Can a $77 DAC beat a $350 one? Audioquest Dragonfly Cobalt vs Fosi Audio DS1

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[cheapaudioman]

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[johnchristiansen]

Love your channel Randy! Your watch game is on point too!!

[ThreeToesofFury]

DUDE! Just found your channel today. Oh man its what ive been looking for!!! Thanks for all you do...im a new subscriber and will be a regular

[razetw]

I enjoy my hidizs S9 pro. It came from the factory with a non working otg cable. They offered a replacement but I opted out and ordered one from Ddhifi that works perfectly and has the arrows on the outside for orientation marking. Ddhifi is snug and secure and more flexible. I recommend both together. Thanks for the content!

[JohnScheppler]

Great review, and someone is going to end up with a nice gift thanks to Audioquest.

[jeffcsMN]

Love this hi-if nerd channel! Cheers Randy. You are the king.

[benkrake]

I have the Audioquest DragonFly Black, which I bought 3 or 4 years ago, and it’s pretty decent of the basic DragonFly range. I’m currently saving up for a Peachtree Audio Nova 150 integrated amplifier, which has a very good DAC, which is capable of double DSD, and decent headphone amp built into it. So when I finally get that, I’ll most likely use that for headphone listening over the DragonFly Black.

[moogoomoogoo]

A Dongle DAC sounds like something from Harry Potter.

[remixx]

Just noticed your coffee mug! I worked at Parker Hannifin (CSO) in Irvine back in the early 90’s!!

[quantumrift]

Hey Randy! I've only ever used PC for audio and hifi. My experience on volume control is that it largely depends, speaking of DACS and Windows, they are a bit funny! No other way to put it, some DACs have an issue with maxing volume. My personal policy is to try and keep the PC volume at 40-85% not too low or not too high until I have sufficiently concluded which volumes can be maxed without negs. I try and dial the Douk ST-01 in so that I am around that range at normal or higher volume.

And then there's per application, and then software EQing. Tidal on Windows, when the volume is maxed, starts to distort regardless of Windows sound device volume. I don't know why, but once I noticed it, and fixed it, I was very surprised. The highs got scratchy. Distortion! So I keep Tidal's volume slider at around 75% and that seems to resolve that. When I learned that about Tidal, I began to keep Spotify, YouTube, and others at around 70-80% just in case. My point being, it's a bit finnicky, I would say 50% of the time maxing all sliders on PC doesn't cause an issue. But the other half of the time, it does matter substantially. And in fact there are situations where you don't want it to be higher than 50%. For instance some PCI-E sound cards actually calibrate the max undistorted output at 50%, and higher is just bonus amplification which begins to totally fall apart as you raise it above 60, 70 percent. In fact The volume dial on the software shows green up until 50% then goes yellow and red, letting you know that you can increase the output at a cost. But if you are just using Windows Audio your only option is to just notice that you can't max the volume slider without turning the signal into an unstable mess that distorts and fluctuates in volume. This is very useful, some headphones just aren't loud enough and if you aren't critical listening you can get a lot of extra volume. So the scenarios are endless but in my lengthy PC experience, about 50% of the time it does matter how high your audio device is set to in Windows. Half the time, it can be set too high. And a small percent of the time, it can be set too low. I have seen before that the amp isn't getting everything if you are under 10 or 20% volume on the sound device. So listening closely and playing with the volume sliders on sound device, per application, and being mindful when using any sort of DSP either built into Windows or third-party. Like Loudness Normalization, etc, needs to be payed attention to if you want optimal sound quality. I'm not a pro I've just used Windows exclusively for all of my media for 30 years and I can tell you it's finnicky. You have I am sure a ton more experience with Pre-amps, amps, 3, 4 different components and having to dial in the volume, level, gains of each. Well when using Windows, the same exact applies to all other volume levels. Sometimes they can just be maxed, other times they have to be dialed in the same as other hardware levels.

I leave it to someone with more expertise on the back end to comment and explain why this is, but in my experience volumes being too high or low in the audio device or even per app, often does matter, although probably not nearly as often in 2023 as in the 2000's or so lol.

[shipsahoy]

👍Good video Randy, thanks for the info! 🥂

[Big_Red_Dork]

Dude, you're seriously reviewing products now right as I'm getting curious about them, a few times in a row 😆

[dansteinmeyer]

Another dongle DAC to consider is the iFi GO link DAC/headphone amp for $60. I just got one and it sounds really good - right up there with my Audioquest Dragonfly Black. It's standard USB-C for the "universal" phones, but comes with a USB-A adapter and also an Apple Lightning adapter, so works right out of the box with my iPhone. It also does handle MQA for my Tidal subscription and has lights to show you what resolution you're getting by color. All this and less than the $77 Fosi Audio DS1.

[Drakken]

Will you please do a review on the qudelix 5k dongle dac. I'm curious to hear your thoughts and reactions on this product thank you so much keep up the great work love what you doing

[peterduran]

I have the Dragonfly Red that was given to my by a friend, when he picked up the cobalt... I thought the Red was great, and then I got the Hidizs S9Pro, and I loved those better.... and then I got the Moondrop Moon River2, and that's the one I use the most now... but mostly because that one came with the 4.4mm balanced output, and that's what I have on my Noble Audio Tux5 IEMs. When I listen to my Noble Audio M3 IEMs, I use the S9Pro with the 3.5mm single ended output, and I also use my Meze 99 Noir headphones with a 2.5mm balance cable.

[puglife]

I have the Astell & Kern AK HC3 dongle DAC and it sounds sublime. Worth reviewing.

[greatm]

This is the kind of comparison that you do best.

[tdewys]

I use a different adapter with my iPhone and AQ Cobalt. It’s the one with lightning to USB as well as a port to charge the iPhone while in use.

[nittos]

I have the dragonfly red and the blue they are both equally great and completely different sound profiles great for different types of music. Well worth the money for either one or both

[ginom]

Great Review Randy!👍 Good luck to all who entered the giveaway.