thank you all for your responses and for the warm welcome, I didn’t even know about the Audeze Reveal plug-in (good looking) i will definitely check into that. Nice i was hoping for a verison of the cipher form pc and or android versions. you are also correct I don’t mind the high-treble/space/air but the sparkle that can sometimes come out of nowhere… anything that can tame that a little is welcomed.
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and derailment of the derailment lolSorry about that. 
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No worries! I should have pointed to this thread sooner.
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Interesting technical review on the Cobalt here, for those interested. Though it doesn’t say a lot that’s different (at least in the ultimate evaluation) than this one.
I strongly suspect that the behavior at the limit is down to things being pushed too far, though I’m at a loss to explain why it draws more power than the Red even when idle - it shouldn’t. And I still wonder if these issues aren’t something that could be addressed in firmware (which might be as simple as remapping what constitutes the maximum volume/output level and changing some power settings/descriptors).
Should that occur I’d be inclined to revisit the thing; absent that I just see the issues being confirmed independently.
On another note, it’s interesting to see that the Cobalt still has the same single-rate oscillator and that it still results in measurable frequency deviation at non-integer multiples of the base clock rate. I suspected this was what caused the Black unit I reviewed (and have also experienced with the Red) to seem a bit unsettled, and more prone to fatigue, with 44.1 kHz based content (~99% of what’s out there) vs. 48 kHz.
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At this point, after reading this:
“With the 50 Ω load, clipping is only avoided when the volume is decreased by 5 dB (or more), thereby reducing the voltage to 1.21 Vrms. This is the same level as the Black, which incidentally has no trouble driving this load at full volume.”
I really have to wonder what the heck they were thinking. And that’s only 50 ohms!
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That’s one of the best explained technical stickers articles I’ve read in a while! I love how the author explained the how and why of each measurement.
AQ’s misuse of the USB power descriptors is not confidence inspiring in a $300 product.
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The power issue is just odd to me.
The USB power descriptor says 70 mA … but they draw >60 mA with nothing playing (vs. about 40 mA with the Red). But, at least on iOS, it doesn’t really give a shit what a device claims, the second it actually draws over the limit for the lightning port (120 mA), iOS shuts it down hard.
This is a pisser, and something that I NEVER got to happen with the Red, as you can be playing music just fine, at not–close-to-excessive volumes, and suddenly the Cobalt goes over 120 mA and iOS throws a power error and disconnects it.
And while it works fine if you use the Lightning-to-USB 3 adapter, and feed it external power, now you’re talking about an assembly that’s 5x bigger than the Cobalt itself and all a bit of a farce.
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I haven’t had it shut down yet, but it’s probably due to either lower listening levels or headphone pairing. Have not cranked it hard with the Lightening to USB-2 adapter and thirsty phones. And the usual travel combo pairs the USB-2 adapter and DFC with my Grado RS1e phones that are easy to power.
Given that I’m someone fanatic about having my phone reasonably charged, I usually have the Lightening to USB-3 nearby just in case.
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I imagine it won’t get shutdown for everyone as that’s triggered by getting the thing to draw more than 120 mA via the lightning/USB adapter.
Ironically, it is the lower-impedance headphones that “common wisdom” say are easier to “drive” that are more likely to trigger this. These draw more current than high-impedance cans, and that’s really where the problem lies.
At idle (nothing playing, no headphones connected) the Cobalt was pulling 60-63 mA. That jump up to 72 mA with simple 16/44.1 content being played, and as high as 90 mA with more dynamic content and MQA decoding (again with no headphones attached).
That leaves very little headroom for driving the actual load, and a low-impedance headphone, even of moderate to good sensitivity, can draw an additional 30 mA without much difficulty and without a need to play at high volumes.
The Rosson RAD-0, for example, at just 85 dB SPL (my normal level), would cause a shutdown with bigger peaks (105-106 dB) and crescendos in music on a reliable basis from the iPhone, where as the Red I’ve never had shutdown at all no matter what I did with it.
