The inclusion of the balanced headphone output is just one of them. You get many features that are not common to units in this price points. I use this exclusively as a dedicated headphone dac/amp unit. “I absolutely love this dac/amp combo! You just cannot beat the value this unit provides. I find the headphone output is higher quality than the RCA (better sound) so run a 3.5mm to RCA out of the headphone jack which is what I was previously using anyhow…. Overall a very enjoyable listen and more substantial sounding than the red.
Sometimes you will almost find too much detail, it will show up the quality of the original recording.
The sound is also lively and toe tapping. Instruments sound realistic and we’ll defined. After about 15 hours of use they were comparable and by 30 hours this is now superior especially in the bass clarity. But compared to what I was getting from the dragonfly red it sounded compressed and less detailed. If you’ve come from a headphone output of a laptop or phone then straight away it will sound good. It is after all much bigger so all the chips are not crammed into one area. The zen DAC is supposed to provide better isolation. The dragonfly still sounds good but my monitors are prone to background noise and you get a whine sometimes. I use it my with Adam audio T5V studio monitors connected to PC. I bought this as an upgrade to my dragonfly red 1st generation.
