![]() Adding a dedicated DAC, no matter how small, can make all the difference. The majority of DACs and headphone amplifiers fitted to smartphones or laptops are cheap and not very good. Read our full AudioQuest DragonFly Cobalt review It's a great feature for at-a-glance checking and helps justify the extra outlay. Once attached to your laptop – or indeed phone via a dongle – and selected as means of audio output, the DAC’s LED will shine one of six colours to indicate the sampling rate: red for standby, green for 44.1kHz, blue for 48kHz, yellow for 88.2 kHz, light blue for 96kHz or purple when decoding MQA. Yes, it costs around a little more, but it does take performance to another level. The USB DAC (which resembles a UBS stick/key and plugs straight into a laptop or PC's USB-A socket) boasts a more advanced DAC chip, and a new microprocessor draws less current and bumps up the DAC's processing speed. While also the most expensive of AudioQuest's DragonFlys (a more affordable option is the Red below), we think it's the best value and therefore most highly recommendable. Want all the benefits of the DragonFly Red below (2.1v headphone output, bit-perfect digital volume control and MQA renderer) with more detail, greater dynamics and an even better sense of timing? Then you should try the latest instalment in AudioQuest's line of portable DACs – the DragonFly Cobalt. And what about existing Mojo owners? Honestly, Chord has left us no choice but to recommend the upgrade. But for those who are after a primarily portable or desktop DAC solution in this price region (and cannot triple their budget to Chord Hugo 2 territory), we believe the decision to Mojo 2 or not to Mojo 2 is far easier. While from a performance point of view the Award-winning Mojo 2 can just as confidently raise a hi-fi system’s game too, some of those looking for a system boost might reasonably prefer a dedicated system alternative with more suitable connections, such as the Cambridge Audio DacMagic 200M (below). And while those familiar with Chord’s most affordable product will see from the accompanying image that the aesthetic hasn’t exactly been overhauled for the sequel, significant progress has been made elsewhere to protect its position as the pinnacle of portable DACs. The fittingly named Mojo 2 is the long-anticipated, re-engineered replacement to the 2015-released original Mojo, which burst onto the scene as a real benchmark-setting game-changer in the then-fledgling world of portable DACs/headphone amps. Offering a significant upgrade over computer sound quality in an era where people need it most, the Zen DAC V2 is another feather in the cap for iFi’s budget Zen series. At the other end is another Pentaconn balanced output, which sits alongside the more conventional 6.3mm socket. This budget DAC, which can be USB or mains powered (though a mains adapter doesn’t come in the box), is excellent in both the features and performance department for the money.Īt one end is a USB Type B input, plus RCA line-level and 4.4mm Pentaconn balanced outputs. The output of the Zen DAC can be switched between fixed and variable, meaning the iFi can operate as a digital preamp if you so wish. They pay off, as the DAC's current What Hi-Fi? Award-winning status demonstrates. It’s what iFi has done with its budget home DAC and headphone amp offering, with the original Zen DAC now making way for a ‘V2’ model that offers improvements in terms of processing, MQA decoding and circuitry. But at the same time we realise that in a competitive industry such as hi-fi, making the best even better off your own back isn’t necessarily a bad idea. The ‘if it ain’t broke…’ saying isn’t lost on us.
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