Meet AudioQuest's Critter Collection

We're pretty darn lucky to live in a time where we can enjoy our favorite music and movies wherever we go. We can listen to Spotify's holiday music playlist on the train to work or from a computer. We can watch It's a Wonderful Life at home or 20,000 feet in the air on a flight to London.

The only problem with bringing our content wherever we go? Audio quality is sacrificed.  

But AudioQuest’s Critter Collection is here to change that. Known for creating high-performing cables and headphones, AudioQuest has a line of pocket-sized DACs and accessories designed to improve your audio — from sources including your computer, speakers, cell phone, and car stereo — at an affordable price.

Check out the video below to learn all about the Beetle, the Dragonfly, the Jitterbug, and the DragonTail:

Video transcript

Hi, everyone, it's Adam from World Wide Stereo here educating you today about the line of Critter products from AudioQuest. And I'm talking about the Beetle, the DragonFly, the JitterBug, and the DragonTail.

Let's start in with the DragonFly. The DragonFly here is a USB DAC and headphone amplifier. When it first came out, it was only able to work with just your laptops and your computers, but now the new line, the Red and the Black, can work right off of your portable device.

The DragonFly Black, coming in at $99, and then you have the DragonFly Red coming in at $199, have a couple of differences to them. The DragonFly Red was really designed to be their best product, giving you a lot of amplification for some of those higher end headphones out there. The Black is a very, very good one meant for moderately priced headphones. To make either of these products work with your iPhone, you will need to purchase a Lightning to USB 3 adapter.

There are two different kinds of USB adapters made from Apple for your iPhone. AudioQuest recommends that you use the USB 3 adapter. Some accessories that are available for the DragonFly is going to be the JitterBug, and the DragonTail.

I find the DragonTail is really, really handy when I plug my DragonFly into my MacBook because I can plug this into the side of my MacBook, and I get this kind of, at least, loose cable here as opposing to having something very, very hard and rigid sticking out of the side of my MacBook. That way I don't damage anything, so this helps me out with that.

And then the JitterBug here is a USB noise filter. Just like with our high-end components that we have, we would have put a surge protector and a power conditioner on it to filter the noise coming from the electrical wall, this filters the power coming out of your USB, which is powering that DragonFly. Just cleans things up and gives you the best possible performance.

The last thing I want to talk to you about is the AudioQuest Beetle. The Beetle is a Bluetooth and an optical DAC. This is a really, really nice piece to have. You can Bluetooth add this into any audio system that you have or take your newer TV and connect it to the optical and get it into your stereo system that way.

So it's a very versatile product. It sounds fantastic. So a nice way to add Bluetooth into your existing vintage stereo system.