AFUL SnowyNight

AFUL SnowyNight Review​

Introduction: -

AFUL is highly reputed for its unique design for IEMs especially. They started their journey with IEMs in 2018 with a dedicated acoustic team that focused on developing cutting-edge acoustic technology. In 2023, AFUL has brought us MagicOne. They have designed a customized balanced armature driver for the MagicOne. Now, they came up with their first-ever DAC/Amp, Snowynight. AFUL Snowynight is a very well-built dongle with a full metal body with volume buttons on the side to control the volume with ease on the go and an attractive design painted with snowflakes. Due to its dual Cirrus Logic tonality, we feel it will synergize well with warm tonality IEMs and headphones. We would also like to inform you that Snowynight is very energy efficient all thanks to the Cirrus Logic chip. Alongside it's also highly compatible and has low heat dissipation due to its great design.



Specifications: -

• DAC Used: Dual Cirrus Logic CS43198
• Output Power: 4Vrms (BAL High), 2Vrms (BAL Low)
• 2Vrms (UNBAL High), 1Vrms (UNBAL Low)
• THD+N: ≤0.00037%
• Dynamic-Range: BAL - 130dB, UNBAL - 125dB
• Background Noise: 1.5uV (BAL), 1uV (UNBAL)
• Headphone Out: 3.5mm SE / 4.4mm Bal
• Input port: USB Type-C
• Output Power: 140mW-300mW.

Disclaimer: -

The review tour for AFUL Snowynight was arranged by AFUL and @gadgetgod in India. We are thankful to them for the opportunity. However, the review reflects our honest opinion.

Packaging & Accessories: -

The AFUL Snowynight comes in a small-sized box with the DAC/Amp and all the accessories. The unboxing experience is simple yet premium. Removing the box lead, we have the manuals and quick guides. After that, we found the DAC/Amp in a foam assembly. The Snowynight comes with a USB Type-C to Lightning male cable connection (In our case) and it is also available in USB Type-C male-to-male cable. All come under the price tag of US $109.99.



Build & Design: -

AFUL Snowynight features a medium-sized and compact build. The DAC features a full metal enclosure for the reason the DAC/Amp is comparatively heavier than many other portable USB Dongle-DAC. The housing is made up of high-quality aluminium material with top-notch machining quality. The cable supplied is also very sturdy and premium. On the side of the device, it has independent volume adjustment buttons. The volume buttons are also used to control gain and filter settings.



Sound Analysis: -

AFUL Snowynight the name itself depicts the sound quality it is trying to offer in our testing. It is one of the cleanest and most natural-sounding dongles we have auditioned or have in our Aural Café’s bank. One of the best things about Snowynight is its neutrality with very good imaging and crispy notes. The soundstage is decent with more depth when we compare it to the other dongles. We believe that the team has achieved it because of its decoding architecture supported by two powerful Cirrus Logic CS43198 DAC chips. The sound presentation is unique with a neutral with a very slightly warm tonality and a pitch-black background. One more interesting thing about the item is that it doesn’t try to overly colour the sound. The AFUL Snowynight’s non-linear volume control really helps especially with in-ear monitors and the onboard 4.4mm balanced output with 4 Vrms of output power can drive the most demanding IEMs and also drive the less demanding full-size headphones. This review will not do justice if we don’t write about the high-quality OTG cable the Snowynight is bundled with. The OTG cable is made up of high-purity 6N Single-Crystal Copper Cable which are properly shielded leading to a more efficient power supply to support its dual decoding architecture resulting in a clean background.

However, we would not mind if there were more amount of microdetails present. Another footnote we want to add here is the lack of App-Support where many of its competitors already walked the path and were quite successful.




Conclusion: -

We at Aural Café can happily assure you that if you are in the market for a well-built portable DAC/Amp at a competitive price then you can go with AFUL Snowynight because of its unique and clean sound production, robust build quality and efficient design. Also, we are surprised with AFUL where it’s their first endeavor in this vast dongle universe.

