Audioquest Jitterbug Woes

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Doublej

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Audioquest Jitterbug Woes
« on: 12 Oct 2018, 01:55 am »
I picked up a $15 DAC (see below) from Amazon because a friend claims it is better than the Audioquest Dragonfly 1.2 that we both own. It works fine when connected directly to the USB port of my Windows 10 PC or Imac but if I add an Audioquest Jitterbug into the signal path neither machine will recognize its presence and the sound comes out the machine's built in speakers.

Does anyone know why? Everything works fine when the DAC behind the Jitterbug is the Audioquest Dragonfly 1.2.


https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00Q4WQ7XW/

srb

Re: Audioquest Jitterbug Woes
« Reply #1 on: 12 Oct 2018, 03:34 am »
It could be that the new DAC has a higher USB 5V power consumption than the Firefly and combined with the Jitterbug's own power requirements, puts you over the standard USB port current limit for that combination.

If you have any USB ports designated as higher charging rate ports for tablets, etc. you might try one of those ports.

I.Greyhound Fan

Re: Audioquest Jitterbug Woes
« Reply #2 on: 12 Oct 2018, 04:26 pm »
I have had both my JB and Regen not work with certain DAC's.  Not sure why though.

Just curious, does it sound better than your Dragon Fly 1.2?

Doublej

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Re: Audioquest Jitterbug Woes
« Reply #3 on: 12 Oct 2018, 05:31 pm »
I have had both my JB and Regen not work with certain DAC's.  Not sure why though.

Just curious, does it sound better than your Dragon Fly 1.2?

Stay tuned for my answer to that question. I want to let it cook for a bit and then I have to see if I can (nearly) equalize the output level between the two DACs. The Generic DAC has much higher gain than the Dragonfly.

srb - After I posted I wondered if that might be the problem. How can I tell if a port has a higher charging rate than another one. I have a USB 3.0 port on my laptop but it did not work.



charmerci

Re: Audioquest Jitterbug Woes
« Reply #4 on: 12 Oct 2018, 11:46 pm »
I have had both my JB and Regen not work with certain DAC's.  Not sure why though.



Coming directly from one of my laptops, my JB followed by the Regen won't work plugged into my USB>S/PDIF converter. Weird, ain't it? (The JB alone works fine.)

Doublej

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Re: Audioquest Jitterbug Woes
« Reply #5 on: 16 Dec 2018, 03:52 pm »
I would call the below listening impressions on the two DACs. Testing was performed on circa 2008 imac running MacOS Mojave 10.14 and Lenovo E570 running the latest fully patched version of Windows 10.

I call the $15 DAC the BlueDAC (blue case).

The BlueDAC has a very different presentation than the Audioquest Dragonfly 1.2. For starters the gain on the BlueDAC is significantly greater than the Dragonfly. The BlueDAC has more prominent bass than the Dragonfly. The BlueDAC also has either has a leaner presentation and/or greater separation of instruments or the Dragonfly has a richer presentation or is a bit thick.

This leads to is a very distinguishable difference in the sound of a piano between the two.

On occasion the BlueDAC suffered from digital harshness mainly on Windows 10...or is it simply more resolvoing than the Dragonfly and therefore more sensitive to the quality of the source material?

So in the end is the BlueDAC better than the Dragonfly? Not sure. I would like a consult with a musician who could determine which one sounds more like the real thing.

For $15 it's an interesting device to have around if for no other reason than to show your non-audiophile friends the difference in sound quality between a $15 dollar DAC and your main DAC.