Cyrus Soundkey DAC & Headphone Amplifier - Ruby

Product Information

In my opinion, if a speaker/headphone amplifier under test it is a good idea to measure its SINAD at -3db(1/2 max power, where max power is the power where THD+N reached 1%), it's common practice if not a standard. The physical design is clean and simple, with buttons on the side and a crisp OLED display on the front. An included case offers protection from scratches and fingerprints, as the shiny, larger body is prone to both. The Chord Hugo 2 is designed for both mobile and home use, either with headphones or in a conventional audio system with a line-level output and full-function remote control. If the FiiO sounded better, then we’d be more than happy with the extra bulk and could easily see the Q1 Mark II carving out a nice little niche for the discerning iPhone user. Right now, however, we can’t quite see its place. Some Cyrus products such as the 6DAC and 82DAC use BFA connectors as speaker terminals. These terminations are easy to add to a length of cable. Simply remove the hard plastic shielding and use the small screw to grip your stripped length of cable before replacing the shielding. These connectors will work with any amplifier with either BFA or 4mm banana connectors.

Some will be turned off by Chord’s quirky design language, the unintuitive menu system, and the relatively high price.

Pros:

Deoaece magazinul care mi-a oferit sample-ul pentru acest review este din Romania, voi adauga si un mic rezumat in Romana. Building on the success of the BTR5, the FiiO BTR7 features a new THX AA-28 amplifier stage, larger battery, and updated Bluetooth chipset – albeit at about twice the price of the 5. Sources: Toshiba notebook with Windows 10 OS with JRiver Media Centre and Spotify apps; iPhone 7 with Spotify, HiBy Music, Golden Ear apps; Poco F3 with Spotify and HiBy Music apps / Amplification: Chord Mojo and EarMen Eagle DAC/amps / Headphones: Drop + HiFiMAN HE4XX, Mitchell and Johnson MJ2, KZ Audio AS10 Cyrus Soundkey vs FiiO K3 - Starting with FiiO K3, they are pretty different devices. The thing that is interesting here is that K3 is a desktop device only, and drains a portable way too fast to be practical as a portable DAC/AMP, and its physical size and shape makes it even less ergonomic for portability. In terms of sound, when placing them side by side, the Soundkey sounds more bright, more open, more airy, where K3 sounds more hot and a bit metallic in the treble. Both have good details and similar size for their soundstage, and both are pretty clearly good products, but they are intended for different usages, but, this being said, you can use the Soundkey both for portable and desktop usage, while K3 is only for desktop. But let’s get the hard truths out the way first. This small device is not meant to drive large headphones. It will do the job somewhat, but you’ll have to turn the volume up to the brink of its amplification capabilities and the results are not always pleasing.

Like other Chord DACs, the Mojo 2 features a custom-coded FPGA processor responsible for the distinctive Chord house sound. The Mojo 2 also features lossless DSP (digital signal processing), an advanced ‘digital tone control’ equalization promising no degradation in sound quality. If you happen to be driving, ditch the Bluetooth connection and connect the SoundKey to the vehicle entertainment system’s aux input – the difference a simple device like this can make to the sound quality is remarkable. Cyrus’ soundKey is a portable USB DAC (digital-to-analogue converter) and headphone amp, aimed at use for smartphones and tablets. While these devices have their own built in DACs, they are often low quality units which can really hinder your music. The soundKey bypasses onboard DACs and uses it’s own dedicated circuitry to provide you with a much better sound performance. FiiO’s DAC is a little like listening to an artist rehearse, while the soundKey reveals a defining performance.

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Cyrus Soundkey vs Audirect Beam–I noted in my review that the Beam is a bit on the smoothly textured yet bright in signature. Since both are DAC/AMPs, the only thing I want to mention about the differences in build quality between the Cyris soundkey and the Beam is that the Beam gets MUCH hotter during actual usage, and that the Beam is smaller physically, and has a volume / song change knob, which may be good, or bad, depending on whether you assume you’ll be using that. In terms of sound, the soundkey feels like an upgrade from the beam, with more textures, more resolution, more details and clarity, and with more impact. The Soundkey is also almost 50% more expensive though. The driving power is enough for pretty much any portable IEM, and even for some headphones, including Brainwavz Alara, which is impressive, to say the least.

Well, it is pretty portable. It doesn’t get hot during usage, only barely warm. Furthermore, it doesn’t have a lot of battery drain from your smartphone, so you don’t need to worry if you’re running low on bat, the Soundkey isn’t going to kill your day. Listening test results were good with Sennheiser and not so good with Hifiman. The later probably suffered from rolled off frequency response and clipping distortion. The main body of the DAC is 59 x 18 x 11mm (WDH) and connects to the USB-C plug housing via 50mm of braided, flexible cable. This is a clever configuration because it means the HC3 has a male USB-C connection and doesn’t need an additional cable to connect to the output of your source player. And the digital signal travels through a length of noise-shielded cable before it’s processed.There are other providers offering high-res streaming such as Tidal, Qobuzz and Deezer, among others, whose strategies to compete in this sudden price-depressed hi-res audio market have yet to be revealed. But one thing is for sure – subscription fees have to drop or they could spin into obscurity like a broken CD player. While we listened to considerably more songs than those named in this playlist, those are excellent for identifying certain aspects of the sound, like PRaT, Texturization, Detail, Resolution, Dynamics, Impact, and overall tonality. We recommend trying most of the songs from this playlist, especially if you're searching for new most, most of them being rather catchy. I started with my usual Sennheiser HD-650 headphones. Here, I was surprised that there was enough volume if you had recordings that were close enough to 0 dBFS. The sound overall was good and I could not detect much distortion even at max volume which is probably where the volume control will live. The AK HC3 is Astell & Kern’s latest portable headphone amp/DAC dongle device – and thanks to a combination of wide-ranging compatibility and deft audio quality, it’s well worth a spot in our list of best DACs.