Cyrus Soundkey DAC & Headphone Amplifier - Ruby

Product Information

AVRS7.2 Remote in used condition for use with historic Cyrus products such as the Cyrus 3 amplifier and DAB 8 Tuner It should be noted that I have absolutely no affiliation with Cyrus Audio or HIFI Center, I am not receiving any incentive for this review or to sweeten things out. This review is not sponsored nor has been paid for by Cyrus Audio or HIFI Center or anyone else. I'd like to thank HIFI Center for providing the sample for the review. This review reflects my personal experience with Cyrus Audio SoundKey. Every opinion expressed is mine and I stand by it, the purpose of this review is to help those interested in Cyrus Soundkey find their next music companion. Innovative in its small design, the Soundkey is one of the most compact and lightweight headphone amplifier and DACs available today. Taking into account that most people listening to music through a mobile phone will likely be on the move, Cyrus has designed the Soundkey to weigh a mere 16g, making it light as well as compact. The smooth and rounded edges of the outer shell reduce the possibility of catching or snagging on anything. It also features both single-ended (3.5mm) and balanced (4.4mm) outputs, USB-C charging and data port, Bluetooth pairing/XBass/XSpace button, microphone, and power switch.

If you’re looking for a high quality portable DAC, this iFi is well worth a place on the shortlist. The hip-dac’s combination of battery power, fine build and easy-going sound quality makes it one of the front-runners at this level. At the end of this review, if you're looking for a clean, clear, powerful, crisp, dynamic and punchy DAC/AMP that has a good amount of speed to its bass, can drive most IEMs and even a good number of headphones, and which is pretty practical, you should totally consider the Cyrus Soundkey. However, the Mojo 2 offers an audio upgrade over its older brother, with greater extension and a more spacious presentation. Detail retrieval is also boosted, and the Mojo 2 sounds exceptionally clean and natural. The first Mojo was great, and the Mojo 2 simply brings more to the table. Where to buy Listeners can toggle oversampling on and off, enabling and disabling the digital filters. Oversampling mode increases resolution and sample rate while decreasing noise. With oversampling off, phase, artifacts, and jitter are reduced, and coherency is improved. 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.

What Makes Us Different?

Yes, a DAC with the line outputs has to produce the best performances at 0dbfs level but an Amp has to amplify DACs signal up to clipping and more. I believe, every Amp on the market intentionally has some extra gain for that, perhaps excluding FDA/PowerDACs.

The overall sound signature is very smooth, focusing on warmth and immersion at the expense of complete clarity and neutrality. Switching to Hifiman HE-400i was less satisfying. Bass performance was not there. And at high volumes I thought the highs got a bit distorted.

Durability and Build Quality

No, it’s not a replacement for a full-sized headphone amplifier for extremely hard-to-drive headphones. But it’s certainly good enough to drive nearly any pair of IEMs. It works excellently and sounds superb for this type of device. Where to buy One more point, the DUT is powered by USB "5V" rail which actually seldom more than 4.2VDC under 100-300mA of the load, hence, 0dfs THD+N will strongly depend on USB port rail current limiter IC(like TPS2061C) setting. 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.

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. 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. 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. The midrange is generally very clean, clear, well textured, and a bit on the analytical side. The soundstage of the Soundkey is wider than it is deep, but it has a really good width for the 150 USD price range. There is a good amount of texture, so instruments that are textury, like trumpets, really shine with it. The upper midrange is not enhanced in a special way, so you don't get a hot or metallic tinge with your music.On the front of the DAC, there’s a button that changes the gain of the internal amp. This makes headphone matching easier, with less sensitive models needing the volume boost. We’re not usually fans of bass emphasis controls, but the one on this unit is subtle enough to be useful. It adds an appropriate degree of low-frequency heft to the Shure in-ears without sounding overblown. The treble is clean and very nicely extended, with a lot of air between the instruments. This is actually what impressed me the most about the SoundKey, most DAC/AMPs that are uber portable, especially in this price range, tend to have a rolled off or smooth top end, but the sound key doesn’t it has a really nice amount of bite and sparkle, making it a really good fit with metal music. 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 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.

It also boasts a dual high-density battery customized power system designed to separate digital and analog power to eliminate digital circuit noise from the source. Cyrus Audio is actually quite well known among enthusiasts, although they are quite specific with their products, having a different design for most of their products than for the soundkey. Since the sample for today’s review is provided by HIFI Center, I can tell you more about this shop from Romania, who has both an excellent experience with Hifi products, and also a wide selection, including portables, FiiO products, but also high-end speakers and stereo setups. If you need someone to know what they are doing, HIFI Center will surely be able to give you a helping hand, and provide an excellent aftermarket and warranty service! You basically get the SoundKey unit, a micro to micro USB cable for connecting it to a smartphone, a USB to micro cable, for connecting it to a computer, and a Type-C to microUSB cable to connect the soundkey to a more modern smartphone.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. Amir, I work as a designer with caraudio and pro-audio customers 12 years, and this industry uses another approach to measure Amps. The Cyrus Soundkey is designed mainly to be used on the go, and the tiny size reflects this. It used to be that any external DAC would need to be strapped to the handset to keep things simple, but the Soundkey can sit on, and just be treated as part of a slightly extended cable given its diminutive presence.