AudioQuest Dragonfly Headphone Amplifier: Portable Music Sound Quality

I am on a constant quest to make my portable music sound better. Unfortunately, that sometimes involves large sums of money or an inconvenience to simplicity of use. However, every once in a while you find a true gem, a diamond amongst the coal that is the modern music listening landscape. The AudioQuest Dragonfly is just that. It’s something that costs very little for the amount it gives in return.

Way back, I remember thinking why do I have to carry a cell phone, a PDA and a music player? I had the idea in my head that they all were sort of similar enough to be just one device. Well it’s taken a while but here we are. So now with that accomplished, how do I now get music to sound like what music should sound like, using this phone. Because, directly out of the headphone jack, music is pretty lacking and lame.

We had tried the previous version of the Dragonfly with both PC’s and laptops. In those trials we noticed big improvements in the playback quality from a typical PC sound card by using the AudioQuest Dragonfly. The previous Dragonfly version was more limited in what devices it would work with. I was pleasantly surprised the other day when I ran across this article. I needed to try out what they were doing. The author mentions that Android should be a good platform. So I ordered all adapters for my portable devices, iPods, iPads, Androids, all the various USB and Lightning adapters.

Of all the devices I tried, the only one that worked was for my Samsung Galaxy 4 phone. The article I referenced above said they were able to get it to work with the latest iPad Air as well but I don’t have one of those.

So what was the listening experience with the DragonFly vs the Standard headphone jack?

Well, I was amazed. If you closed your eyes and I told you that I swapped the system for all new equipment and if you were doing a blind comparison of the two, you would have believed me. It really sounds that different. 

The AudioQuest Dragonfly absolutely opens up the music. It gives back all the space and air the recording was meant to have within it. That air and space between the instruments makes it seem like more sound comes from one speaker or the other. All of the instruments become more detailed and are much more easily distinguished from one another.

Instead of sounding muddy, the recording becomes more detailed and additionally more involving. The left and right speakers have more separation between them. There also seems to be space and distance between you and the music in a good way. Straight out of the headphone jack the sound is muddy, like it is behind a wall of something or has a blanket thrown over it.

I highly recommend this Dragonfly with your phone or any device with a USB connection. It is an amazing upgrade to your sound for only $149 (down from $249). Come in for a listen if you like or let us bring you one.