Non-Affiliated Links: -
- https://www.amazon.com/HiFiGo-SnowyNight-Amplifiers-Impressively-Distortion/dp/B0CSSGCV6T?th=1
- https://hifigo.com/products/aful-snowynight

AFUL as an Audio Company​

AFUL is a relatively new Audio Brand that placed itself as the new block in the kid by releasing exceptional releases like Performer 5/8 and the mysterious MagicOne which is truly a work of Magic. Basically, they pioneered the engineering aspect of acoustics very promisingly. Certainly, I always look forward to this company and what it offers next.

As they dipped their toe for the first time in the DAC-AMP market, they must go right otherwise there is a lot of competition in this section that would demolish the product’s existence. And I am happy to say that they did a good job.

Sound Characteristics​

General Tonality​

The tonality of this product overall is not neutral to me. I always feel neutral is the tonality that resembles how I hear the world around me. For me, it sounds slightly warm and at the same time dark too. Not that I dislike this tonality in any way or form. I adore matching this with a few of my IEMs and headphones.

Low-End​

This source is not shy of showing off its low end. It is warm and thick. The note weights are full of heft and have distinct time before falling off. It sounds like it have no rush to do something, everything comes off very naturally and in an organic way. It doesn’t make the bass artificially elevated, just everything gets a hint of warmth. Likewise, the vocals sound richer and more forward.

• Runaway – Half Alive
• Opr – Geafallestine

Mids​

Mids are rich. Not just rich, it’s full of heft and low-end elevation gave it a tremendous advantage to show it off. It is loaded with textures that come out very organically. There is not even a hint of nasal ness that you can get from low-distortion amplifiers. Mids are the best thing about this source. Mids don’t mean only vocals but they dictate the whole spectrum. Soundstage to Timber everything depends on the mids of the spectrum. And Aful did a fantastic job of reproducing that. The timbre of every instrument came out very natural and organic.

• Personal – Emotional Oranges
• Nobody Knows – Autograff

Treble​

The treble of this product is recessed in a very tasteful way. The lower treble is very inoffensive basically, such that in a few IEMs I don’t feel the need to EQ, which is a very good way to showcase source since it is very easy to mess up this range due to factors that are very sensitive to handle. Therefore, it is also an indicator that AFUL used high-quality internals to make this product. The treble is not airy to my ears and won’t satisfy trebleheads. Nor it will pierce your ears if you play something very sharp.

• Caravan – Whiplash
• Mountains – Interstellar

Technicalities​

Soundstaging​

The soundstage of this IEM is not very open. It will give you more of an intimate feeling than a spacious one. It is very good for a few genres like POP and HipHop but it is not optimal for something like Orchestra or Jazz since they feel more in your face. But it is not too intimate where you feel claustrophobic, you just won’t be experiencing Albums like Interstellar – in it’s full potential. Although for small-sound staging headphones and IEMs, it doesn’t feel too claustrophobic.

• Bubbles – Yoshi Horikawa
• Opera House – Ciggerate After Sex

Localization/Imaging​

Although the soundstage is not that bit, the way it uses the soundstage is pretty good. There is not a lot of space to play with its imaging but it can position instruments in the mix effortlessly. The channel separation seemed pretty good too, fast and snappy.

• Thriller – Michael Jackson
• Hideaway – Jacob Collier

Resolution​

Details and resolution are not good on this device for my ears. Not that it will feel underdetailed but definitely can’t resolve enough at its price point. Not only it does not hold the trailing edges of the notes but resolution-wise it sounds busy here and there. I would not prefer it for genres like Orchestra/Western Classical. Often people dictate crispiness as resolution or detail, I am referring to detail/resolution as “How many instruments I can focus on in a mix / how transparent the overall music is”.

