Hey
@supadupaninja and
@Gus141,
If the light is a concern you guys, you should drop AudioQuest an e-mail and see what they have to say about it. I've found their customer support to be pretty responsive, even though it took something like 48 hours for them to reply. The Cobalt is new enough that they may not even be aware of this problem, so you might want to point them to this thread and wherever else people have been talking about it.
@Saberlarry, whether or not you can tell a difference between a decent DAC and your iPhone depends on a few things:
1) the actual difference— personally, I can hear a distinct difference between my DFR and my Samsung S9, though between the DFR and my MacBook Air, the difference is very subtle, to say the least; I don't use an iPhone, so can't speak directly to it, but there are plenty of people in the other DragonFly thread that can hear a difference.
2) other equipment, including files and playback software— I've not heard the Billie Jeans, but I've read a few reviews and I don't doubt that they're resolving enough to hear a difference if you know what you're looking for; as regards the files, each person's hearing acuity is certainly different, but I'd be a little surprised if you could actually hear a difference between 256kbps MP3 and lossless, especially if you're not an audiophile "whatsoever." The difference between 256kbps and 320kbps MP3 or lossless is extremely subtle, and the difference between 320kbps and lossless is, for all intents and purposes, non-existant. Spotify, on the other hand... Well, they claim that their "Very High" quality streaming is 320kbps (though I'm not sure if it's MP3, OGG, or what), but to me it sometimes (but certainly not always) sounds a bit compressed, though I don't have any equivalent files to do a comparison. My point is not to sweat the 256kbps files from iTunes, but maybe double check stuff on Spotify... Now that I'm thinking about it, are the files from iTunes MP3 or AAC? AAC 256 are actually about equivalent to MP3 320, and therefore almost completely indistinguishable from lossless. I have found a difference in playback apps— on android UAPP sounds a lot better than Google Play Music— so it might be a good idea to trial the Onkyo player if you can do it for free.
3) Yourself— you say you're not an audiophile, but you've already bought some pretty good IEMs and you're thinking about a DAC/amp, which means you're
interested in good sound. Guess what that makes you? An audiophile! Maybe not, like, King Audiophile, but more like an audiophile squire, or something. You're learning. Anyway, part of being able to distinguish between equipment is learning what to look for. My best advice in learning what to look for is to listen, just relax and listen
to the music. I think the best advice I've seen is to not listen to how it sounds, but to pay attention to how it makes you feel. Another funny thing about comparing audio equipment is that it's often very difficult to tell the difference when going from a decent component to a great component, but it's much easier to tell when you go from great to decent. This makes it kind of difficult to get a good sense of a piece of equipment if you're only listening to it for a few minutes, like at a store or show, or whatever. You really have to have sufficient time for your ears and brain to adjust and you have to be able to relax.
Anyway. Hope this all helps.
