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AFUL Audio SnowyNight Portable DAC/Amp Review

Christopher Coke Updated: Posted:
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Hardware Reviews 0

Following quickly after the release of the AFUL MagicOne, AFUL is back with a portable and affordable DAC/amp that promises to “revolutionize” your listening experience anywhere you may be listening (including PC and console). It’s exceptionally pocketable, comes packed with high-performance components, and a stylish design, and has a surprising amount of power for its tiny size. At $110, it’s definitely worth considering, no matter where you may be listening. 

Thank you to HiFiGo for providing the sample to test for this review.

Specifications

AFUL SnowyNight - Design and Features

Over the last year, AFUL has been one of the companies that has excited me the most. Its Performer 5, Performer 8, and MagicOne IEMs have been some of the most innovative and interesting that have come out in that time. The result is the SnowyNight.

The SnowyNight is a portable and pocketable DAC/amplifier. It is made to be used with either headphones or IEMs and has a respectable amount of power. It is what I consider to be the second tier of headphone adapters. The first tier would be composed of simple headphone jack adapters, like the Apple dongle. The SnowyNight is obviously much larger but isn't imposing in a pocket. It's about the size of a trinket you might find on a keychain, if a bit thicker to accommodate its circuitry. The trade-off for that additional size, however, is a lot more functionality.

Starting with the aesthetics, the snowy night is small and dark gunmetal gray. It's about two inches long, under an inch wide, and about a quarter inch sick at its thinnest point. It widens out surrounding its output jacks, making room for their size. It's made of metal and feels solid in the hand. I've dropped it by accident at least once and it survived without a scratch. 

The front of the unit has the AFUL branding as well as a pattern of snowflakes that appear to be laser etched. In the center of this field of flakes is a larger led backlit snowflake. This lights up when it has power and can indicate the type of file being played.

Moving to the sides, there is a volume control on the left with up and down buttons. This is separate from your system volume so gives you a greater degree of control over how loud your music or games are. On the back is a USB Type-C port to connect with your device. On the other side are two jacks to connect your headphones. You have a 3.5mm single-ended jack for traditional headphones as well as a 4.4mm balanced output. 

The design of this DAC really leans into balanced output. The implementation of its headphone amplifier doubles the power output when connecting over balanced. There is still plenty of power regardless of which connection you use for the vast majority of headphones; however, for more demanding cans you will want to use the balanced out. In terms of milliwatts, AFUL specifies 140mW to 300mW without designating which port or gain mode. For voltage, it can output 1 VRMS in low gain and 2 VRMS in high gain when using the 3.5mm port. Balanced doubles that for each mode, topping out at 4 VRMS.

While this isn't enough power for the most demanding planars, it's still enough to listen comfortably to most pairs of headphones and any IEM I am aware of. It offered plenty for my Sennheiser HD6XX headphones, which are fairly high impedance, for example.

The DAC side of things doubles things up and utilizes a pair of Cirrus-Logic CS43198 chips. These chips are able to output audio up to 32-bit/768kHz and support DSD up to DSD256, as well as DoP256. There is no support for MQA (which isn’t a big loss now that the veil has been pierced), and there’s also no app support for customizable EQ profiles. That’s a bit of a disappointment, but SnowyNight allows you to cycle through five filter modes by holding both power buttons. The changes are small but audible so you have a little control. 

The device also supports both UAC 2.0 and 1.0, which means it's compatible with just about everything (there’s a Lightning version for Apple users). The issue here is that you need to put it into UAC 1.0 mode before it will actually work with consoles. It’s not difficult (you hold both volume buttons before plugging it in), but it’s also not explained at all in the manual — which is also true of the filter modes — so it’s possible to miss console support entirely if you don’t happen upon this feature online. 

The SnowyNight boasts some respectable specs when it comes to noise and dynamic range. The signal-to-noise ratio is only 125dB using the single-ended port and 130dB over the more powerful balanced connection. The dynamic range matches this. AFUL rates the noise at 1uV over single-ended and 1.5uV over balanced. It’s clear that the company has put an emphasis on making this unit as quiet as possible. It also comes with a braided and shielded USB cable to prevent any external interference.

