Apogee Electronics Groove

Easily held in your hand or carried in your pocket, Groove is a little larger than a USB thumb drive and comes with a short USB cable to connect it to your computer. It connects "in-line" between your phones and your computer's USB socket and has a rubberized base to keep it stabilized when placed on your desktop. It has a 1/8-inch mini stereo TRS output jack that will accept ear buds, full size studio headphones, or direct connection to your powered monitors.

The controls are simple. It has proper-sized up/down volume buttons that are easy to adjust. Groove is powered via the USB 2.0 connection and is class-compliant for MACs; Groove shows up in the MAC's Sound Preference panel ready to be selected. For PC use on computers manufactured after Jan. 2006, simple download and install the driver available at: Apogeedigital.com/register.

I have been mixing a Pop song in my Pro Tools studio so I was extremely familiar with its mix and overall sound. I connected Groove and plugged in my set of Shure SRH840 headphones. These are the same set I use to check mixes using a studio headphone amp. I found useful the three green and blue LEDs to indicate audio present and when you change the audio volume up or down.

The sound is marvelous--the best I've heard yet from portable headphone/DACs I've used in the past. It sounds like the mix playing directly out of Pro Tools--clear high frequencies and accurate and distinct bass. Groove uses a Constant Current Drive™ headphone amp circuit to provide a smooth frequency response when used with any set of headphones. There was no problem driving (louder than I can take) the 40-mm drivers in the SRH840s with their 44-ohm impedance.

Another tech detail is the Quad Sum DAC™ that uses 4 DACs per channel (8 total) for the highest dynamic range and lowest distortion. Groove works at 24-bit and up to 192kHz sample rates so I can quickly listen to master audio files without conversion.

If you use a laptop for "on the go" music production, you should hear how your mixes now sound--better than your computer's DAC and headphone amp. You'll like its small size and it makes a great playback system for mobile FLAC file collectors or if you are subscribing to HD music streaming services such as HD Tracks or Tidal®.