But in actual reality, a good quality USB dongle (like apple’s for example) there is little to no hearable or measurable difference. Hell, over on reddit, someone just did a casual blind test again with a few audiophile friends and they all failed.
Every blind test done in the past decade has proven this over and over and over again.
Audio is extremely easy with modern ICs. You can get DAC ICs for 2-3€ that sounds the same as DACs products for 200€. We are reaching terahertz DACs now. Gigahertz DACs are established. <100kHz can be perfectly recreated now cheaply and in a tiny footprint.
Volume, sure, they won’t necessarily drive 600Ohm headphones loud enough, but that is an AMP problem, not a DAC problem.
(Though this is even more reason that an on-board phone DAC is ridiculously easy and there is no need for removing the headphone jack)
Of course not but it uses USB so you cannot block that which increases attack surface for no reason
Nobody can hack you via a headphone jack
And Apple heavily reduces the volume on non-Apple devices, which is very audible on bigger headphones. Mine are made to be used on normal hardware but they are already quite limited. Fine, but at the total max volume.
Audio is extremely easy with modern ICs.
Yes and that is why DACs are stupid
causing wear on your port (where you need to remove the display to replace it, and that you use for charging AND data transfer) is stupid
It is not okay that they cost minimum 10€
Low quality usb plugs will cause wear on your port. I had cheap ones and they were fine but got a bad contact very quickly.
Builtin jacks are so amazing. They just work. They make tech pleasant, instead of worrying about silly connectivity issues that nobody should care about
One advantage of USB-C earbuds is that they can have ANC without needing an integrated battery or other power source, since they are powered by the USB-C port
How do you think they create (analog) sound from the (digital) data from the USB-C port? There is an integrated chip with hardware USB support, stereo DAC and headphone-level amp, all of which is cheap now.
Or was what you meant “the chip is built into the plug, the cable of the headphones is analog so subject to interference”? That is true and negates one of the advantages, although most audible interference is picked up pre-amplification (so the DAC and amp better be shielded, like inside a phone, which is not possible with USB-C).
Yeah. Usually the same kind of hardware that’d be used for a 3.5mm jack. This is to ease transition from 3.5mm, and why the usb-c to 3.5mm adapters are usually wires with no active components.
Most USB+c controllers you’d find that’d be used as phones just have this functionality built-in.
The sole reason my current phone is a Motorola instead of a Fairphone. I don’t want to fuck around with additional adapters, just let me plug in my headphones directly. Also nice to be able to charge and listen at the same time.
The audiophiles will crucify me, but I will accept two USBC ports as consolation.
I just hate how bulky most c connectors are and feel like that they break more easily because of that.
There is this kind of audiophile that pretends that USB DAC’s are better anyways
(They arent, for normal headphones)
But in actual reality, a good quality USB dongle (like apple’s for example) there is little to no hearable or measurable difference. Hell, over on reddit, someone just did a casual blind test again with a few audiophile friends and they all failed.
Every blind test done in the past decade has proven this over and over and over again.
Audio is extremely easy with modern ICs. You can get DAC ICs for 2-3€ that sounds the same as DACs products for 200€. We are reaching terahertz DACs now. Gigahertz DACs are established. <100kHz can be perfectly recreated now cheaply and in a tiny footprint.
Volume, sure, they won’t necessarily drive 600Ohm headphones loud enough, but that is an AMP problem, not a DAC problem.
(Though this is even more reason that an on-board phone DAC is ridiculously easy and there is no need for removing the headphone jack)
Of course not but it uses USB so you cannot block that which increases attack surface for no reason
Nobody can hack you via a headphone jack
And Apple heavily reduces the volume on non-Apple devices, which is very audible on bigger headphones. Mine are made to be used on normal hardware but they are already quite limited. Fine, but at the total max volume.
Yes and that is why DACs are stupid
causing wear on your port (where you need to remove the display to replace it, and that you use for charging AND data transfer) is stupid
It is not okay that they cost minimum 10€
Low quality usb plugs will cause wear on your port. I had cheap ones and they were fine but got a bad contact very quickly.
Builtin jacks are so amazing. They just work. They make tech pleasant, instead of worrying about silly connectivity issues that nobody should care about
Right, there are cheap usb-c headphone now lol. Really no reason not to have high quality headphones with their own dedicated high end DAC
One advantage of USB-C earbuds is that they can have ANC without needing an integrated battery or other power source, since they are powered by the USB-C port
Those cheap USB c headphones virtually never have their own DAC
Edit: I’m wrong, see reply
How do you think they create (analog) sound from the
(digital) datafrom the USB-C port? There is an integrated chip with hardware USB support, stereo DAC and headphone-level amp, all of which is cheap now.Or was what you meant “the chip is built into the plug, the cable of the headphones is analog so subject to interference”? That is true and negates one of the advantages, although most audible interference is picked up pre-amplification (so the DAC and amp better be shielded, like inside a phone, which is not possible with USB-C).
USB-C does support analog out (see AAAM) so long as the host device supports / has nessesary hardware.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB-C#Audio_adapter_accessory_mode
TIL. Thanks!
Yeah. Usually the same kind of hardware that’d be used for a 3.5mm jack. This is to ease transition from 3.5mm, and why the usb-c to 3.5mm adapters are usually wires with no active components.
Most USB+c controllers you’d find that’d be used as phones just have this functionality built-in.
Thanks for the info. Still acceptable to skip the 3.5mm plug though. Just one less component easily replaced by usb-c.
And I assume there are more expensive over ear headphones with a better DAC. Not that I’d ever be able to hear much of a difference lol
The sole reason my current phone is a Motorola instead of a Fairphone. I don’t want to fuck around with additional adapters, just let me plug in my headphones directly. Also nice to be able to charge and listen at the same time.