If you have good speakers or headphones and good ears DragonFly will make your music sound better.

The way we listen to music has changed dramatically over the last decade. The rise of the MP3 and shrinking costs of storage mean that for the vast majority of us, our music collections live on a hard drive somewhere, rather than in crates or on shelves.

Trouble is, unlike the hi-fi systems of old, most computers aren’t purpose-built for playing music. In fact, most off-the-shelf laptops and desktops deliberately skimp in the sound department for the sake of price and compactness. Yes, Macs are something of an exception to this rule, boasting better stock sound hardware than most PCs. But we’re still talking about a computer designed to do many things well, versus a stereo system designed to do one thing excellently. As a result, when played through most computers’ stock output, audio loses some of the richness, depth, and clarity that a quality stereo would provide.

The DragonFly aims to combat this issue by packing its own high-quality audio processor onto an external USB stick. This form factor bypasses the computer’s audio processor altogether, offloading it to what is essentially a separate computer designed specifically for audio. Installation is as simple as plugging in the unit and selecting it as the output source in System Preferences.

And as unlikely as it seems, it actually makes a difference. A classical piece, encoded as a 320kbps AAC file and played through iTunes, sounded noticeably richer through the DragonFly than through a Mac mini’s headphone-out. Violins and brass showed more shimmer and more texture, while woodwinds sounded earthier and more robust. As a result, it was possible to hear more significant separation between the instruments, allowing for a greater sense of sonic space. The same recording, ripped as a WAV file from a CD, showed an even more noticeable difference between the DragonFly and the stock Mini sound. And on a several-years-old Windows netbook, the difference was more noticeable still.

Understand, however, that “noticeable” is a relative term here. With lower-quality reproductions, messier recordings, or cheaper headphones or speakers, the difference becomes virtually imperceptible to all but the most careful examination. And even in best-case scenarios, untrained ears may have difficulty discerning much 
of an improvement.

The bottom line. As a result, the DragonFly is most definitely a boutique product. For audiophiles forced by space or cost to use a PC instead of a rack of gear and stacks of discs, it’s a bargain at $250. But it’s unlikely the average consumer would notice enough 
of an improvement to justify the price.