Musicophile

A fantastic reference album with very good SQ. 24/96 from Qobuz.

A surprisingly good Magnificat by an ensemble I had never heard of before, with very good singers. Just released on Qobuz.

So I just compared the Lightning to headphone (original Apple) vs Dragonfly Red and CCC on my IPad running Qobuz with some of my higher files. All this feeding my Beyer T90 headphones. And I‘m sorry but the results are not even close. Transparency and precision on the DF are much better. Now is this because of the DAC element of the Dragonfly or the integrated headphone op amp giving some more juice to drive the cans, no idea. But I really think at their price point and with their portability the Red is hard to beat.

You need the CCC for running the Red that’s correct. However the headphone Dongle is actually only transmitting the audio signal to a 2.5 headphone jack.

Sorry whatever you want to call this style, classical it isn’t.

FYI, for context the salaries, at least in the US, still are enough to pay for more than a Prius: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/27/arts/music/orchestra-conductors-high-salaries.html

What I find most impressive about this (beyond the cars) is that there was a time between 1950 and 1990 when you obviously could actually live quite handsomely off classical music if you were at the top of your game. I wonder if in 2019 the Spotify revenues of any of today’s top conductors could even pay for a Hyundai.

Thanks for the link. I have both my DF Red and the original Apple adapter. Will try to compare when I get a chance.

+1 from me on the Brahms piano concertos. Beyond the different classic iterations with Fleisher, Curzon, Gilels, and Richter, among the more recent versions I can recommend Zimerman/Rattle for no. 1 and Freire/Chailly for both. Going back to an older classic today. It has aged pretty well, maybe with the exception of the early DG Digital SQ (but even that is bearable, if a bit sharp).

Is it just me or does A+ sound better under Catalina? I seem to hear more high frequency transparency and spatial resolution. I have no way of A/B testing and my ears are not in the best shape due to a minor cold, but the first impression is quite positive in any case. Now I just hope Datacolor will update the software for the Spyder 5 Elite to 64bit, but that’s a different hobby...

I presume this one: https://www.amazon.com/Apple-Lightning-Headphone-Jack-Adapter/dp/B01LXJFMGF

I've never done an A/B vs the Apple Dongle, will try it out and report back.

+1. +1. I’m really happy with the Dragonfly Red driving my Beyer T90 when I’m traveling. And even Mansr‘s review doesn’t talk about “abysmal performance“, the Cobalt gets 4 stars. He’s just saying it is not worth the premium over the Red. And the Red gets tons of praise in pretty much every single review I’ve seen.

It’s not completely random, given the dominance of Germany & Austria in the classical music space. At least S and B are among the most common first letters of German last names (couldn’t find similar stats for Austria unfortunately). See a link below in German. https://www.datendieter.de/item/Buchstabenhaeufigkeit_von_deutschen_Nachnamen

An underrated classic: