Not that long ago, I stumbled across my old AudioQuest DragonFly Red USB DAC when rearranging a work cupboard. Its paintwork might have seen better days, but its simple form factor took me back to a really exciting time in hi-fi — when more people were starting to care what their music sounded like again, and making better sound more portable was an important part of that.
The DragonFly line was really quite revolutionary among the best DACs of the time for that reason, and was an education piece as much as anything else. For so long, most people had accepted that the sound from their laptops and portable devices just was whatever it was — but the DragonFly, with its unintimidating, recognizable form factor, helped demonstrate the impact of dedicated audio electronics to a wider audience.
