The achilles heels are: higher power consumption, sensitivity to RF noise and only 2,5 balanced out. The G3 combines great measurements/professional engineering with musical sound and perfect usability. If I wish i have the opportunity to change for a more technical sound. I use the dac with this firmware, and it is very musical with totally black background. The linear phase slow roll-off_SE firmware is quasi 'tube emulation'. There are some firmwares with unique setting, that you can use as presets. I have seen this feature until now only on desktop ESS devices like SU-9. so you can tailor the sound signiture to your needs or even to the music you listen to, on the fly. With their Tweak9038 app you can change the filters, control 2nd and 3rd harmonic distorsion (built in features of the chip),etc. I think it is the most mature 9038Q2M implementation by far. Hi, I have tried several dongle dacs (Dragonfly Red and Cobalt, Tempotec Sonata HD Pro, Meizu Hifi Pro, Zorloo Ztella, Lotoo PAW S1, E1DA 9038S G3, and I found the Lotoo PAW S1 and the G3 to be the most musical between them. And a stationary DAC+headphone amp setup might be even better, but it's a different story. And a USB/Lightning splitter, even a no-name, easily solves the limited iPhone power issue. And better sounding and measuring under-$100 options are there today. Cobalt is not too bad, especially for easy loads. but then (1) I bought more demanding HifiMan HE-400i’s, (2) finally measured the Sparrow, and came up with his (~$100) E1DA 9038D.īottom line, I learned it first-hand. I liked the sound through my easy-to-drive Grado’s. The one with both single-ended and balanced outputs and the one they market as ”sparrows eat dragonflies for breakfast”. So, I sold the Cobalt (after over half year) and bought EarMen Sparrow (for $200). This is where I learned that a $300 for the pleasure I was getting was way too much, and there are better alternatives. I did like the sound - both Redbook and MQA titles were fine. To address the battery issue, I dusted off my wife’s old iPhone battery bank and bought a generic ($11) USB “camera” splitter, which worked like a charm. I mostly listened Tidal over my iPhone 9 and/or iPad. In Jan 2020, I finally decided to expand my 30+ years of speaker-based music enjoyment and bought a pair of Grado SR-325e‘s and a Cobalt. I will admit, I am a former owner of a Dragonfly Cobalt.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |