How Do You Use A DragonFly DAC?
If you’re not familiar with DragonFly USB DACs, DragonFlys are tiny Digital to Analog Converters (DAC) that also have a headphone amplifier inside. Their size and shape resemble a small USB thumb drive. You plug DragonFly into a computer’s USB port or your phone to make speakers or headphones come alive.
DragonFlys fulfill three functions in high-end audio setups — external DAC, preamp, and portable headphone amp. Typically, when a product serves multiple functions, something is necessarily compromised. But, with DragonFlys, performance is the top priority.
On one end of the little DragonFly, a female 3.5-inch mini-plug lets you connect it to a pair of headphones, a set of powered speakers, or an audio system. There’s magic here, and it all happens inside the DragonFly, where a very special internal DAC chip converts the digital signal from your smartphone, tablet, or computer to the improved analog signal that you hear.