A beginner's guide to DONGLE DACs: HELM Bolt // THX Onyx // AudioQuest DragonFly Cobalt

A beginner's guide to DONGLE DACs: HELM Bolt // THX Onyx // AudioQuest DragonFly Cobalt

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this video is brought to you by earmen   makers of portable audio hardware click the link  in the description box below for more information it's summertime finally and i've been out  and about a lot these last few weeks on my   bike walking about the city with a couple of new  pairs of iems from campfire audio they both have   single drivers so the the honeydew and the satsuma  which is kind of funky names but one has a single   ba one has a single dynamic driver but of course  portable audio isn't just about your headphones   because most phones these days like this essential  phone does not have a headphone socket so what   do we do well we have to go the way of dongle dax  and in this video i want to talk about dongle dax so for the past maybe two or three months i've  been having a listen to this thing here this is   called the helm bolt this is a dongle dac  you can see why it's called a dongle dac   usbc here three and a half mil headphone output  here and this obviously connects to our phone   like that i've also got the thx onyx  which is a slightly larger dongle dac   again usb c connector here three and a  half mil output here and this sells for 200   dollars the helm sells for 100  and then stepping us up to 300   is the audio quest dragonfly cobalt now this is  actually a two-piece unit but it comes with a   dragon tail but effectively together it's a dongle  dax a usbc here and again three and a half mil   output here now we don't only you know use a  dongle dac like the helm bolt or the thx onyx just   to enable audio on our smartphone we do it because  these dacs are built with what we might call audio   file sensitivities they sound way better than  any headphone socket on a macbook or on a pc or   on a smartphone if it had one and they improve all  sources this is one of the common misconceptions i   come across all the time is that people ask me  john do i need a dac if i'm only listening to   spotify the answer is absolutely yes it will make  all of your spotify sound better and your apple   music and your youtube and your soundcloud  but i mainly use spotify cobras and tidal   and for this sort of i don't want to call it a  group test or i guess it's like a little mini test   of three different dumbbell decks in assessing the  sound quality of these dacs i've been listening   to music yeah from spotify and lossy format but  tidal and kobo's in cd quality now i've already   made a video about how to connect these dongle  dacs so i don't want to labor the point here   but since i made that video i did discover in  my draw a little lightning to usbc adapter so   we need that for the iphone because the iphone  has a lightning socket and we have usbc here now   the thing is is that this adapter is not official  it's not mfi certified i think it cost me about   eight euros but just be aware of that it's not an  official adapter otherwise we would use the camera   connection kit the official one from apple but  that only has usb-a on the bottom and so we would   need another usb-a to usb-c adapter i mean i think  many people well many regular viewers know of my   view of dongle hell in the iphone world which is  why i use an android phone pretty much day to day   so yeah just be aware of that if you're an iphone  user one more nerd note actually is that iphone   users don't have to worry about what's called  bit perfect playback so if we play a cd quality   stream from tidal cd quality 44.1 kilohertz  is what comes out of the lightning socket   and if we play higher res stuff it comes  out the lightning socket as that high res   now on android that is not the case what comes  out of our usbc socket here like if i attach the   thx onyx if i play 441 kilohertz cd  quality music on an android phone   kilohertz is what comes out of here now that's  true for local content for spotify for cobras   but very recently in the last two  weeks tidal have started rolling out   which i think does give us bit perfect audio  so when i connect my dragonfly for example   to this android phone i play  cd quality from the phone   this dragonfly lights up green whereas previously  it was blue so we're now getting bit perfect from   tidal but not from kobo's not from spotify not  from pretty much any other apps unless you use   usb audio player pro which i'm not really a fan of  because it doesn't do offline content now because   it's portable gear some people might be interested  in how heavy this is the helm bolt weighs 8 grams the thx onyx weighs 17 grams and then the  dragonfly with his dragon tail weighs close   to 30 grams so you might think well okay well  obviously the helm is the best choice if i want   to you know put this stuff in my pocket but not  necessarily because what i do is i connect this   here and then i have to sort of fold this over to  put it in my pocket and i think that on the helm   bolt this connection here where this cable comes  in here is a point of weakness it doesn't feel   very robust it doesn't feel very strong so in fact  when i connect the onyx again this is actually   easier to fold into the pocket because it's longer  and it tucks away i guess more readily inside the   pocket like this so the headphones are connected  here but there doesn't seem to be not obviously   a point of weakness because this is all one piece  of rubber here so i think this is a a better made   unit but it should be because it costs twice  as much and then similarly the the dragon tail that's very strong you can get other usb a to  usbc adapters for much cheaper than this but   maybe eight euros but this one is particularly  strong i like this but here's the thing   if we want to use a dragonfly with an iphone  and we're using the camera connection kit i don't know i think this is probably the the  weakest link in all of the sort of portable   audio stuff that we do with an iphone this  camera connection kit not very strong yes it   folds over but i don't know i know people  loads of people that have sort of broken   five or six of these from just doing this with a  dragonfly so yeah another iphone sort of thing to consider now discerning the audible differences between  these three