AudioQuest's DragonFly range of USB DACs took the hi-fi world by storm when it was first released: never had we seen such capable DAC performance packed into a tidy USB design that plugs in oh-so conveniently to your laptop.
They're the simplest and best way to boost your laptop- or computer-based music listening into a much higher quality - you just need equally capable wired headphones and you've got a genuine compact hi-fi system.
Luckily, you can make a great saving on the top model, the multi-Award-winning DragonFly Cobalt now. We've seen it drop down to £219 over the Black Friday sales last year, but we've now spotted it at an even cheaper price at £199 at Amazon UK and Peter Tyson – that's the lowest price we've seen the DAC at yet! This sub-£200 deal is the best you might get on this brilliant little DAC, even if there's the potential for the price to drop even further in the upcoming Prime Day sales in July.
If you're looking for a quick and dirty way to enjoy music without breaking the bank, this might be your golden ticket to better digital sound.
The Cobalt is the top of the range in the DragonFly series, sitting above the Red and Black models, which are cheaper down the line.
Sticking with the ultra-compact USB design, the Cobalt has a single 3.5mm 2.1v headphone output, bit-perfect digital volume control and MQA renderer. It supports playback of up to 24-bit/96kHz hi-res PCM files, has a more advanced ESS ES9038Q2M DAC chip to deliver a more natural, clearer sound, while a new microprocessor draws less current and bumps up the DAC's processing speed.
As with all DragonFly DACs, once you connect it to your laptop, the logo's LED will light up with 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. It's a nifty feature for at-a-glance checking.
But the audio quality is what sets this little USB DAC apart. It does wonders in cleaning up our laptop’s digital audio performance, regardless of the file type or whether we're streaming music from YouTube, Spotify or Tidal. Military precision and stunning detail clarity are its highlights, but that goes hand-in-hand with a terrific sense of rhythm and wonderfully expressive dynamic range. If your entire music listening is done through a laptop and headphones and you don't already have a DAC in between, we think you can't do any better (or more cost-effective) than start with this brilliant DragonFly Cobalt DAC.
We thought it was great value at its full price (as its multiple What Hi-Fi? Award wins will attest), but with this excellent deal that sees the price come under £200, it's a no-brainer.
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