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Somehow I don't trust most headphone manufacturers to include a decent DAC. The price of a pair of Beats headphones in no way corresponds with the quality of t

Somehow I don't trust most headphone manufacturers to include a decent DAC. The price of a pair of Beats headphones in no way corresponds with the quality of the drivers inside or the build quality of the unit itself, since they tend to blow most of the profits on fancy marketing and packaging I can't be sure they're not going to cheap out on the DAC too.

smegel 9y ago
Interestingly, many people have been using digital out into a portable high quality dac/amp on a range of devices for many years. Quality blows away anything inside a phone or headphones, and can drive larger headphones, and has an analogue volume control, multi jack outputs and separate battery supply. I would recommend this option over old school headphone jacks or new "digital" headphones.
- amiga-workbench 9y ago
  Yeah, I've seen people rubber banding classic iPods onto pile of DAC's and headphone amps, it looks a bit strange.
new299 9y ago
Hmm, there are good headphone manufacturers though. Shure make decent, relatively cheap in-ear headphones. They also have a lightening port interface set.
rusk 9y ago
I foresee a thriving secondary market in high quality DACs that people can just connect their extant headphones to. I hope this can work just by way way of plugging directly into the lightning port otherise it's another thing for me to charge sigh
- amiga-workbench 9y ago
  Remember the awesome inline-controls Sony used to have on their minidisc players? I wouldn't mind seeing those come back with an integrated DAC and a small OLED display for track info.
  - rusk 9y ago
    This should in theory be possible with current generation technology. I can get this info on my car stereo whether playing across bluetooth or usb, and I could get it on my pebble watch, but frustratingly it's very hard otherwise to find standalone devices that do this. As far as I can make out it's all down to differing bluetooth application profiles and licencing. Again from a customer point of view very frustrating.
- cr1895 9y ago
  >I foresee a thriving secondary market in high quality DACs that people can just connect their extant headphones to. No need to foresee...plenty of external amp/DACs already on the market.
  - rusk 9y ago
    Hardly a thriving market though. I'm talking mainstream

smegel 9y ago

Interestingly, many people have been using digital out into a portable high quality dac/amp on a range of devices for many years. Quality blows away anything inside a phone or headphones, and can drive larger headphones, and has an analogue volume control, multi jack outputs and separate battery supply. I would recommend this option over old school headphone jacks or new "digital" headphones.

amiga-workbench 9y ago
Yeah, I've seen people rubber banding classic iPods onto pile of DAC's and headphone amps, it looks a bit strange.

new299 9y ago

Hmm, there are good headphone manufacturers though. Shure make decent, relatively cheap in-ear headphones. They also have a lightening port interface set.

rusk 9y ago

I foresee a thriving secondary market in high quality DACs that people can just connect their extant headphones to. I hope this can work just by way way of plugging directly into the lightning port otherise it's another thing for me to charge sigh

amiga-workbench 9y ago
Remember the awesome inline-controls Sony used to have on their minidisc players? I wouldn't mind seeing those come back with an integrated DAC and a small OLED display for track info.
- rusk 9y ago
  This should in theory be possible with current generation technology. I can get this info on my car stereo whether playing across bluetooth or usb, and I could get it on my pebble watch, but frustratingly it's very hard otherwise to find standalone devices that do this. As far as I can make out it's all down to differing bluetooth application profiles and licencing. Again from a customer point of view very frustrating.
cr1895 9y ago
>I foresee a thriving secondary market in high quality DACs that people can just connect their extant headphones to. No need to foresee...plenty of external amp/DACs already on the market.
- rusk 9y ago
  Hardly a thriving market though. I'm talking mainstream