brandall10

BTW, also want to give major props to Gordon and Audioquest for creating a device like this and putting it out at a value price... it's a godsend for minimalist road warriors like myself who prior to this had to rely on outboard devices to kick things up a notch. The async implementation, the DAC performance, the driving capability, and low power consumption (seeing about an 8-9% hit on the battery on my very power thrifty 11" MBA), just fantastic. If the warm push I'm detecting clears up with extensive burn-in spectacular. If not I'm sure I'll find the right IEM to send me to pure audio nirvana, and find it I will. If I or others are skeptical of this or that trust me when I say it's because we care, we want something like this and the promise it holds badly. This is a game changer and I saw that Steve Silberman said on another forum this is the first of several devices AQ will be producing of this ilk. Thanks for pushing things forward guys.

Anyone can hop over to Head-fi and see that member Chefano took the initial measurements at the request of the community, and then the later as an attempt at a correction. Even though his methods were wrong at least he posted how he arrived at his figures so he could be properly corrected; everyone who got to witness this learned something about the process and now they that confidence that they are buying a headphone DAC/amp with a very low output impedance, which as Gordon says is just one factor but something that people with low impedance cans find important. Now this: That's a blanket statement that looking at the product page for the unit can be quickly see as untrue. Yet no one freaked out, you were simply corrected. Why? Because it's not a big deal. You learn and move on.

Thanks for the response Gordon. Just to be clear, I didn't do this measurement, it was another member from Head-fi. Just passing it along. Cheers. - Beau

BTW, to note I have since repurchased a DragonFly as I want to try it out with several other IEMs I have incoming. I do think it's a pretty special device. Hopefully a good burn-in will clear up what I perceive to be a warm push I'm hear.

So apologies to Gordon, our man at Head-fi found an error in his method which I'll repost: MEA CULPA! (MY FAULT) Hello guys. I have to apologize for my measurment regarding the DF impedance output, yes I was wrong . I've been reading a lot over the past days and today I discovered that my methodology was not 100% correct. Gonna explain. I was measuring the open circuit at its maximum Rms voltage and then loading it using a selected resistence. Here lies the problem, this works for amplifiers that are designed to be loaded using a specific impedance (lets say 8 Ohms). Heaphone amplifiers are designed to work in a impedance range.. see the problem? So, lets for example use the JH16 pro specs to recalculate the DF output impedance: Imput sensitivity: 118dB/1mW Impedance: 18 Ohms Using 110dB (really loud) as my reference @ 1KHz 0dBfs, I would need about 0.4Vrms to drive the JH16pro at 110dB levels. This math is accomplished by: Vrms = Antilog ( ( "how loud" – "imput sensitivity") / 20 ) So, I got the DF and adjusted its volume to about 0.404 Vrms in open circuit, and loaded it using a 17.9R, and as result got 0.400 Vrms. Here is the math: Zsource = Rload x ((Vo/Vl)-1) Using the values I got 0.18 Ohms Yes, thats correct 0.18 Ohms ! I repeated the same process for all the amps I had laying around, and Ive got almost the same measurement as stated in the specs. So, if it not sounds good using high-sens. iems/ low impedance, it must be for another reason than output impedance.

Hi Gordon, That's great to know and thank you for clarifying. But someone asked earlier and no answer was provided, this is not listed in any spec, so you can't fault someone for taking the initiative to find out. I went so far as to contact AudioQuest technical support, then talked to Steve Silberman, etc, and no one seemed to want to divulge this information. Audiophiles find this stuff important... a sub 1 ohm output impedance is fantastic, that sorta spec should be published. That said, the device out of box the sounds overly warm to me in my situation with 16 ohm IEMs but sounded great with my full-size cans so I don't know what to make of it... perhaps a proper burn-in would have been in order. I'll probably pick one up again down the road after further impressions roll in. Cheers. - Beau

Went ahead and sent mine back, just not the sound I was hoping for for my specific use case, actually prefer the headphone out from my Macbook Air; which surprised me, but when doing some digging Voldemort has a detailed analysis of a 2k10 MBA headphone out it's the best he's measured in a laptop, perhaps my 2k12 is even be better. Sounds pretty ho-hum with regular sized cans but quite nice with my 16 ohm EPH-100s. The O2/ODAC combo is better but not for the sake of convenience, and I have a feeling the DF would be a best if it had a low output impedance, as the DF -> O2 -> EPH-100 is divine. Oh well, perhaps in a future iteration of this device. In any case the main reason for the update is someone from Head-fi measured this, not sure how this varies with load: Actually the output impedance is 4.6 Ohms Load Used: 49.9Ohms Unloaded: 2.098 Vrms Loaded: 1.921 Vrms Measured using my Fluke TrueRMS MM

I don't know... I feel my O2 has just as much bass and it hits harder - with my particular 16 ohm iems. The Dragonfly is a bit loose sounding by comparison. When people talk about how it sounds great with IEMs because it's hiss free, upping the output impedance is one way to achieve that. Again, I could totally be wrong on this and it has < 2ohm and this is some sort of burn-in issue. I'll let it continue to run-in in hoping that's the case. It would be nice though to actually get some confirmation on this.

Thank you, that is me People with higher impedance IEMs (30+) probably don't hear this to the same degree. If things don't improve with this guy I'll probably be returning it and hold out hope for a device specifically targeted for low impedance IEMs/headphones, as I've seen mentioned Audioquest will be releasing several devices like this in the coming months.

Hi Everyone, Long time lurker, I'm bobeau from Head-fi. Decided to sign up because of this thread has some good discussion, Gordon has stopped by a few times, etc. I know it's been asked in this thread already, but I'm going to ask again - anyone have an idea what the output impedance of this thing is? Saying that it's spec'ed to work with phones down to 12 ohms isn't particularly helpful. There's a difference between simply doing the job and being ideal. My take after owning one for a few days is that it is rather high, perhaps the typical 10 ohms found in consumer oriented devices designed to drive a wide range of headphones. I bought this primarily to work with Yamaha EPH-100s (16 ohms), which sound absolutely lovely out of my O2/ODAC combo and thought if this could compete on that level it would be a blessing as it would be the ultimate portable solution. Unfortunately I'm getting a vibe with the Dragonfly headphone out that leads me to believe the sound is overdamped... it's somewhat bloated in the low end, snare drums don't have a snap, the pluck of bass strings are lost in the mix, treble seems rolled off, etc. My O2 and E17 (both sub 1 ohm output impedance) completely lack this character. In fact I actually prefer the lowly E17 to this. But I find the Dragonfly driving the O2 to be my actual favorite setup. Perhaps this is just a burn-in thing? Not a huge believer in that esp for a device such as this with tiny surface mounted electronics, but it has about 10 hours on it and I'm not sure if things are improving.