Cyrus Soundkey DAC & Headphone Amplifier - Graphite (Gaming)

This really is a great example of 'plug and play'. Really it couldn't be simpler: connect one side to the USB port on laptop, the other side to headphones (I connect mine to the auxiliary input of my hifi amp), give it a few moments for the laptop to recognise the DAC and you're away. Great sound at a great price.

This device significantly improves the audio quality i expirience.Profesional reviewers(with profesional ears) rate this product quite highly.Ease of use:You'll have a 20cm long extension cable attached to the end of your headphones, it is slightly inconvenient.Due to this i don't bothere to use it with my cheap in ear headphones.But whenever i reavh for my pair of grado sr80 i also pick up my soundkey.I havnt noticed a degradation in battery performance of my phone.An actual problem with this device is poor quality audio during films scores(star wars for me) will be noticeable and might irritate you.

Good value for money, nicely judged and voiced sound and definitely an improvement over the standard headphone output of a laptop/phone/PC. Solidly recommended at this price!

Ok, I'm not one who generally believes that solid state DACs need a burn-in period.But it's genuinely the case with this model.. I too was going to send it back but persevered.After a few days the soundstage opens up and from splashy harsh high ends you get a more rounded clean tonality.Bass is tight, punchy, mids had a nice presence and the highs are clear with precision.I'm using it on a MacBook Pro M1 driving a set of Grado Labs SR80e'sOf course there's others out there that do a better job at a price, but for the price of this kit.. it's worthwhile.

Yes, it does improve the sound - I use mine on a mobile 'phone - but it's not a must-have.There are two and, to my mind, major flaws with this device.Firstly, in-line controls such as track skip, volume +/- and play/pause won't operate; all controls will have to be carried out at source instead of via earphone controls. I contacted the manufacturer about this hoping there would be a firmware update but I got no reponse.Secondly, there is an annoying clicking between tracks. This may be something to do with how the device senses the sound coming through in order to process it but I'm not sure.Ultimately, for the price, it's pretty good but there is a free app out there for 'phones that also does a great job at making stuff sound better.

Tiny little thing but sounds great. Needs no Windows drivers so plug and play. Much improves the sound from my PC so meets the intended need. Suspect for a lot more money there might be something that technically sounds better but there isn’t anything simpler and this sounds good to me.Sounds as good as my BTR5 used in USB DAC mode which is a good thing. Would buy again.

I added this into my office system - iMac>Soundkey>Cyrus II (vintage!) and Kef 105s and I could hear a nice improvement. Worth it just for the geek fun.

So purchased for my laptop to replace poor quality DAC thinking as its branded for gaming it would be great... Its not, its 2.0 with 0 ways of making any kind of surround sound so forget directional shots in games ect.. sounds ok but again no way to EQ other than with some 3rd party software..If your a gamer dont bother, if you like 2.0 music then go for it.

I bought it for playing downloaded music from an Acer gaming laptop through a Yamaha amp and Klipsch bookshelf speakers. What a difference from the laptop's headphone jack, which sounded OK, but somewhat muffled. When I hooked up the soundkey, the music just "sparkled" with brilliant highs and solid, but not "boomy" lows. For the price, the Cyrus is a must for any sound system. FANTASTIC!

Pros:* Size (portability)* Plug and Play* Decent soundCons:* There are better options for the price (*Qudelix 5K - same price, SoundBlaster X6 - $50 more and bigger in size, but better in sound quality)* Mine might have been defective - when trying to use it with PS5, it was working fine for the first 10 min then started to make a very annoying digital noise.