Samsung Galaxy S5, White 16GB (AT&T)

 
Volumes have all already be written about the pro's and con's of the Samsung Galaxy S5 smart phone so I'm going to skip right to my point. I've been mulling over the idea of purchasing a USB noise and power filter to go with my AudioQuest DragonFly for weeks. Instead I renewed my contract with my cell carrier and a new Samsung Galaxy S5 was part of the deal. I didn't waste anytime connecting the S5 to the DragonFly. I notice a significant improvement in SQ vs. the noisy USB port on my PC. I can't go back to PC ports, I will keep the DragonFly tethered to the S5 until I can afford a PC with no cooling fans and a dedicated USB noise/power filter. The downside to this setup is the interface, I can't control the settings of the DragonFly itself, it defaults to the factory setting when I connect them together. That setting is the native 24-bit/96kHz magenta color. Streaming music from Tidal the sampling frequency should be clocked at 44.1Khz green color. I tried an app to correct this but found that it was more trouble than it was worth and my ears don't seem to mind the default settings anyway. The other issue I have is that I can't crank the fly to max output potential, so I'm using my Zen Head amp to feed a boosted signal to my Valhalla 2 amp. I have four components in the signal path, five including the phones. Mixing and matching different components together like this often times degrades the SQ. In this case with this setup the SQ has not been lost, it sounds a little cleaner, a little more detailed, more separation in the sound stage. The only difference before and after this setup is the S5 instead of the USB port on my PC. It's no secret that battery powered audio often has an advantage over outlet powered gear, that advantage being low noise from the power supply.