dacs actually was quite the intensive   process so rather than just play stuff and  let it happen which i did do but i did spend a   good few days kind of quick fire a being which i  don't normally do and for that i used a playlist   that consisted of about seven or  eight different songs and they were   princes the ballad of dorothy parker from sign the  times orbitals lc1 which is a b side from the 90s   also orbitals the box siguros is  sven g engler is that how you say it   talking heads is the big country from more songs  about buildings and food and rem and patty smith's   e-bow the letter from new adventures in hi-fi kind  of appropriate really so that's just so you know   where i'm coming from music wise let's talk about  the helm bolt first 99 it's like the ground floor   level of i think high end dongle dax for me this  sounds a little bit better than my lg v40s and 30s   so if you own one of those yeah know that this  sounds it's of the same sort of flavor in that   it's not bright it's a little bit congealed but  i love the top end on this deck it's very well   judged i think it's the most ethereal of the  three how's that for john well it's not even a   metaphor is it a word i i really like how this dac  it doesn't have a lot in the low end compared to   the other two but it just sounds so lovely up top  so delicate and that makes it a really good match   for the campfire audio satsuma which is the single  ba and it sort of really needs something that's   not bright and strident at all and this is none  of those things very very good way to get into   portable audio for relatively little money and  that well judge top end that ethereal top end   makes this dac very good for long listening  and i also like that this unit this helm bolt   gives us a good sense of tonal color music's  color and timbre and all of those sort of more   i don't know what to say here [ __ ] i had no  idea this area was so loud doubling our spend   to the thx onyx this makes prince and orbital  sound taller when i was playing rem's e by the   letter this dac makes that sound wider especially  the acoustic guitar strums that kind of play   out on the periphery of i think it's the left  channel but perhaps most obvious with this deck   is its more overt separation of instruments so  yeah it stretches the head stage wider taller and   puts more space between the players but it does so  it's very slightly at the expense of the body of   those instruments and sounds and vocals so this  is a just a smidge thinner and i'm talking like   minor details here it's a it's a smidge thinner  than the helm bolt and by association the lg v40   and v30 and that that sort of lack of body really  presents on the kick drum that introduces us to   orbital's lc1 now you could describe that kick  drum as being tighter through this one or you   could describe it as being leaner again that  comes down to interpretation but i think the   number one word that describes the sound of the  thx onyx is clean yeah clean like you're looking   through a a cleaner window on the music so if  that's your thing then you you know you're really   gonna love this the dragonfly cobalt 300 bucks  it's quite the step up from the onyx in price   but not so much in sound quality it's not  quite as as clean or as lean as the onyx   and it does make vocals pop a lot more  so prince's vocal pops forward a lot more   microstripes pops forward a lot more and i like  that and i think the the top end on this is a   little bit keener i mean everything just sort  of bursts out more with stronger dynamics than   the thx and that's top to bottom so if you're a  little bit averse to an overly insistent top end   you might not want to go for the cobalt and i  would have never said this a couple of years ago   or was it two years ago when we did the first  video about this but next to these other units   that have since been released this yeah this one's  a little bit of boolean up top i don't mind it too   much with some material but i guess it it does  get a little bit tiring after a while one thing   i did notice from from using the cobalt with  my essential phone and tidal playing cd quality   streams and cobras playing cd quality streams  was on ebo the letter the rem paddy smith track   the cobalt was the best of the three in exposing  mike mills's baseline i spent about an hour going   through all of these dacs just listening to  that bass line in that track and on lc1 the   orbital track there's a tape piss at the start  because it was recorded probably on not amazing   studio gear back in the early 90s and this was  really the only dac that really pulled that out   see what i mean by the top end here being a  little bit yeah more lively but definitely   definitely i think this dax standout quality  compared to the other three is dynamics this is   the punchiest most exciting sounding dac i mean i  liken this to the nad amplifier that i spoke about   in my entry-level hi-fi system video it's you know  it's really strong and punchy and i really like   that but again i would never have described that  and hearing this in isolation and if you want even   more punch and even more excitement then i would  cut over to the dragonfly red but that's with the   campfire headphones i would say this one and the  onyx a much better match for the honeydew which   is the single dynamic driver campfire headphone  which isn't as resolving up top as the satsuma   so this gives it a sort of kick in the pants in  that respect which you know it creates a balanced   sound and i think that's what many of us are after  really is is balancing our dac and amplification   with the sound of our headphones or our earphones  what i found really interesting about this little   investigation in sort of trying to work out the  differences in sound quality between these three   dongle decks was how hard i had to work  just to tease apart the smallest differences   which makes the helm bolt at 99 bucks such a  bargain because i think i mean if you want sort   of best most dynamic most exciting sound cobalt  if you want the sort of the cleanest sound where   neutrality is communicated as a feeling because  we can't know about whether it's neutral or not   because we weren't there and all those  other reasons which i've been through   before and borges death with i'm not going to do  it again here but neutrality