[AudiophileKing]

The 'beauty' of capitalism is that it allows any number of scams to exploit others.

It would have been nice if they removed Red and Black and brought out the Cobalt @ 150 USD.

 

[AudiophileKing]

Shillers... Gotta learn to spot them and move on.

True, got to learn to detect them. People getting free products will no longer get them if they constantly criticize the products they receive during reviews.

 

[AudiophileKing]

OP made an important statement:

"Listen yourself, think it's worth *your* money and then decide if you sound buy them."

I completely agree.

omg, thanks. I corrected the sentence with proper English.

 

[Spareribs]

Is the Topping reliable ? I heard they break down and have firmware problems. Can you tell me more about your Topping Unit, it's build quality, software/firmware issues if you are having any.

I’ve had it for a couple weeks and so far so good. I just plug it into my iPhone or iPad mini and it works fine. I use an Apple USB adapter cable which was around $30.

In my opinion, the build quality is good. No complaints so far and hopefully it won’t have any problems

 

[FourT6and2]

I've been using the Cobalt for a bit with a few different headphones and honestly... I can't even hear one bit of difference between it and the regular headphone jack in my Macbook Pro. So is it overpriced to me? Yeah, because it doesn't seem to really do anything except provide a cool glow for me to stare at while I listen to some jams.

 

[AudiophileKing]

I've been using the Cobalt for a bit with a few different headphones and honestly... I can't even hear one bit of difference between it and the regular headphone jack in my Macbook Pro. So is it overpriced to me? Yeah, because it doesn't seem to really do anything except provide a cool glow for me to stare at while I listen to some jams.

Yes, you are right. Macbook Pro sounds good. To be honest, it's not worth it if you have to listen to the dac for hours and weeks and then have to decide if the sound quality is worth it or not. If you actually loved the sound quality of the DAC, you would have liked it right away. The truth is, no one is going to write negative reviews in general as it puts the reviewers in a bad situation with the companies who send them free samples and give them money and other gifts.

 

[AudiophileKing]

I’ve had it for a couple weeks and so far so good. I just plug it into my iPhone or iPad mini and it works fine. I use an Apple USB adapter cable which was around $30.

In my opinion, the build quality is good. No complaints so far and hopefully it won’t have any problems

I hope your unit is wonderful and reliable over the time so that I might buy it one day. I am tired of randomly buying things and have junk pile now that no one will ever buy second hand.

 

[FourT6and2]

To be fair, mine also wiggles. But it's not the usb plug or headphone jack. Those pieces are actually all one solid internal part. It's just that they snap together into the external case. It's the external case that is slightly loose giving the illusion that the USB plug or jack are wiggling. They aren't though.

 

[.Sup]

When I first heard that AQ released the Cobalt as the successor for the Red, I got interested but when I saw the price I lost all interest. A device with one input and one output should not cost that much.

 

[wenbinbin2010]

I also didn't think the Cobalt sounded that much better than straight out of my Samsung Galaxy S10. Ended up getting the Fiio Q5s instead and it has substantially better sound quality in all regards.

 

[AudiophileKing]

I also didn't think the Cobalt sounded that much better than straight out of my Samsung Galaxy S10. Ended up getting the Fiio Q5s instead and it has substantially better sound quality in all regards.

That's some useful information. I was very curious about the Q5s. I heard about Fiio's questionable build quality in Q5s - are the screws and detachment modules of good build quality ? For one, I know Fiio has quite the serious reputation about their poor customer service - asking many users to ship their products back to China for defects, batteries dying down. What's worse is the sellers falsely deny of the reported problems with Fiio Product Quality. What's your feedback on Q5s, assuming you are not a Fiio promotion agent on head fi.

 

[AudiophileKing]

When I first heard that AQ released the Cobalt as the successor for the Red, I got interested but when I saw the price I lost all interest. A device with one input and one output should not cost that much.

It's definitely not worth the asking price, especially when the included dragon tail type C adapter lowers the audio quality compared to direct USB Type-A - technical measurements even show lower audio signal quality compared to Red in multiple areas. Audioquest Cobalt is an absolute failure of a successor to Red, from my listening experience. However, I still recommend everyone to listen themselves and compare their own perceived audio quality rather than take some reviewer's rant about how great the Cobalt is compared to Chord Mojo - don't ever forget that these reviewers get sponsorships and get send free products. John H. Darko's review made me buy Cobalt and my own critical judgement made me return it after half a month waiting for the magical improvement in audio quality after 200 hours of burn in - well, the audio quality improved - it's good overall, but isn't good enough to justify it's price to me. You may like it, then you may buy it - won't affect me in any way.

 

[AudiophileKing]

To be fair, mine also wiggles. But it's not the usb plug or headphone jack. Those pieces are actually all one solid internal part. It's just that they snap together into the external case. It's the external case that is slightly loose giving the illusion that the USB plug or jack are wiggling. They aren't though.

Most journalists in the Audiophile Industry are con artists who write about how intense of a fake orgasm they have when they listen to inferior crappy audio products that they receive money to promote.

 

[FourT6and2]

Most journalists in the Audiophile Industry are con artists who write about how intense of a fake orgasm they have when they listen to inferior crappy audio products that they receive money to promote.

Ok? What's that got to do with what I said?

 

[AudiophileKing]

Ok? What's that got to do with what I said?

Wrongly quoted. Apologies. Wanted it to be a general comment.