So while this is a non issue on a PC or Mac, and less of an issue with Android phones that have higher USB-power power limits, on iOS it’s a potential problem that didn’t seem to exist before.
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Those tests are scary enough, but here is my experience so far: Playing a wide variety of music, FLAC and WAV files, pipe organ, symphonies, EDM, rock, and many other genres on these headphones with the Cobalt at audiophile volume with dynamics…
Grado PS2000e
Grado White WH1
Edifier P841
ESS422h
V-moda M100 Master
Marantz MPH4
Marshall Major III
Beyer Lagoon
Pioneer HDJ-X10c
I can’t say exactly how clean the sound has been with all of these, but I never got a shutdown by the iPhone XsMax.
Those are all high-efficiency/sensitivity cans, except the Marantz (which is moderate).
So you’d be well under the max voltage level even at high volumes/peaks, which should keep the Cobalt in its “sweet spot”, without also drawing excessive current.
It’s going to be the low-impedance planar cans that present the most issues here. And not all will do that.
It’s still disappointing that the “new” and 50% more expensive version measures worse than the predecessor, consumes more power, and has other issues.
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When they announced the Cobalt with “less current draw” and “33 percent more speed”, my brain kinda merged the two and assumed significantly less current draw than the Red. But looking now through the Cobalt manual and the blurbs on the AudioQuest site, they don’t actually say how much less current draw or under what circumstances.
So based on reading the manual and the blurbs, we have “less current draw” (in dispute), we have a new “slow rolloff filter for better sound”, “increased immunity to noise from wifi, cellular, bluetooth etc.”, and a free USB-C DragonTail - all for 50 percent more money. I hope I’m missing something.
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Their wording about less current draw and more performance relates specifically to the PIC32 processor, rather than the unit as a whole. It feels a bit marketing-weasel-wordy … with the customer left to impute/assume that this lower-power usage affects overall consumption.
And maybe it does, vs. the older PIC32 they were using in the Red, but in no unit I’ve either seen measurements of, or performed measurements on, has the Cobalt exhibited lower power consumption than the Red as an overall device. My guess is the new DAC chip is more power hungry than the old one, and that’s eating up any savings from the micro controller and then some.
All the extra PSU filtering, the Dragontail, the more expensive DAC chip are no doubt present. But other than the filter being used (which is a matter of taste), there’s no clear benefit to it at an objective level that I can see.
I still think that, when driven from a PC, or with cans that don’t push it over the power limit for iOS, it’s a nicer sounding unit than before. But it offers lower fidelity and introduces other issues.
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Cobalt is the latest flagship from from the Audioquest Dragonfly series of portable dongle style digital audio converter with built in amplification products. Price new is currently at $299, the unit I’ve gotten in for review is a temporary loan from Todd of TTVJ and I was not compensated for my thoughts.
Just to set the tone, I don’t feel at this time the Cobalt is competitive given the iFi xDSD is on the market and even at the xDSD’s full $399 asking price I feel it’s overall just a better product given all factors.
So that said here’s what I like about Cobalt
- Size
- Aesthetics
- Included Accessories
An what I wasn’t a fan of was it’s performance. Starting with my all stock HE 4XX I experienced the following technical drawbacks
- Slow to start - literally took about 10 seconds before my V20 and G8 recognized the device and were listening ready
- Volume often reset to MAX - Neutron was the worse but uDAPP had it happen to. After a pause and resume the volume would sometimes be at MAX output
Music wise I listened to all of the 1995 Chesky Demonstration Disc before moving into one of my usual track sets consisting of
System of a Down - Mind Vinyl RIP from the 2018 Reissue
The Eagles - Hotel California Hell Freeze’s Over Simply Vinyl 180g RIP
Precious Fathers - Brad Quin, Medicine Man
I’ll also add I don’t necessarily like bright sounding systems and headphones but have a higher tolerance for it or I’m less offended/distracted or fatigued by them. Bright it usually not as offensive to my ears as others, so for me when something is TO bright or leaves me fatigued it’s indicative of what I’d considered not really “worthwhile” performance.
