But I got fooled to believe that it improves the sound of the more sensitive iems – it does not.Īnything the Apple adapter drives sounds excellent be it phone or computer. Not that it is a bad product, it is well worth its money and serves the purpose of running higher-impedance headphones. The USB-C works well with my old MacBook Air via a USB to USB-C adapter ($1 ordered from China).Ī few years ago, I got sucked in by the reviews of the Audioquest Dragonfly Black (which also has a low output impedance of <1 ohm). I purchased both versions, the USB-C and Lightning ones. In other words, excellent transparent performance regardless of price. There is absolutely no reason at all to pay more for a USB DAC, at least purely based on sound quality with headphones.“ Seriously, there’s absolutely no subjective sonic fault that I could find, regardless of price. Precise and tight bass reproduction with sensitive multi-BA in-ears. He writes: “…Neutral, clear, clean and very precise. Basically as audibly transparent, good-sounding and clean-sounding to my ears as it gets. The Headphone Collector also analyzed the USB-C version. They measured the Apple’s output impedance at 0.9 ohm (compared to the 7.6 ohm of the Google Pixel V2 dongle). According to them, the Apple adapter beats the Google Pixel V1 and V2 dongles as well as the thumb-drive-sized $99 Audirect Beam. Most 3rd-party headphone amps and DACs, all be they bigger and far more expensive, put out less clean power into 32Ω loads, and do it with more distortion, poorer sound and lousier frequency response.”Īudio Science Reviews measured and reviewed the USB-C version. Ken Rockwell writes on the lightning version : “… This tiny Appl e dev ice has better performance and more and cleaner output than many fancier audiophile devices I have tested. Apple has more resources to make better stuff than the smaller companies. In this case, you still don’t need a DAC the analog output from the iPhone will probably be better than that from an outboard DAC…”įrom the iPhone 7, the 3.5 mm audio jack and therefore the internal amp/dac disappared from the logic board so that the listener had to rely on the external $10 Apple “lighting to 3.5 mm headphone jack adapter” – which features the whole works: a microscopic stereo digital-to-analog converter (DAC), a stereo headphone amplifier, a microphone preamplifier, and monophonic analog-to-digital converter (ADC) – and power converters to run this all. He summarizes: “ …As expected, the analog audio output of the iPhone 5S is extraordinarily good…The only reason to get an outboard headphone amplifier for use with the iPhone 5S is if you have high-impedance (100Ω or greater) headphones which may require more voltage output than the 1V RMS from iOS devices. I have an old iPhone 5S that was analyzed by tech writer Ken Rockwell. The early iPhones featured stellar internal audio components that produced great music playback. Then there was the iPhone which made the ipod somewhat obsolete. “3000 songs in your pocket” did Apple CEO Steve Jobs announce in 2001. However a simple volume up (++) and down (-) on the controls of my headset cord works every time.First was the iPod. Prior to this, I'd tried everything from cleaning the contacts with alchol to trying every combination of polarity with my lightening adapters. Perhaps the clicks are the result of it trying to sense or use a non-headset headphone congiruation with an earbud headset.

My best theory is that the phone supports various plugs (3 & 4 segment), and by sending input it realizes which type of headphones you have in the adapter. Somehow, pressing up once and down once makes that 'repeating railroad click-a-clack' sound go away. When you use the volume controls on a wired set, it seems to make a light pop with each key press. If you are using a wired headset with mic (and 4-segment jack), click the 'Volume Up' and 'Volume down' on the wired headset and it stops. I found the solution and then searched for some threads to post it.

Iphone headphone adapter