AFUL SnowyNight - Listening Impressions 

With that out of the way, let's get into how it sounds and what it's like to live with the AFUL SnowyNight. The first thing to know is that the emphasis on having a low noise floor has paid off. This is a DAC I would use the term “black” to describe. The noise floor is so low as to be inaudible. It provides the kind of listening experience that when you first hear it may not sound that different, but when you go back to your original device, that is the headphone jack built into your source, you'll notice that it doesn't sound as good almost right away. Many listeners spend a long time trying to put their finger on what the difference is. It's this blackness in the improved dynamic range that it brings.

So you can hear more. And you'll hear it better with the amount of gain that it's able to provide. With up to 300 watts, or four volts, of driving power there was really very little that anyone would reasonably expect to plug into this that wouldn't work well. I even plugged in some of my harder-to-drive HIFIMAN headphones, like my HE-1000 Stealth, and was able to get enough volume to have an enjoyable listening experience.

The total character of this unit is just what you would hope it would be: neutral and unassuming. This isn't a device that's going to color your headphones beyond the level of the filter that you're using and even that is very minor. It gets out of the way and empowers them to shine with the character acoustic engineers originally designed. 

They also don't add or take anything away. The majority of my listening was done with high-performance IEMs. Given the price of the unit, that might not make sense, but what I wanted to see is whether or not it would enhance or detract from the performance of two sets I know are very technical and revealing. The sets were the Thieaudio Hype 10 (review coming soon) and Linsoul x HBB Jupiter. Accounting for changes in volume as best as I can, the replay on the SnowyNight was identical to much more expensive standalone players like the Fiio M15. If you want warmth or enhanced detail with a treble hike, this isn’t the DAC for you.

But for my tastes, that’s a good thing. When I'm listening, almost always what I really want to hear is my headphones or IEMs. I value a consistent experience and don't want the sound of my sets to change just because I'm going to a different device. Rather than color what you're listening to, it does honor to what you're listening to.

 My biggest pet peeve with this device is that it is poorly explained. For example, the manual completely neglects to mention anything about filter modes or that you can change the UAC mode.  It describes changing from low gain to high gain, but its lack of clarity certainly led to some early confusion since swapping filters and swapping game modes are both done by holding the volume button simultaneously. Until I referenced the review documents, I was left feeling like my gain switch was broken when I was actually accidentally changing filters. It's a small issue but it's also one that could have been easily fixed and would prevent people from missing features or wondering why features aren't working correctly.

Final Thoughts

At $110, the AFUL SnowyNight is far from the cheapest portable DAC/amp, but it is a very good one. It's well-built and offers a surprising amount of power, allowing it to be versatile. The low noise floor allows you to hear all the detail your headphones are capable of delivering and can sound just as good as they’re able to for the majority of headphones today. Also, though it may not mean much in the face of sound and power performance, it’s just a really nice device to hold and carry. It's solid, has a cable that is far better than most of the competition at this price, and looks good with its little blue snowflake. AFUL is well on its way to establishing a pretty unique brand identity and I’m here for it.

If you’re looking for a portable DAC/amp hybrid that will work with nearly every device, has plenty of volume headroom, is made for the daily grind,  and will push your headphones to their full potential, this is a strong option that’s worth considering

The product described in this article was provided by the manufacturer for evaluation purposes. Articles may include affiliate links from which we may earn a small commission to help support the site. Authors do not earn affiliate revenue or commissions.

8.0 Great
Pros
  • Neutral sound signature with plenty of detail
  • Exceptionally portable
  • Made for the rigors of daily use
  • Very low noise floor
  • Uniquely stylish design
Cons
  • Poorly explained controls
  • No app support
  • Compatibility with PS5/Xbox requires additional steps


GameByNight

Christopher Coke

Chris cut his teeth on MMOs in the late 90s with text-based MUDs. He’s written about video games for many different sites but has made MMORPG his home since 2013. Today, he acts as Hardware and Technology Editor, lead tech reviewer, and continues to love and write about games every chance he gets. Follow him on Twitter: @GameByNight