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What is the sound quality like when connecting 3.5mm to lightning on 7?
- Thread starter Zellio
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Audiophiles listening to music on an iPhone? Don't make me laugh
I've always wondered, how much does it cost to really be rolling as an audiophile anyway? Despite not necessarily being able to afford it all at once at first, you inevitably will succumb to upgrading to the best pre-amps, the best amps, the best speakers, five different sets of headphones, etc.
You need your 24+bit 192Khz audio tracks (or perhaps DSD 5.6MHz), and so on, forget about iTunes 256kb/s AAC or even regular 16-bit flac cd-encodes, and Spotify, let's not even think about that. Then every year new gear comes out that's improved, it's like never ending.
The lightning port does not support analogue passthrough, that being the case the 9$ dongle must contain a very, very cheap DAC.
If lightning had an audio passthrough why would Apple include a Wolfson WM8533 DAC in the lightning to 30 pin adapter, rather that just pass the audio along?
The only way Apple could introduce analogue passthrough would be to, say quietly introduce a lighting 2 with analogue passthrough, however seeing as the 9$ dongle is compatible with phones going back to iPhone 5, this would be impossible.
Sources:
https://www.chipworks.com/about-chipworks/overview/blog/inside-apple-lightning-30-pin-adapter
http://www.apple.com/shop/product/MMX62AM/A/lightning-to-35-mm-headphone-jack-adapter
All it takes is a great set of earphones like the Shure SE846. And a great headphone port like that of the iPhone 6.
HD files are fine for audio processing, for personal listening is a moot overkill pushed by marketing and placebo.
yeah, but if we use 3.5mm then it's like
digital -- analog -- plug (loss) -- your ear
if you use lightning its like
digital -- plug (lossless) -- analog -- your ear
it reduces the noise, I'm not saying there's any 'noticeable' (it all depends on individuals) quality loss, but in theory the second one should be superior
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but one difference between analogy and digital is analog is much easier to have noise when passing through a plug.
so using a digital port eliminate one source of noise.
So you are saying the physical 3.5mm degrades the audio quality, as in connection wise ? And the lightning port will not have connection issues?
In theory, yes. A pretty worn out connector plus a cheap insert will theoretically introduce noise, therefore degrade signal quality. Since it's analog already, the headphone doesn't have anything to eliminate the noise
i'd be surprised if any of the old iphones was using a DAC that costs more than a few $...
Up to the iphone 6 the DACs Apple used were generally nothing special but the DACs built into the iPhone 6 and 6s series were generally seen as a big improvement.
still doesn't tell us if it's more than a few bucks though.
sadly the only thing i found about it is this (iphone 6s estimate):
According to techinsights, power managerment and audio cost is about $7.5still doesn't tell us if it's more than a few bucks though.
sadly the only thing i found about it is this (iphone 6s estimate):
In the second one, you've somehow forgotten that there is an analog plug. It's on the female end of the adapter. So it actually looks like this:
digital -- plug (lossless) -- analog -- plug (loss) -- your ear.
The only difference will be the quality of the DAC.
EDIT: AHHHH. I get it now. You're only talking about the lightning earpods. In that case, there is still an interface, it's just not a plug. It's the solder points between the wires coming from the earpod speakers and the output of the DAC.
I doubt the amount of noise introduced in the interface between headphones and a 3.5mm jack is more detectable that the noise introduced at the solder points between the DAC in the lightning earpods and the wires to the speakers in the earpods.
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Not really an expert, but I didn't really notice a difference listening to my music via the lightning to 3.5mm converter dongle. Sounded the same with my iPhone 6S headphones.
What I can comment on is that I hate the dongle and the removal of the audio jack. The 3.5mm female end is heavy, and causes the entire set of headphones w/wires to become heavy. I had a flight the other day, and I also noticed that I had gotten so used to the 3.5mm jack, that I tried plugging another set of headphones into my iPhone 7, only to realize it's not there anymore. If I wasn't on an upgrade plan, I would've just kept my old iPhone. Courage at its finest.
What I can comment on is that I hate the dongle and the removal of the audio jack. The 3.5mm female end is heavy, and causes the entire set of headphones w/wires to become heavy. I had a flight the other day, and I also noticed that I had gotten so used to the 3.5mm jack, that I tried plugging another set of headphones into my iPhone 7, only to realize it's not there anymore. If I wasn't on an upgrade plan, I would've just kept my old iPhone. Courage at its finest.
well, there isn't really an 'interface'. it's one wire straight between DAC and 'speaker'. but for 3.5mm, the wire breaks into two parts with the 3.5mm jack in between.
it's DAC -------- Earpod vs. DAC ---- 3.5mm female - 3.5mm male ---- Earpod
however, this will only decrease quality in theory. in reality, most people can't differentiate a $50 earphone vs $1500 one... and really serious people won't use iPhone to to serious listening, will they?
The interface is the solder point. The DAC is a chip with output pins. It's soldered to a board, and then wires are soldered to the board.
The only difference between a jack and a solder point is how much contact there is, and how much metal is exposed. It's essentially the same thing.
No, it's DAC -- solder point -- trace on circuit board -- solder point -- Earpod.
This is a pointless argument though. No human being will be able to tell the difference, everything else being equal.
This issue has been discussed to a great length already but id like to add my 2 cents. I took a computer architecture class last year and we had to l earn about how DAC and ADC work. In general when converting from digital -> analog or digital-> digital we will loose quality. This happens because of the limitations that digital data has.
All digital data is stores as either a 1 or a 0. Analog can represent any range in between these like 0.25 or 0.98 for example. So in general this will always cause some loss of some sort. Will it be noticeable? Probably not because we have already been using DAC on the older iphones and almost every electronic device has to use one in order to produce sound if we are using the 3.5mm jack.
All digital data is stores as either a 1 or a 0. Analog can represent any range in between these like 0.25 or 0.98 for example. So in general this will always cause some loss of some sort. Will it be noticeable? Probably not because we have already been using DAC on the older iphones and almost every electronic device has to use one in order to produce sound if we are using the 3.5mm jack.
you missed a very important, which is, there will be a DAC chip-circuit board connection regardless we are using lightning, 3.5mm or anything else.
in your original post you said "In that case, there is still an interface, it's just not a plug. It's the solder points between the wires coming from the earpod speakers and the output of the DAC."
but do we need to consider that? no, because that's the same for both digital or analog. so, maybe we should say, 3.5mm analogy has an extra interface?