Audioquest DragonFly DAC Cobalt

The DragonFly Cobalt, Audioquest's new flagship DAC, has everything that music lovers around the world expect from the award-winning DragonFly family - beautiful, seductive sound, of course - and removes blurring and veils that you only notice afterwards Cobalt got rid of them.

How is that possible? Just like the critically acclaimed DragonFly Red, the Cobalt has a level-stable 2.1 volt output that can be used to drive almost any headphones and bit-perfect digital volume control for an excellent signal-to-noise ratio. It is seamlessly compatible with Apple and Android devices and is an exceptionally powerful and affordable MQA renderer.

The Cobalt's benchmark performance is based on several significant improvements:

• New, further developed DAC chip ESS ES9038Q2M with minimum phase filter (slow roll-off) for a more natural sound.
• Superior microprocessor PIC32MX274 from Microchip for reduced power consumption and 33% increased processing speed.
• Improved power supply filtering, which was specially developed with a view to reducing WLAN, Bluetooth and smartphone interference.
• With a custom-fit DragonTail adapter from USB-A socket to USB-C plug. AQ Carbon quality USB cables are used in all DragonTails.

Of course, Gordon Rankin's groundbreaking asynchronous StreamLength® USB code is also used in the Cobalt. In addition, thanks to Gordon's monoClock® technology, the ESS chip functions and all microcontroller functions are controlled by a single, extremely low-jitter clock signal generated by the ESS ES9038Q2M-DAC chip. Thanks to this outstanding clock, the DragonFly Cobalt offers higher resolution and transparency than DACs with multiple clocks.

All of this can be found in an elegant new case with dimensions of only 57.5 mm x 18.6 mm x 11.9 mm - this makes the latest DragonFly 10% smaller and fits a little better in the proverbial vest pocket.

And remember: to improve performance even further, add a JitterBug to the setup.

DragonFly DAC

Native resolution: 24/96
Volume control: analog
Output voltage: 1.2 volts
DAC: ESS 9010/32 bit
Compatible with mobile devices: iOS 5 / Android and newer
Software upgradeable: Yes, via desktop