[FredT300B]

I hosted the September meeting of the Houston Audio Society at my house, and we did an on-the-fly comparison of the Dragonfly versus the Oppo 95 using decent quality cables, a Krell KAV400xi integrated amp, and line array speakers using Dayton RS180 woofers and BG Neo8 PDR tweeters (all good quality but not expensive components). The server software was J River. The Oppo was cued to the Dell laptop so we could switch back and forth with the CD and the computer time-synchronized. This was not a blind test - the LED's on the amp let everybody see which source was in the circuit.

 

So here's the result: None of the 20 audiophiles present could not hear a difference in the sound quality, even when they were the one using the Krell's remote to switch back and forth between the two sources. This doesn't qualify as a scientifically valid test, but it still might be a useful data point to consider in deciding whether the Dragonfly is a component you might want to audition.

[JonnyFive]

Being an applied mathematician, I'd like to think the differences in DACs are well beyond the limits of detection by the human ear.  I would venture to guess that if there were a difference in sound, it would come from the devices output stage.

I have the Dragonfly V2 and have been very happy with it so far.  Thanks for posting your impressions.

[BobC]

None of the 20 audiophiles present could not hear a difference in the sound quality

So, everyone could hear a difference?  OK.  So I'm to assume there were varied opinions, but was there a prevailing view on the DF vs. Oppo95?

[BobM]

Heard a demo at the NYC show in the Vandersteen/ARC/Audioquest room. They played a track straight out of the laptop soundcard. OK, but pretty flat and uninvolving. Then they used the dragonfly. Much better, tighter bass, mor edetails, a soundstage. Then they played through the ARC reference DAC. Much better indeed in every way.

Then they revealed that the track through the ARC reference DAC was an MP3 version while the other 2 were CD quality.

So the Dragonfly was indeed better than the soundcard, but certainly lacked the ability to compete with a real DAC. Should be no surprise to anyone.

[Doublej]

Did I get this correct BobM, $149 DAC does not sound as good as a DAC that costs 100+ times more?

[FredT300B]

Did I get this correct BobM, $149 DAC does not sound as good as a DAC that costs 100+ times  more?

I was thinking the same thing, but you have to consider the fact that the Dragonfly isn't a "real DAC". 

[FredT300B]

My previous post wasn't constructive, and I apologize to BobM. He was merely pointing out that there are much better sounding DAC's out there, which I agree with.

It's hard to describe in words where a component fits into the sound quality spectrum, but I'll try. I divide everything into four categories: mass market, entry level high end, mid level high end, and reference level high end. My $100 Best Buy stereo receiver is clearly mass market. It doesn't sound offensive at all, but the soundstage is flat and there's no "space" between the instruments. I once had a $500 NAD integrated amp that sounded better than the receiver, with a good hint of soundstage, more bass impact, and slightly cleaner treble. I have a $2,500 Krell KAV400xi integrated that merits use with any speakers or source, and is clearly a high end product. A few weeks ago I visited a Houston Audio Society friend whose ARC pre and amp, driving a $60K pair of speakers are reference level.

With the above in mind, the Dragonfly is an entry level high end component at a $150 mass market price. It was designed with surprisingly good parts (ESS Sabre DAC) but it has been priced to appeal to the millions of young non-audiophile mass market consumers who don't buy CD's and are listening to downloaded music on their computers. So it isn't in the same league as the ARC Reference DAC or even mid level DAC's in the $3K to $5K price range.

In the interest of transparency I should mention that I won the Dragonfly as the door prize at the August Houston Audio Society meeting. Our host was the AudioQuest distributor, who gave away a couple of Dragonflys and a few cables. He has a reference system and uses a mid level Ayre DAC and not the Dragonfly. Here are his comment on this topic:

"The DragonFly has great performance and is an amazing value, besting many CD players and DAC's under $2000.

One interesting note is that the OPPO and DragonFly both share the use of the ESS Saber DAC, so they do sound similar. During my travels, I have talked to many people  who have chosen to use the DF in some pretty great systems. It has also created a new category of truly portable DAC's and only because of the shear number DF's sold, selling thousands per month, could a device with so much technology be sold for so little.