And yes I volume match with pink noise and these days my average listening is right around about 79 dbs, peaks of 87 an dips as low as 71.
Overall sound wise I felt the unit was
- A bit exaggerated sounding and often congested
- Kinda bright with evident top end emphasis
- Presentation and envelope were a touch aggressive
- Emphasized macro detail or “noise”
- So breathing, fret work, foot steps the occasional air conditioner and any other incidental noise captured during the recording process
Dare I say noisy?
- Drum kits often had obvious overlap to my ears and with a lot of instruments it presentation makes it not as easy to really discern a clear position and sense of space between everything.
- Really a lot of top end spectra was just overly aggressive and it was hard to discern as much as I would have liked.
I didn’t have a desire to do a deeper more detailed listen.
I can’t say I liked it and as a heads up I had some technical issues with it namely my subjective impression may have been a result of poor amplification among other things, I also had issues with my V20 maxing out it’s volume into the Cobalt when I switched between Neutron, Tidal and Amazon HD Music and the steps were not as precise as I would have liked. I did volume match as close as possible but it could be that the device simply did not behave as it should have with my V20. It could be possible those sudden jumps to max volume left my ears more sensitive and my brain with a stronger impression of how cacophonous it sounds at MAX Output.
Where as the xDSD was both more natural on it’s “listening” filter and presented less overall congestion. And for what it’s worth I also feel that xDSD can be a touch bright
Still starting with the envelope I felt the xDSD presented;
- A more vivid release or reverb trail
- Tactile without excess emphasis on the attack
Dynamics were also more vivid as well so the difference between quiet and soft sounds were more discernible an there was more evident micro detail with xDSD as well, an to be clear I also feel the xDSD is kinda bright an sometimes aggressive but it’s not so overdone!!!
What I did not do was compare Cobalt to my Geek Out V2+ as I felt that would be pretty pointless given I find my GOV2+ is still the best portable I’ve heard under $500.
Non the less at $299 you can also pick up a Chord Mojo second hand which I’ve enjoyed when I’ve heard it, an to my ears Mojo is a smidgen more resolving than xDSD though not as powerful nor technically adept in the sense that Bluetooth and streaming with xDSD is excellent and with Mojo and Poly such endeavors are very cumbersome. Additionally I feel that xDSD and Mojo do have different enough presentations to co-exist.
I will say it Cobalt was more detailed than my Shanling M2S and both had issues with congestion though the M2S presents more of an overlap of “reverb” or the body of different instruments. So it sounds kinda smoothed over, VS Cobalt which presents congestion more so as an overlap between the initial attack of sounds.
Frankly I’d rather experience congestion as a smoothing over rather than a cacophony of noise. An despite being technically more detailed I again wasn’t a fan of Cobalt at all. I also didn’t really feel compelled to listen to Cobalt with any of my other headphones as I’d have to pair it with something dark like my E-MU Purpleheart to get a nice “pairing” though again you can enjoy the Purpleheart more with other ultimately more resolving devices with a"bright" presentation.
Big thanks of course to Todd for sending the unit my way! As it stands I won’t be recommending the Cobalt unless your first concerns is looks in which case it’s quite stunning.
Update 11/07/2019
Given the lack of both software and hardware stability using Neutron and my HE 4XX I wanted to give this unit another listen with just dynamics which are hopefully a load more in line with what Cobalt can handle.
I also swapped over to using USB Android Player Pro with only MQA Content and continued my xDSD comparisons. I am happy to say with two dynamic headphones and just MQA Playback with UAPP I found Cobalt to perform without any of the weird issues I had with my V20 an Neutron. No more loud volume spikes or heavy top end distortion. I can’t say why Cobalt performed as it did but I was able to “tame” it.
HD 600 is a headphone most of your are familiar with for sure the Grado looking headphone is a Magnum V7 Driver in a Maple Sleeved Black Limba Cup, a Wabi Sabi build. That said I’ve found the raw frequency response the V7 driver to give you a very vague idea of how it sounds.
