Two’s company , three’s a crowd maybe …
I haven’t been using Hugo so much and just had batteries replaced but would be sad to let him go …
A fortune?
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My Dragonfly Cobalt has arrived… out of the box sounded clean and tight but a little uninvolving… however after a run in of several hours it starts to groove… and becomes satisfyingly musically and emotional … quite interesting effect… really enjoying it now with my HD650s… listening to the new Freddy Mercury compilation ‘Never Boring’ via Qobuz @ 48/24
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I only really use headphones while travelling or running through my IPhone . The lift the Dragonfly Red gave me was surprisingly good which has led to much more use and enjoyment. I mainly listen to Spotify or the Radio through £200ish Shure IEM’s , I get the feeling I’m holding the Red back a little but like it all the same .
Enjoy your Cobalt .
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Hi SS,
I did wonder what you are going to feed these DACs with, unless I have missed it. I have found that it definitely makes a difference.
In my case, mainly non-Naim, I preferred the dCS Network Bridge over the likes of Sonore or SOtM, especially as it was better AND tweak free!
That said, when I bought a Linn Klimax Renew DS/1 I thought it was as good as anything else I have had in my system …although tonally different. Above I saw that the Katalyst version was recommended, and I have no doubt it will be excellent. Thought I would mention the Renew variants as they are superb bang for buck; and, very actively supported.
M
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Another vote for the DCS Network Bridge, which I found to be even more effective than its (more expensive) Auralic G2 equivalent when feeding a posh Chord dac.
Best regards, BF
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The dCS bridge is right at the top of my list… 
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Hi Steve,
The DCS Network Bridge is excellent, though I ended up with a Sonore UltraRendu due to the isolation that a fibre optic network connection brings and am not disappointed. Perhaps it may become a Signature Rendu one day.
Alternatively, a Naim NDX2 makes for an outstanding streamer with a very good dac inside. If you ever feel the urge to upgrade at a later date, you could either add an external power supply or a better external dac, leaving the NDX2 as an excellent streaming front end. It would certainly be on my shortlist if I were in your position.
Hope this helps, BF
tbh the tweak free element is one of the good aspects 
Yes, it’s plug and forget.
Lots of services, Quobbledbuzz, Groovlicious radio x1000, etc.
little MQA blue and green lights also come on and dance like tiny fireflies in hypnotic patterns, indictating that someone from the actual record label actually signed a bit of paper (perhaps in blood) to authenticate the musical veracity of the music
and it looks cool on the rack, with the extremely restrained (but somehow indicative of Power) tiny blue (MQA-ish) light emitting diode saying ‘Yes, I’m always ready to serve you master.’
But in the end it’s £3k and it doesn’t sound better than a good bridge like wot Bluesfan got
how do you know Jim? have you compared sonore vs dcs bridge?
I compared my 272’s streaming capability with the dCS NB.
They were equal on SQ.
i am not sure that test shows all, maybe. The DCS works best with standalone dacs, directly connected to it. The 272 is a streamer/ dac/ preamp in one box. The quality of the spdif cable may also change the game.
Very good points, FR. I only used a £200 Chord Shawline spdif and I have 15 year old Naim power amp and speakers. Also my entire system is tuned to maximise musicality, not detail resolution.
The quality of the DAC and the whole signal chain through to speakers and the room and the listener will influence whether any difference can be discerned between an NB and a more basic bridge, and whether it is preferred or not.
This is proven just by the fact that Bluesfan said above that he did hear a difference - and that the preferred the dcs nb to certain other bridges, although he didn’t buy it.
I was only reporting what I found, not trying to generalise the result to anyone else’s system.
When I said: “it doesn’t sound better than a good bridge like wot Bluesfan got” I was not trying to be scientifically rigourous!
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We haven’t done a back to back comparison of DCS Network Bridge versus any Sonore products, let alone the optical ones.
A comparison of the NB versus optical Rendus brings in too many other variables for conclusions to be readily drawn. A definitive comparison would require reviews of different power supplies and SFP modules on the Rendu’s performance, different ethernet cables on the NB. Life’s just too short for all that.
In our case, we understood how sensitive the Chord dacs are to RFI, so wanted to block it as firmly as possible - hence the optical network link which only leaves leakage via power supplies and via the air. We also decided to spend the budget on the dac, knowing that we could revisit the streaming front end at a later date if we so desired. As we preferred OpticalRendu + the Chord combo to ethernet + ND555/555PSDR or CDS3/555PSDR, we thought that this would more than suffice for quite a while.
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To add one more point for the OP to chew over - I believe that dCS designed the NB to perform best with older dcs dacs, as a way of downsampling hi res files to those old dcs dacs can play them at the highest resolution of which they are capable.
But of course the nb will also work with other dacs too.
Again for the OP - what bluesfan says in this quote is what I was also trying to get at. i.e. that you will probably get much greater SQ per $ by investing in the DAC rather than a dCS Network Bridge.
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Yes, I agree COMPLETELY. I think I tweaked my ultraRendu & SOtM as much as is possible in terms of power and widgets, and I preferred the dCS - but it was still a tad more expensive than the SOtM, and a bigger gap to the Sonore. Worth it in my opinion.
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I prefer the dcs bridge for 3 reasons: only one box, with no additional ps to add. The updates can be regularly downloaded, so no need to change the box. And it looks nice , vs the more common sonore little box.
Sonore is also regularly evolving its products: first was sonore rendu, then ultra rendu, then ultra rendu se, then optical rendu and now optical rendu se.
The DCS will last longer and will be upgraded by downloading.
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I’ve been contemplating a Network Bridge or similar for a while , I think they make an awful lot of sense . I noticed a used DCS NB for sale today which might be of interest to Steve ? From a dealer but auction site .