So a few months back I wrote a pretty detailed review of the S1, but we all know how the honeymoon phase is, so I thought I'd follow up with a quick post to confirm: the S1 still sounds better than any other dongle I've heard when properly powered. It beats the both the Dragonfly Red/Cobalt and the Fiio BTR5 in terms of noise floor and detail.
Connected to a phone or tablet, results can be hit or miss given the low power availability, but when I plug it into my Macbook Pro or iMac with IEMs , dang if this tiny little thing doesn't sound nearly as good as the RME ADI-2, and with an equally black background, even on the hyper sensitive IEMs like the Andromeda. When I'm not at my desk or outside exercising with a bluetooth dongle, the S1 is my go-to among a whole bunch of other source options.
Seriously - if you're an IEM user, get an S1. Sure you can get nominally more nuanced sound from ridiculously expensive stacks of DACs and amps, but for $160, this is hands down the best sound you can get. The next step up in quality for me is the Chord Mojo, but that's 3x more expensive, and has a much higher noise floor. After that we're getting into the $1,000 territory before I hear much of a further improvement.
