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Audioquest Red Dragonfly 1.0 Review AQ

I bought an Audioquest Red Dragonfly 1.0, ($199) from Audio Advisor. When AA took my back-order, they projected shipping in mid-May, but it came 3 weeks early.

After I burned it in overnight at full volume, I took it to work. I love it. It was a very big step up from the HiFiMAN EF-2A ($189) I was using recently. The EF-2A doesn't do 96/24, so I've used it with an ARCAM rDAC ($499 list).

The dynamics of the Red Dragonfly are a big improvement my old, more expensive combination. A co-worker said, "Wow, it really woke up those NAD Viso HP50 headphones. Congratulations!"

Tonally it's perfect, as we expect DACs to be. To my ears, there's lots of true texture, instruments are placed widely apart, phasing effects are obvious, as are multi-tracked vocals. It just seems solid and believable. Pianos especially are much truer, due to better attack and decay.

I noticed that the Red Dragonfly was always purple, but it was because JRiver was passing everything as 96/24, regardless. I changed a setting in the "Audio" section of configuration to use "Red Dragonfly" instead of the default. My ARCAM rDAC doesn't indicate Sample Rate at all, so I didn't know. Using the Red Dragonfly indirectly helped me to configure JRiver better! Cool!

Now that JRiver is actually passing the different Sample Rate, the colors change in the Red Dragonfly. JRiver displays some strange stuff like Genre and Year, so I right-click in there, and drop those columns. I enable "Sample Rate" and "Bit Depth". So now, I can see 96000 and 24, eh? The $9.99 iPhone app for remote control of JRiver is worth every penny.)

I still need the ARCAM rDAC for home system because the Red Dragonfly lacks inputs from optical (my Blu-ray), and coax (my 5 disc changer).

= = = = = Asides = = = = =
On my laptop, it sounds *exactly the same* with or without a Jitterbug. I got an occasional dropout until I rerouted the network cable so it wasn't lying on top of the laptop's power cord. Technicians call this "dressing the cable". Power cords and signal cords should cross at right angles, right guys?

Everything matters,
Jim


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Topic - Audioquest Red Dragonfly 1.0 Review AQ - jlhommedieu 02:57:39 04/29/16 (13)

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