• Contact – Draft Punk
• Western Classicals

We studied a lot of different portable and desktop audio setups, and we realised we needed to work on the source signal transmission to enhance the acoustic performance of SnowyNight. We noticed USB transmission is not the cleanest, and digital inputs such as Coaxial, Optical provided cleaner and better transmission in most cases. But in the case of portable USB DAC/AMPs, we get limited to only USB transmissions. So, to enhance the acoustic performance in such a scenario, we bundled the SnowyNight with an enhanced cable that brings noticeable improvements by stable signal transmission, USB Lossless transmission, and also protects the sound signal from external interferences. The cable has high-purity 6N monocrystalline copper wire cores. It effectively improves the overall performance of the SnowyNight and makes it comparable to Coaxial and Optical input options in other devices.
AFUL

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The Wire​

Sadly I was sent the product with a Lightning Port to USB C Connection so, I haven’t tested the wire included with this DAC. Although it looks and feels very premium.

So this review is done completely with Moondrop Dawn Pro cable.


Now before jumping further let’s see the specifications of this dongle.

Specifications​

DAC Chips: 2xCS43198.

Although off-the-shelf DAC chips are very good these days, their implementation matters a lot. This could differentiate a lot regarding price. What I liked most about this chip is the Clocking System, they use 22.5792 or 24.576 MHz clocks. Which means the PLL Ratio is lower. Now let me talk about the advantages of higher frequency clocks.

The advantages of lower multiplication are​

• Lower Jitter
• Lower Phase Noise
• Simplified Implementation
• Power Efficiency

But it can also cause problems such as​

• Not Generating a Wide Range of Frequency
• Depends on External Clocks

Birtate: 32-Bit/786kHz PCM, DSD256, DoP256.

Let’s not discuss them, because most of the Audio Files we have don’t have the quality to bottleneck them.

Output Ports: 3.5mm+4.4mm.

This is an excellent decision not to go with 2.5mm since they are thin and break easily.


Output Frequency Range: 20Hz-20kHz.

SNR: 125dB(3.5mm), 130dB(4.4mm)

Noise Floor: 1uV(3.5mm), 1.5uV(4.4mm).

DNR: 125dB(3.5mm), 130dB(4.4mm).

Operating Voltage Range: 4.2V~5.3V.

Output Level: 1Vrms(3.5mm, Low-Gain), 2Vrms(3.5mm, High-Gain), 2Vrms(4.4mm, Low-Gain), 4Vrms(4.4mm, High-Gain).

This is excellent too at this price. The 4Vrms helps greatly to drive high impedance dynamic drivers (Since they require more Voltage Swing than Current).

THD+N: ≤0.00037%.

Now this is where AFUL impressed me the most. Don’t get me wrong, our transducers have much higher distortion than this, so we won’t be able to get anywhere near the THD.

The reason why it impressed me is, occasionally companies use cheap techniques to boost the THD just to look good on paper(Overcorrection Using Feedback Loop). On the other hand by doing that they destroy the tonality of the source. This Dongle sounds nowhere near that. It doesn’t sound sterile, it doesn’t have digital essence, and it doesn’t lose note weight.

Output Power: 140mW-300mW.

It is very average nowadays to have this kind of power at the price range. It handled every IEM in my arsenal very efficiently. From Thie Audio Monarch MKII to Tripowin Olina, From IE600 to Softears RSV. Nothing felt underpowered.

Now comes the most important part of any DAC review, pairing​

Neutral Tuning​

This DAC is extremely tasteful for Neutrally Tuned transducers. It gave those transducers a subtle flavour, that increased the musicality.

Moondrop Blessing 2 became more fun, the treble took a backseat but the bass and vocals sounded very good.

Sotears RSV became very neutral. Surprisingly it didn’t get darker that much and the timber came out very good.

V-Shape Tuning​

This DAC is best with V-shaped transducers. It elevated the low end very organically alongside it controlled the treble. This source fits V Shape Tuning Very Much

IE 600 – This not only gave the mid-bass a meaty quantity. The mids became more organic, that’s why the timber became more correct. The spiciness was reduced although it decreased the soundstage.

EA500LM – This greatly helped reduce the unrefined treble of the IEM. Alongside it also increased the midrange recession.

