through ALSA doco when the answer is nowhere to be found there.

 

[estreeter]

ZuperDAC.

 
Not having heard the ZuperDAC, I'll have to take your word for it. If I do buy another portable dac/amp, I definitely want one with a hardware volume control, but right now my focus is on other gear and the distractions posed by the dreaded real world 

 

[waynes world]

 
Not having heard the ZuperDAC, I'll have to take your word for it. If I do buy another portable dac/amp, I definitely want one with a hardware volume control, but right now my focus is on other gear and the distractions posed by the dreaded real world 

 
Don't ever let the real world get in the way lol! 
 
I haven't heard the DFB, so I have to take the word of people who have compared both (for example). But I'd be very surprised if the zuperdac doesn't compare quite favorably - I have only read positive reviews about it, and it sounds stellar to my ears with all of my gear. Anyway, it's great having so many reasonably priced yet awesome dacs to choose from these days

 

[SpiderNhan]

Is there anywhere I can purchase a Zuperdac? The only link I can find is to an Indiegogo page that no longer exists.

 

[waynes world]

  Is there anywhere I can purchase a Zuperdac? The only link I can find is to an Indiegogo page that no longer exists.

Spoiler: Warning: OT...

Normally here:
http://www.zorloo.com/#!-zorloo/c1aa
 
But they say this:

 NOTICES: We have temporary run out of ZuperDAC inventory and are arranging production now.  We hope to get ZuperDAC ready by md to end September.  In the mean time, we have some refurbish units available, please leave a message to us if you are interested.

 
One of mine is a refurbished unit and it works perfectly, so that's an option.