First all, my main source of music is Youtube videos because lately I think that video and music have evolved into a multimedia performance and I really enjoy very much the video experience as a whole. The previous statement implies that I have little or no control into how the music stream is encoded, compressed or whether I can get bit-pure music, which I cannot and thus I am not interested in.
This review then is based solely on listening tests as to the fitness of this device for the above scenario.
As for the test, as soon as I plugged the Dragonfly, I compared the sound to the headphone output on my PC, things looked more crisp and detailed, but I did not notice much difference. I tried the DragonFly with three cans: Sennheiser 280 PRO, Sony MDR-7506 and AKG-K501. Upon listening got more detail and the 280PRO as well as the MDR-7506 seemed to work well, but the K-501 mid-range became just too revealing of artifacts, still musical but just weird artifacts.
Next I plugged behind the DragonFly a tiny Bravo Audio V1 tube amplifier. Things got much better in that I got a sweeter sound and the bass became more rolled, but still punchy when needed. So, mostly the tube stage improved things.
I then left the combo PC+DragonFly+Bravo V1+K-501 running unattended for about a week continuously. During the long run I would occasionally pick up the cans, to check the sound. A couple of times I would find a very messy bass sound, full of crackling and distortion. I tried fixing it via volume tweaking, but the only fix I could find was to unplug the DragonFly, plug it back in and keep going. This way I would get back a cleaner sound. I am in no position to understand whether the root cause was the Dragonfly, but the smell seems to point to it.
After a couple of weeks I decided to switch my configuration from the PC to a Macbook Retina I have. I first tried Macbook+DragonFly+Bravo V1+K-501 and things worked well, no surprises, but at this point I was becoming a bit allergic to constant ear fatigue I was having with the setup. So, I decided to swap things in and out.
In the end, I simply removed the DragonFly from the setup, such that I would have Macbook+Bravo V1+K-501. The resulting setup, greatly removed most of the bad effects I was hearing, like unclean bass, crackling and sibilance. This simpler setup yielded a much more musical sound to my ears and something where my listening sessions would last at least twice as long before incurring in ear fatigue.
So, my conclusions were: 1) The Macbook seems to have a much better on-board DAC than my PC. 2) The Macbook DAC is more musical than the DragonFly, so no need for it.
I decided to return the device as I cannot stand a session longer than 5 minutes with it at this point.
This review then is based solely on listening tests as to the fitness of this device for the above scenario.
As for the test, as soon as I plugged the Dragonfly, I compared the sound to the headphone output on my PC, things looked more crisp and detailed, but I did not notice much difference. I tried the DragonFly with three cans: Sennheiser 280 PRO, Sony MDR-7506 and AKG-K501. Upon listening got more detail and the 280PRO as well as the MDR-7506 seemed to work well, but the K-501 mid-range became just too revealing of artifacts, still musical but just weird artifacts.
Next I plugged behind the DragonFly a tiny Bravo Audio V1 tube amplifier. Things got much better in that I got a sweeter sound and the bass became more rolled, but still punchy when needed. So, mostly the tube stage improved things.
I then left the combo PC+DragonFly+Bravo V1+K-501 running unattended for about a week continuously. During the long run I would occasionally pick up the cans, to check the sound. A couple of times I would find a very messy bass sound, full of crackling and distortion. I tried fixing it via volume tweaking, but the only fix I could find was to unplug the DragonFly, plug it back in and keep going. This way I would get back a cleaner sound. I am in no position to understand whether the root cause was the Dragonfly, but the smell seems to point to it.
After a couple of weeks I decided to switch my configuration from the PC to a Macbook Retina I have. I first tried Macbook+DragonFly+Bravo V1+K-501 and things worked well, no surprises, but at this point I was becoming a bit allergic to constant ear fatigue I was having with the setup. So, I decided to swap things in and out.
In the end, I simply removed the DragonFly from the setup, such that I would have Macbook+Bravo V1+K-501. The resulting setup, greatly removed most of the bad effects I was hearing, like unclean bass, crackling and sibilance. This simpler setup yielded a much more musical sound to my ears and something where my listening sessions would last at least twice as long before incurring in ear fatigue.
So, my conclusions were: 1) The Macbook seems to have a much better on-board DAC than my PC. 2) The Macbook DAC is more musical than the DragonFly, so no need for it.
I decided to return the device as I cannot stand a session longer than 5 minutes with it at this point.
. So, what has been your experience with the HRT Microstreamer?