Compatibility with other tuning​

• “Dark Tuned” – I won’t recommend this DAC for dark transducers, since it will make it darker. And the treble became veiled.
• “Brightly Tuned” – This dongle will help a lot to reduce the sharpness.
• “Mid-Focused” – This will be a great match for the transducers since it will give it a very natural and realistic timber.

Driving HD600​

From 2023, the Sennheiser HD600 became my reference headphone to test every audio source. Not only it is very neutral, but it is also extremely transparent towards every single device in the audio chain. So it is very easy to judge DACs and AMPs with this headphone.

And I am happy to say that this Dongle alone, can drive HD600. Driving a headphone doesn’t mean loudness, it means how well they can retain the frequency range from 20hz – 20Khz while maintaining crest factor.

Being said that HD600 is a very hard-to-drive headphone. (I will explain about powering dynamic drivers and operation of amplifiers in future ). On a short note, it needs a very good Voltage Swing to operate fully. And AFUL SnowyNight did a very good job of bringing out the bass, the vocals didn’t feel thin. The treble became softer (Sometimes HD600’s treble might get hot). I had no problem driving them on the go.

Battery Draining​

A new 4500mah battery phone with a modern 4-5nm Chipset can last easily 7 (with normal usage) hours for 3.5mm with IEMs like IE600, and EA500LM.

Pros​

• Output Voltage
• Energy Consumption
• Volume Button (Steps & Construction)
• Midrange Tonality and note weight
• Well-controlled treble

Cons​

• LED Light (Too bright)
• No Phone Application
• Bass Elevation is too much
• The soundstage is on the narrower side
• Micro Details and Resolution

The final and most important question​

Should you buy this?​

Do you want an organic and natural sound that primarily is musical and pleases your auditory senses?

Yes, you can buy this dongle.

Do you want a very high resolution and sterile sound that will sound digital and that comes with a big soundstage?

No, there are other options at this price-point.

AFUL SnowyNight is a great substitute to Moondrop Dawn Pro, combine they can tackle every kind of IEMs.
Duggu

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Conclusion​

I do think that at the pricepoint it stands it’s ground. Nothing groundbreaking as we expect from AFUL every time. Although as their first step towards source products. They did an outstanding job.

Opinions. All of us in this hobby have them. Some are more popular, some are not.

My unpopular opinion is this one: USB DACs (a.k.a., “dongles”) are the least fun gadgets in the audio hobby. They are unwieldy when using on the go. They consume a lot of battery from the source device. They can get quite hot. They tend to be too loud for IEMs. And most of the time, their sound quality is closer to the humble Apple’s USB-C to 3.5mm adapter (“Apple dongle”) than a proper digital audio player. As a result, they are quite difficult to review. Thus dongles have all but disappeared from my reviews.

Yet, here I am, sharing with you a review of a dongle. What happened? AFUL happened. In fact, my first reaction was to reject when receiving a gracious invitation to check out the first electronic device in AFUL’s line up. But then, I asked myself: “didn’t you have the same doubt about Magic One? How did it turn out?”

That’s how my time with AFUL Snowy Night began. Was that a good time? Read on, my friends, to find out.

Preambles​

• In this review, I use the term “source” to denote a DAC+amp combo for brevity and convenience. It’s not a technically correct term.
• When I say a source “sounds” a certain way, I talk about the change it makes to my IEMs and earphones.
• What I look for in my listening experience is immersion. I want to feel the orchestra around me, track individual instruments, and hear all of their textures and details. Sources that intensify those characteristics of my IEMs are considered “better”.
• The unit used for this review was a sample provided by Hifigo (Thank you!). The unit is retailed for $109 and can be found on Hifigo official store: unaffliated link

Specs​

• Decoding chip: 2x CS43198
• Highest sampling rate: 32-Bit/786kHz PCM, DSD256, DoP256.
• Terminals: 3.5mm+4.4mm
• Output Frequency Range: 20Hz-20kHz.
• SNR: 125dB(3.5mm), 130dB(4.4mm)
• Noise Floor: 1uV(3.5mm), 1.5uV(4.4mm).
• DNR: 125dB(3.5mm), 130dB(4.4mm).
• Operating Voltage Range: 4.2V~5.3V.
• Output Level: 1Vrms(3.5mm, Low-Gain), 2Vrms(3.5mm, High-Gain), 2Vrms(4.4mm, Low-Gain), 4Vrms(4.4mm, High-Gain).
• THD+N: ≤0.00037%.
• Output Power: 140mW-300mW.

