Friday, June 10th 2022
MOONDROP Releases DAWN Portable DAC/Amp Dongle with 4.4 mm Balanced Output
After a successful launch of its MOONRIVER 2 portable DAC/amplifier (review coming up on TechPowerUp), MOONDROP announced a cut-down version using the same dual Cirrus Logic CS43131 DAC chips and dual crystal oscillators, but in a dongle form factor. Making the DAWN quite novel in the dongle market is the output adopting a 4.4 mm balanced TRRS connector rather than the usual 3.5 mm audio jack, meaning you will have to get adapters or go with headphones/earphones that use 4.4 mm cables. In return, this fully balanced connection provides some truly excellent and independently verified metrics including an SNR of 132 dB and THD+N 0.00017% with up to 4 Vrms output in high gain that translates to an output power of 230 mW@32 Ω and 54 mW@300 Ω to easily drive the vast majority of consumer headphones even, let alone earphones/IEMs. The MOONDROP DAWN with its aluminium alloy shell weighs under 14 g, measures 120 x 16.4 mm, can decode PCM playback up to 32-bit/768 kHz and native DSD256, and costs $70 from the likes of HiFiGo and SHENZHENAUDIO for those interested.
29 Comments on MOONDROP Releases DAWN Portable DAC/Amp Dongle with 4.4 mm Balanced Output
4.4 is super duper common. If you buy a 100 buck pair of Sony or Sennheiser over ear headphones it's going to come with a 4.4 adapter because if you are plugging them to even a 100 buck desktop DAC or AMP odds are it's input is going to be 4.4, lots of speakers and studio monitors use 4.4 connectors as well.
Also all of apples stuff is wireless.
In the case of straight 4.4 cables your usually going to see them on over ear headphones where each headphone itself has a 4.4 and the ends terminate in XLR cables where you plug into a DAC or amp. Or in rare cases IEM cables for when at home.
Edit: thinking of jacks I couldn't help it but to think of this:
I'll give you a good starting point - TRS cables have 3 wires in them - L, R, and a common ground for both channels. Balanced TRRS cables have 4 wires - L, R, and a SEPARATE ground for each channel.
Please google why is that.You are a bit condescending, my squirelly friend. In all fairness it was them who begged for it first.
So back to my point, how is this used in a headset?
I googled it, got this diagram and decided i'll leave it to the audiophiles
crack DNA schitt mjolnir... i googled 3.5 vs 4.4 :banghead:
The 2.5 mm connector is going out of fashion these days in favor of the newer, more expensive 4.4 mm Pentaconn connector (pentaconnglobal.com/index.asp?p=/static/about.html) originally brought to market for Sony in ~2017 but is open-source and has been adopted by others since.
But that's typical for the hi-fi/audiophile market, which relies on fooling clueless people.
Here's Amir from ASR explaining this mess:
To do differential you need three prongs which is why TRS can be used for mono balanced signals, for stereo balanced you would need five.