is a feeling the thx   but yeah the biggest bargain  here is by far the helm bolt   so yeah there isn't a huge difference  i guess in the grand scheme of things   not as much as i would have expected actually but  what i do like is these improve the sound quality   of everything that i throw at them so i don't have  to worry about you know is my spotify going to   sound great from these decks yes it will same with  cobras and tidal you know my thoughts on high-res   audio now so i don't listen to high-res audio  really all that much and out in the street out and   about around berlin forget it it's like going as  my friend michael lavonna said it's like going to   a michelin-starred restaurant and then focusing  on the cutlery madness especially with all i mean   you can hear the noise that's going on around me  right now there's construction over there we've   had to kind of pause several times for trucks i  think cd quality is absolutely definitely enough   when you're out and about in the street listening  to music and even then you know making the case   for it against 320 kilobits spotify is pretty  tough but what makes a bigger difference is   these three dacs these three dongle dax make a  bigger difference to our listening experience   than stepping up from 320 kilobits per second  spotify to seed quality on tidal and cobras so now i'm back at home and one  thing i really like about dongle dax   is how easily they can go from being used outside  the house to inside the house because it's very   easy to disconnect it from your phone and then  connect it to a raspberry pi or a macbook or a   pc laptop and use that dac use that dongle dac  as part of a loudspeaker hi-fi system however   only the thx and the audio quest need apply here  because the helm bolt has auto impedance sensing   so it automatically detects the impedance of what  it's connected to and i think if the connected   device is less than 150 ohms it drops down  to one volt and i have noticed that it drops   down to one volt when i connect it to quite a  few different integrated amplifiers actually   so it just becomes too quiet unless you've got  a lot of gain on your amp then you'll be fine   or if you don't want too much gain from your  dac it's a great choice but i think for most   people in most situations the helm bolt will be  too quiet as a dac in a hi-fi loudspeaker system   now just as i only use iems outside of the  house i very rarely use over-ear headphones   when i'm out and about unless it's really cold  when i'm back at home i never use ims at all   i always use over ear headphones now these are  the sennheiser drop 6xx i believe they're like a   sennheiser 650 300 ohm headphone so they're  quite the challenge for our dongle dax   with each of them i didn't get a lot of headroom  on this i had to push volume pretty much close   to maximum inside the tidal and koboz apps  to get a decent listening level with these   but yeah it still sounds pretty damn fantastic  and what's really interesting is that   you put these with a dongle dac any of the three  that i've got and it sounds way way way better   than the entry-level loudspeaker systems  that i've been talking about in recent weeks   in fact for 200 bucks these are possibly  the biggest bargain at the entry level   for open back headphones these  sounds so good and with a dongle dac   just so nice the audeze sign an 18 ohm  headphone a little bit easier to drive   i get more headroom from these with the dongle dax  just a little bit more i run the dax about 85 80   with these these are closed back headphones i  could wear these outside the house if i wanted to   for me these proved to be the best match with  the helm bolt it's very sort of filigreed and   delicate top end really plays well to the planar  magnetic driver in here we don't get a lot of bass   but these planers are pretty good in that respect  with the thx and the audio quest these can get a   little bit strident at times but again i'm  i'm just being such a nit picker with that   because what i like about the thx with the  sennheiser is that it really sort of opens up   the top end and that sort of cleaner vibe really  plays a nice counterpoint to this headphone which   is already very slightly warm the audio quest  cobalt gives us a little bit more tonal color   when listening to something like the box by  orbital but i think the onyx is more conducive to   longer listening sessions with these and then  we have meze 99 classics which are a very very   very easy drive headphone no problem with  headroom with any of these in fact if   if anything i had to pull the volume way down to  like well below the bottom 30 percent now i think   the thx with these is a little bit too strident  with electronic music and the helm bowl is by far   the best fit for a more balanced more natural more  organic more easeful sound from this particular headphone so where does that leave us well if you want  the best value dongle dac that is definitely the   helm bolt especially if you're only listening to  headphones and especially if your headphones are   already a little bit bright and couldn't really  go any further without you maybe wincing a little   bit if you double your spend to 200 bucks we get  the thx onyx which gives us a much bigger sound   but also a sound which i think is well gives  us more of a a cleaner and slightly leaner   overall gestalt and then stepping up to the  dragonfly cobalt at 300 us dollars or euros   that gives us more excitement it puts more kind  of pep in our stride when we're listening it's   just yeah more dynamically exciting and again if  you want even more of that go to the dragonfly   red and we also go to dragonflies if we want usb  a compatibility if you like this video please hit   the like button down below if you like my attitude  towards high-end audio in that it encompasses   dax that take me outside of the house then  bring me home again then take me outside of   the house again i'm so happy we got to film  a video outside of the house once more so   if you dig all of that please subscribe to this  channel and as always thank you ever so much for watching i get a number of messages and emails  from readers asking where i get my glasses from   if you want to know that the answer  lies in the description box below you

2021-07-27 12:06

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