Non-sound Aspects​

AFUL Snowy Night came in a sturdy cardboard box, wrapped extremely tightly by an outer paper sleeve. The sleeve was so tight that I needed to find a piece of thick and dense rubber to hammer the box out. This was one of the reasons why you wouldn’t find an unboxing video of Snowy Night from me.



Inside the box, you would only find the dongle itself, some paperwork, and a USB-C to USB-C cable. And boy oh boy, what a cable that AFUL provided.



The USB connectors are made of metal and have a beautiful chrome finish. The wire is thick and sturdy with excellent paracord sleeve. Despite the thickness, the cable is very supple, lays flat and does not hold memory. According to AFUL, the cable also has positive contribution to the data transmission, “like changing from a standard USB to Coaxial in desktop chain.” I think that I can hear a difference when swapping between my trusty ddHifi cable and the fancy cable from AFUL, but it’s baffling to me digital cable can make a difference. Therefore, I would have no conclusion on this topic, except that AFUL’s USB cable is an extremely pleasant to handle and I would buy more if AFUL sell these separately.





Moving on the dongle itself. First and foremost, I need to emphasise that it is a chunk metal, not plastic. Because of the elaborated design elements on the shells, I always assumed that this dongle is an injection moulded plastic gadget. No, it’s metal. Thick and heavy metal that feels studier than a few dual-ESS-chip dongles I have in my collection. The Snowy Night feels as sturdy and heavy as the Questyle M15. From memory, L&P W4 is still the king of dongle build quality. However, Snowy Night has a cool snowflake-shaped indicator light, which is interesting.





Regarding inputs and outputs, Snowy Night does not surprise. At the top of the device, you can find one USB-C input for both data and power. At the bottom the device, you can find a 4.4mm and a 3.5mm sockets. for balanced and single ended output. As far as I know, there is no line-out support.



On the side of the device, you can find my favourite feature of Snowy Night: independent volume adjustment buttons. It means you can (should/must) max out the digital volume on your phone or music player, and then use the volume adjustment on the dongle itself to change volume. From a practical perspective, this arrangement gives you more fine-grained control over volume. In the case of Snowy Night, the volume also goes much lower to support sensitive IEMs like Campfire Audio Andromeda 2020. Because Snowy Night does not have a screen like FiiO KA17 to show the current volume, I tend to hold the volume down button until the indicator light blinks, showing that the volume has reached zero, before starting the music.

The volume buttons are also used to control gain and low pass filter settings. Pressing both buttons once will switch between low and high gain, with high gain being the default mode. Holding both buttons for a second would switch between five types of low pass filters. Unfortunately, Snowy Night does not have built-in memory to remember the settings when you unplug the dongle, so I don’t find these settings practical. Fortunately, I don’t find the need to use them either.



Regarding battery drain, I’m happy to find that Snowy Night is quite gentle comparing to some scary ones like one of my old favourites, the Hidizs S9 Pro. In fact, I was able to pair Snowy Night with Hiby R3II to drive the tough-as-nail Symphonium Crimson without losing the multi-day battery life of the R3II. In comparison, when I pair R3II with FiiO KA17 in desktop mode (firing all cylinders), I can see the battery % of R3II dropping in real time. Whilst these results are highly subjective and unscientific, for me, I don’t have battery anxiety when using Snowy Night, especially if I pair it with easy to drive IEMs like Hiby Yvain. I didn’t find any heat problem during my time testing the Snowy Night.

