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Music servers and other computer based digital audio technologies.

RE: More Comments on the Audioquest DragonFly

Hi Steve.

Nice try. Lot of text.

Bottom line:

1. Plug'n play are all driverless USB audio devices
2. Hiface II gotta a similar footprint and uses XMOS. They even
managed to get a reasonable jack into that device.
3. High Price Ayre and Wavelength devices incl. Streamlenght stuff
will face a pretty tough future.
4. Spotfiy and mp3 users will be happy with the iOS devices output
quality. Those devices are not even supported.
5. Taking design decisions based on dealer feedback I consider a pretty
risky undertaking. My experience with dealers is that the majority
doesn't really know what they are doing, when it comes to PC based
audio. What counts for them is the margin vs. sales effort.
A product like a Dragonfly is a typical online product. It doesn't need a dealer-chain. You'd better ask the crowd about their priorities.
You could have saved thousands of $ for your extensive trips around
the world and put the device into the 150$ league instead.
And beside that community feedback would have been more valuable.
Not to forget you seem to ignore that there is competition out there.
6. IMO your typical target group owns already 2 audio devices in
average. You really need to explain why they need to buy a 3rd one.


I do think you got my point. Obviously all issues I brought up have been
brought up while you were designing the product. I just mentioned the basic stuff of course. I didn't even go into into detail about internal
Sabre clocking schemes ( synchronous vs. asychronous etc.) asf. The Sabre DAC is the most discussed and tweaked DAC in the DIY audio world since I guess 3-4 years.
There are no real secrets anymore about what makes that DAC sound good or average.

My point is not to critizise your device, when it comes to sound quality.
People like Mercman are kind of trustworthy (always with a marketing flavor around their posts of course).

I think I made clear that I do have a feeling that you guys lack certain features what the addressed market segment might feel to be mandatory for a device at 250$.


Anyhow. Good luck with your product.

I might borrow one device. That's what I usually do, to get an idea about the devices potential. What might prevent me to do so is the mini-jack - which requires a quality cable or a quality adapter. And of course the lack of iPad support.

Cheers

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