Best desktop music player for audiophile

BEST DESKTOP MUSIC PLAYER FOR AUDIOPHILE FULL
BEST DESKTOP MUSIC PLAYER FOR AUDIOPHILE PORTABLE
BEST DESKTOP MUSIC PLAYER FOR AUDIOPHILE BLUETOOTH

After all, its hi-res support tops out at 24-bit/96kHz, which is the same as the much cheaper AudioQuest DragonFly Black. Though on first glance, it might seem a bit underpowered. So, a DAC and headphone amp disguised as a USB stick sounds like a great idea вЂ“ and the DragonFly Red, like the DragonFly Cobalt above, pulls it off superbly. Adding a dedicated DAC, no matter how small, can make all the difference. The majority of DACs and headphone amplifiers fitted to smartphones or laptops are cheap and not very good.

BEST DESKTOP MUSIC PLAYER FOR AUDIOPHILE FULL

Read the full review: Audiolab M-DAC nano Overall, it's an exciting and entertaining performance that will improve your music on the move with minimum fuss. Not only that, but it also adds volume while still managing to refine the sound. Sonically, it's just as sweet as the custard cream we mentioned earlier: this is an impressively solid performance, giving a marked improvement in bass punch and power.

BEST DESKTOP MUSIC PLAYER FOR AUDIOPHILE BLUETOOTH

ItвЂ™s light, weighing in at just 28g, and there's a built-in rechargeable battery, too.Д«eing small and light are major plus points for portability, but the nanoвЂ™s biggest advantage over rivals such as the Cyrus Soundkey or the AudioQuest Dragonfly (below) is that the connection with your device is done wirelessly, in this case by aptX Bluetooth (v4.2). The M-DAC nano is a tiny unit, barely bigger than a custard cream biscuit.

BEST DESKTOP MUSIC PLAYER FOR AUDIOPHILE PORTABLE

Highly recommended.ДЄ great way to improve the sound of your phone or laptop, we canвЂ™t think of a better alternative for portable use. It can sit in the tiny watch pocket of your jeans, doing its good work nowhere near your actual phone, and if youвЂ™re working in a cafe, it will both look and sound exceptionally good next to your flat white. It levels up your phoneвЂ™s sound with very little effort or added weight in your pocket or strain on your wallet. However, when portability is paramount and convenience is key, you cannot currently better the iFi Go Blu. When discussingВ DACsВ to improve the sound quality of your music, Bluetooth puts the cat among the pigeons owing to the inescapable truth that its delivery has yet to catch up with both wi-fi and wired listening for a truly high fidelity sound. The headline is that this portable DAC/headphone amp offers aВ Bluetooth 5.1В connection to your source device (although not to your headphones, those still need to be wired into the unit) thus eliminating one wire from the potentially bulky, tangled equation of phone, to DAC, to headphones. And what about existing Mojo owners? Honestly, Chord has left us no choice but to recommend the upgrade. But for those who are after a primarily portable or desktop DAC solution in this price region (and cannot triple their budget to Chord Hugo 2В territory), we believe the decision to Mojo 2 or not to Mojo 2 is far easier. While from a performance point of view the Mojo 2 can just as confidently raise a hi-fi systemвЂ™s game too, some of those looking for a system boost might reasonably prefer a dedicated system alternative with more suitable connections, such as theВ Cambridge Audio DacMagic 200M (below). And while those familiar withВ ChordвЂ™sВ most affordable product will see from this reviewвЂ™s accompanying images that the aesthetic hasnвЂ™t exactly been overhauled for the sequel, significant progress has been made elsewhere to protect its position as the pinnacle ofВ portable DACs. The fittingly named Mojo 2 is the long-anticipated, re-engineered replacement to the 2015-released original, which burst onto the scene as a real benchmark-setting game-changer in the then-fledgling world of portable DACs. Given there's no Bluetooth connectivity or headphone amp on-board, the QutestвЂ™s sole purpose is to be the digital-to-analogue bridge between your digital source and amplifier. The Qutest boasts Chord's trademark colour-denoting buttons which tell you which source it's drawing on: they glow white for USB-Type-B (capable of accepting 32-bit/768kHz PCM/DSD512) yellow for the first BNC coaxial and red for the second (24-bit/384kHz) and green for the optical (24-bit/192kHz/DSD64). But when it does you're in for a treat: songs are imbued with a great sense of scope, and there's warmth and texture in abundance. The DAC delivers a crisp, clean and concise sound, with Chord's now familiar neutral tonal balance.ДЄs with all decent hi-fi gear, it'll take a bit of running in time before the Qutest really starts to sing.

It's the product that lesser rivals look up to at this price point. Chord continues to light up the premium market for DACs and the Qutest is the proof.

Best desktop music player for audiophile