Subjective Impressions​

Disclaimers: To me, the “sound” of DAC/amp is very difficult to recognize because these devices form the “frame of reference” of our entire listening experience. It’s relatively easy to compare two things (e.g., two IEMs) within the same frame of reference, but how do we know whether our frame of reference is “crooked” (e.g., bright, flat, edgy). When we hear sibilance or 2D soundstage, do we usually blame the IEM or the DAC/amp? Therefore, all the descriptions in this section were synthesised from the differences that I hear when swapping between multiple DAC/amp using many different IEM types and musical genres. You must excuse me for being less specific than my usual IEM reviews due to sheer amount of subjective data gathered.



I would describe the sound signature of Snowy Night as the DAC/amp equivalent of its IEM sibling: the AFUL Magic One. It features a neutral tonality with just a hint of warmth. It favours precision over the amount of bass. It has a precise separation and strong detail retrieval without “forcing” or being edgy. And, just like the Magic One, it has excellent instrument positioning and is fully capable of conveying a 3D sonic image, should the recording provides and the IEM is capable.



Let’s unpack the description above. What do I mean by “neutral with a hint of warmth”? In direct comparison against most dual ESS DAC I have in my collection, I found that Snowy Night is not edgy in the higher frequencies. For example, when I use the same IEM with a sibilant prone track, such as Pentatonix - Can’t help falling in love, at subjectively the same loudness, I found that both ESS dongles that I have for this test produce noticeable sibilance whilst the Snowy Night presents a smoother higher frequency, without dimming the treble. In this sense, I suspect that subtle “warmth” that I hear with Snowy Night stems from its lack of edginess rather than a lower frequency boost or some healthy addition or second order harmonic distortion.



What do I mean by “ favours precision over the amount of bass”? It means Snowy Night does not intensify the lower midrange (adding warmth) or adding midbass punch like my DX300 with stock Amp 11 Mk1 or my old Shanling M6 Ultra. In fact, when I listen to bass cannon IEMs from FatFreq (Scarlet Mini and Maestro Mini), the amount of bass I hear from Snowy Night is noticeably less than from my DX300. As a result, the bass of these IEMs feels tighter, the stage feels more open, and the overall presentation feels less “oppressive”. Interestingly, I found that Snowy Night controls the big bass shelfs of these IEMs better than my trusty R3II digital audio player, evidenced by the clean attack and textured decay of the bass notes. At least as clean as it can get for these ultra bassy IEMs.

How about “precise separation and strong detail retrieval”? As I mentioned, Snowy Night is not glary and edgy like some dongle DAC with dual ESS chips. However, I found that when I listen to the same detail-rich classical recordings using the same IEM, I can hear more nuances and ambience details with the Snowy Night. Perhaps it is the lack of that glary edgy higher frequencies that make it easier to appreciate the details.



Finally, let’s talk about the stereo imaging, my favourite thing in personal audio and the shiniest part of Snowy Night performance. In fact, the first thing I noticed when listening to Snowy Night was how good it conveys the sense of depth and layering that is embedded in a mix. It means that besides the left-to-right placement of sonic elements in a mix, which almost every decent IEM and DAC/amp can do, Snowy Night is also able to coax the front-to-back and low-to-high placement out of my IEMs, just like how my favourite sources such as R3II, DX300, and my desktop K7 can do. The end result is a more 3D illusion that makes everything, from music to a travel documentation on YouTube more engaging.



Let’s take a closer look at AFUL Snowy Night performance with some tricky types of loads:

