DragonFly Cobalt, the latest and most sophisticated member of the award-winning DragonFly franchise, is a USB DAC (digital-to-analog converter), preamplifier, and headphone amplifier. It bypasses the audio circuitry in laptops, computers, and smartphones to deliver cleaner, clearer, more naturally beautiful music to headphones, powered speakers, or complete audio systems. AudioQuest DragonFly Cobalt Review: Give Your Wired Headphones a Boost This portable amp makes the most of high-end wired headphones, but it comes at a price.
From their FAQ "As mentioned above, DragonFly performs best when audio data is sent to it at its native sample rate. To simplify this, DragonFly lights up different colors when it receives audio data at different sample rates: green for 44.1kHz, blue for 48kHz, amber for 88.2kHz, and magenta for 96kHz." If you are setting it at 96kHz then it is showing the correct color. The USB light does not.
Other than the color, the only external difference between the Cobalt and the Red is that the contoured enclosure is 10% smaller and doesn't have the earlier DAC's distinctive ridge above and behind the 3.5mm jack. As on the Red and Black, the DragonFly logo lights up in different colors to indicate status or sample rate: red for Standby mode; green for 44.1kHz data; blue for 48kHz; yellow for. We now welcome the latest addition to the Dragonfly family, Cobalt.
Retailing for £269, some £200 and £120 more expensive than the £69 Black and £149 Red, Cobalt becomes the new flagship in the series and is AQ's most expensive and ambitious Dragonfly to date. From MP3 to MQA and Hi-Res, DragonFly adds life, meaning, and color to all of your music. With all current-production models of AudioQuest's DragonFly USB DAC (Black, Red, Cobalt), music appreciation and exploration are limitless: Plug into an Apple or Windows® computer or connect to an iOS® or Android mobile device.
Play YouTube or Vimeo. Also, if you're in to MQA, the DragonFly is a very affordable MQA streaming partner. DragonFly Cobalt Cobalt is the new Red! Yes, the new color is cobalt blue, and the unit has an automotive finish with silver lettering.
Like before the DragonFly has a protective endcap, a contoured enclosure and it also comes in a leatherette travel pouch. DragonFly Cobalt is the size of an old-school "USB pen drive", with is encasing painted of a nice blue - or well, cobalt - color. There are no controls, wheels or buttons whatsoever on the structure.
Only after plugging it into a host PC (or Mac, or mobile device) one realises that the stylised dragonfly logo on the top side is indeed backlit by a colored LED, which color changes. Once Setup as the output in Foobar, I was able to throw a variety of tracks at the Cobalt and watch the little dragonfly on top change colors as I went. MQA is lavender, other than that, the dragonfly identifies bit rate rather than file type with 44.1kHz being green, 48kHz blue, 88.2kHz yellow, and 96kHz a lighter blue color.
Like the Dragonfly Black and Red, the Cobalt has an LED light that glows different colors, depending on which sample rate you are listening to. For example, green indicates that you are playing a track at 44.1kHz.