Understand that the introduction of an Earcup enclosure and pads do change this raw response, but as a whole the curve is retained. The driver was tuned for a more linear extension but the mid bass hump & sub bass roll off is still present as is the forward upper-mid an top end. A review of this headphone can be found here if your really curious
Again listening was exclusively MQA featuring the following tracks
- Beck - Guess I’m Doing Fine
- Schubert Piano Quintet - A Major D667 “The Trout”
As mentioned subjectively the Cobalt has a rich organic tone due in part to it’s heavy top end roll off. Overall with these dynamics I found Cobalt to have;
- Soft but full bass response
- More quantity but with a loss of texture and impact
- Tonally rich presentation of Vocals
- This helped mask a lot of coarseness or excessively forward breathing
- An honestly I felt Cobalt’s tuning really reproduced a more natural presentation to vocals
- Heavy Unevenness in the mid to upper mid transition
- Stringed instruments sounded off just simply wrong
- Lacked detail and was overly “romantic”
- Literally slowed some faster more complex string passages
- Fairly closed staging with what was often congested imaging
- Lacked air and precision when presenting passages with multiple instruments and musicians within a shared space
An to make matters worse I often had the volume output maxed with my HD600 to achieve a meager 81 dB peak with more dynamic/quite classical pieces.
While it wasn’t as “noisy” it still lacked detail and presented a congested image, overall I still feel it’s not a worthwhile purchase. xDSD sounds more tonally even and presents better detail, interestingly enough Bluetooth with xDSD was tonally flatter and about as detailed as cable’d listening with Cobalt. An from time to time I often use xDSD in such a manner, tucked away in my pocket connected wireless to my cell.
In conclusion I just don’t find any value in Cobalt unless you listen with easier to drive headphones and enjoy mostly vocal heavy music.
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Great writeup as always I enjoyed reading your thoughts. I always appreciate how much effort it takes to do writeup and reviews.
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Just to be clear, that comment was about the DragonFly Black sounding a bit uneven/uncouth at the top-end and that contributing to it sounding a bit bright - not the Cobalt.
Frequency roll-off starts at just 2.5 kHz with the Cobalt, which is probably what accounts for it sounding smoother and less aggressive than the Black (which doesn’t begin to roll-off until about 19 kHz, by which time the Cobalt is down by about -8 dB). FR plots for all three models are here.
I’m surprised you found that to be bright sounding; it should be the opposite.
Subjectively I preferred the Cobalt to the other two models with the sorts of things I’d be using one to drive, objectively its a poorer performer on a number of levels.
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I also have both the xDSD and the cobalt. I prefer the xDSD, but I frequently use it to drive other amplification. I think I would be hard pressed in an A/B comparison to reliably hear the difference.
For me, it comes down to form factor and features. I would not give up the Cobalt for portability and pairing with my Grados, and I would not give up the xDSD for use in less portable systems and driving other amplifiers.
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It may have been that HE 4XX wasn’t the best place to start with it as it’s a little bright, though headphone wise it’s really one of my favorites when I’m listening outside of my home
I enjoy a HF Roll off filter with my HM 901 an it makes a noticeable difference that said really I just found Cobalt was kinda noisy, the top end performance was noticeably rougher than with xDSD an just fatiguing. To me that came across as emphasis it drew my attention, where as the Slow Roll off on my HM901 slightly de-emphasis the top end,
My subjective impression may have been a result of poor amplification among other things, I also had issues with my V20 maxing out it’s volume into the Cobalt and again when I switched between Neutron, Tidal and Amazon HD Music and the steps were not as precise as I would have liked. I did volume match as close as possible but it could be that the device simply did not behave as it should have with my V20. It could be possible those sudden jumps to max volume left my ears more sensitive and my brain with a stronger impression of how cacophonous it sounds at MAX Output.
All in all the experience wasn’t good
Regarding your comment I appreciate your correcting me. I can update my misquote
Still I’ve seen a myriad of other dongle’s that are objectively much stronger performers [at a lower cost] and without hearing them I can really see the value in Cobalt
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