• Campfire Audio Andromeda 2020 (8.74 ohm, 122.47dB/mW) represents an extremely sensitive and notoriously picky IEM. Coming from the DX300, I hear a brighter and more open midrange when pairing Andromeda with the Snowy Night. At the same time, I don’t hear any anomaly across the frequency response of the Andromeda. The bass is controlled and decent overall, indicating that the Snowy Night does not face any challenge when the impedance of the Andromeda dips to around 4ohm in the bass. The famous stereo imaging capability of Andromeda is well preserved. Thanks to the independent volume control, I have enough volume adjustment range. Finally, as the spec sheet indicate, the Snowy Night is dead quiet with the Andromeda.
• Symphonium Meteor (9.7 ohm@1kHz, 90.9dB/mW@1kHz) represents a hard-to-drive IEM. Even if a source can get these IEMs loud (by providing enough voltage), the overall presentation could be soft, blunted, and congested if the source has problem keeping up with the current demand. I’m happy to find that Snowy Night does not have any problem with Meteor. It keeps the bass well controlled, ensuring that the bass transients are properly produced, and bass textures presented. It also preserves the upper treble extension of the Meteor well to ensure accurate instrument placement and micro details. Interestingly, I found the differences between Snowy Night and other dongles in my current collection, particularly in depth and layering, show the most clearly with the Meteor. A great pairing that breaths a new life to an old IEM.
• TGXear Serratus earbuds (300ohm, unknown sensitivity) represents another class of hard-to-drive gear, the high impedance ones. Similar “scaling” can be observed with these earbuds. Another great pairing. My pair of Serratus has a troublesome peak somewhere around 6-8kHz, which prevents me from enjoying these excellent earbuds. Snowy Night does a great job taming this peak just enough to keep it from being annoying. Even when I listen to the harshest track in my library, Ed Sheeran - Shivers, I find the shrill and harshness to be tolerable (though still not exactly enjoyable). There is no surprise in terms of staging, imaging, resolution, and bass impact. The Serratus sounds just like what I expect, coming from my desktop DAC/amp K7.

Comparisons and Rating​

Thanks to good folks at Addicted to Audio store in Adelaide, I was able to borrow the KA17 and Questyle M15 for a couple hours for careful AB tests. The results were rather surprising. Let’s unpack:

• KA17: This dongle has two modes of operation. The normal mode engages 2 out of 4 THX amps whilst the desktop mode activates all four and consumes a lot of power. In the normal mode, KA17 presents a noticeably flatter, more “2D” presentation not unlike how I remember the KA3. The glary, edgy upper frequency presentation is also here. Switching to the desktop mode brings about a 3D presentation similarly to Snowy Night, though the glary presentation is still there. Credit where credit dues, I find the overall presentation more “refined” than the KA3 and BTR5 though, from memory, BTR7 is more enjoyable. The user experience is also quite excellent comparing to Snowy Night, thanks to extra buttons and a screen.
• M15: I have been waiting for so long to try this dongle. Appearance wise, I was not disappointed: it is even more beautiful in real life than in photos. Sonic wise, it didn’t disappoint either. Whilst the width is slightly narrower than Snowy Night when paired with Symphonium Crimson, M15 catches up in depth, layering, details, dynamic, and the smoothness of upper frequencies. My only concern is that M15 is very loud. Even on low gain, it needed only 8/100 digital volume level on my R3II to make the Crimson loud from 4.4mm connector. It makes me doubt whether a sensitive IEM like Andromeda or even a normal IEM like U12T can be driven conveniently with M15.

Conclusion​

Yes, yes. I have to admit: this article about Snowy Night was more gushing than criticizing. Trust me, I tried. Similarly to its sibling, the AFUL Magic One, I came into the review with cynicism and walked away in awe. This dongle handles everything I throw at it, from ultra-sensitive IEM to power hogs without breaking a sweat, whilst ensuring that the sweet sweet soundstage depth and layering are always there. The details that I want are there whilst the edginess that I don’t want is absent. And Snowy Night does all of this without burning through the battery of my phone or heating up in my pocket.

My conclusion: I bestow upon Snowy Night the highest honour that I can as an audio geek: giving it a new lighting-to-USB cable and a slot in my everyday carry audio box. Seal of approval and recommendation without reservation.

Absolute Sonic Quality Rating: 4.5/5 - Great

Bias Score: 5/5 - I love this.

What I like about this device:

• Truly neutral and natural tonal balance
• Great stereo imaging
• Detailed enough without being bright or edgy
• Independent volume control that can get quiet enough for sensitive IEMs
• Can handle high impedance and low sensitive gear
• Good energy efficiency
• Excellent USB cable provided

What could be improved:

• The device does not remember gain and filter settings, making adjusting these impractical.

Updated: March 24, 2024