When we consider that their are 800 million active iTunes accounts and over 2 billion unique visitors to youTube per month; with one in thee visitors are listening to music or concert videos. People are listening to music, just on different terms than most of us.

The DragonFly was conceived to be a bridge product. We wanted something that could be listened to on their terms, with a laptop traveling or at their desk working, not kneeling at the altar of HIFi. The end result to all of this is that it really is an amazing product that is way better than the price suggests. It is not the replacement to a reference level DAC, but gets closer that you might expect".

[BobM]

Did I get this correct BobM, $149 DAC does not sound as good as a DAC that costs 100+ times more?

more this ... $149 DAC playing CD quality recording does not sound as good as a DAC that costs 100+ times more playing MP3 quality recording?

I recently needed to find a way to play music off my Samsung Galaxy S3 phone. I opted for a mini jack to RCA cable and, well it works. But then I decided to look for one of these mini DAC's. The Dragonfly doesn't work with Android devices so I found this one (link below) for an amazing price of $30. Well, it does indeed blow away the earphone jack on the phone.

http://hifimediy.com/android-dac

So I can see a market and a need for these little devices, and for $30 this one is a no-brainer. Have I tested it out against my Ayre CX7eMP CD player - no, not sure I'm going to bother either.

[JonnyFive]

So here's the result: None of the 20 audiophiles present could not hear a difference in the sound quality, even when they were the one using the Krell's remote to switch back and forth between the two sources. This doesn't qualify as a scientifically valid test, but it still might be a useful data point to consider in deciding whether the Dragonfly is a component you might want to audition.

I'm confused.  Did you mean to have a double negative in here?  Or did you mean to say "None of the 20 audiophiles present could hear a difference."

I think the DAC and its output stage are getting lumped into the same bin here.  The Dragonfly uses the same Sabre DACs as the Oppo, so any difference has to come after that, in the output stage.  Right?

[FredT300B]

I'm confused.  Did you mean to have a double negative in here?  Or did you mean to say "None of the 20 audiophiles present could hear a difference."

I think the DAC and its output stage are getting lumped into the same bin here.  The Dragonfly uses the same Sabre DACs as the Oppo, so any difference has to come after that, in the output stage.  Right?

I don't understand what's confusing about "none could hear a difference", but I'll state it differently: Nobody could hear a difference. The two sources sounded the same to everybody. Each could hear no difference. 

[JonnyFive]

None of the 20 audiophiles present could not hear a difference in the sound quality,

None of the 20 could *not* hear a difference means *all* of the 20 *could* hear a difference. That's what's confusing.

[JonnyFive]

I don't understand what's confusing about "none could hear a difference", but I'll state it differently: Nobody could hear a difference. The two sources sounded the same to everybody. Each could hear no difference. 

Thanks for clarifying. -Jon

[fredgarvin]

So, we've learned that a $150 dac sounds as good as a $900 player, but not as good as a $15,000 dac.  At least the first finding was helpful. 

[srb]

I think the DAC and its output stage are getting lumped into the same bin here.  The Dragonfly uses the same Sabre DACs as the Oppo, so any difference has to come after that, in the output stage.  Right?

They use the same ESS brand DAC chips, but different models.  The Oppo 95 uses the ES9018 Sabre³² Reference 32-bit DAC chip and the Audioquest Dragonfly uses the ES9023 Sabre 24-bit DAC chip.

Steve

[FredT300B]

None of the 20 could *not* hear a difference means *all* of the 20 *could* hear a difference. That's what's confusing.

My Bad!  I thought I has said "None of the 20 could hear a difference". I did not spot the error, even when I re read my post. Thanks, JonnyFive for pointing this out.

[JonnyFive]

My Bad!  I thought I has said "None of the 20 could hear a difference". I did not spot the error, even when I re read my post. Thanks, JonnyFive for pointing this out.

I'm a mathematician, I had better be good at logic!    Glad we got it all sorted out. Thanks again for posting your impressions.