3 ms·

Why is it so hard to just use a dongle? I use old-school wired studio headphones with my iPhone... I just leave the dongle that came with the phone on them.

by beat 7y ago

leetcrew 7y ago
if you only use that pair on headphones for your phone, it's only a minor inconvenience to just keep it attached to the headphones. if not, it becomes yet another small item that you can forget or lose. the real issue with dongles from my perspective is that they move the DAC out of the phone. manufacturers already tend to cut corners with onboard DACs, and they're likely to use even worse components in a $5 dongle. in theory, usb-c could enable headphone manufacturers to move the DAC to the headphones themselves and use much better components than a mass market phone would. unfortunately I think the future is probably "good enough" but convenient wireless protocols.
- beat 7y ago
  I actually use those headphones for other things (I'm a studio recording musician in my copious spare time, and they're my favorite studio headphones). I just put the dongle in the same pocket as my wallet and loose change. Haven't lost it yet. I'm not sure the iPhone dongle is even a DAC. It seems like an analog pass-through, but I could be wrong. At any rate, after decades of playing music and producing numerous albums, I figure I'm as golden-eared as anyone, and I don't feel the sound is compromised.
  - wilsonnb3 7y ago
    It is a DAC, and according to this source a pretty good one. https://www.kenrockwell.com/apple/lightning-adapter-audio-quality.htm https://www.kenrockwell.com/apple/lightning-adapter-audio-qu...
    - twic 7y ago
      When it comes to cameras, Ken Rockwell is infamous for never giving a bad review. Apparently everything is awesome.
      - beat 7y ago
        I dunno. I used to read Ken Rockwell a lot back when I bought a lot of camera gear, and he can be pretty harsh on things he doesn't like. His attitude is mostly positive, but I think that's in part because he documented an era of incredible improvements in camera technology.
  - leetcrew 7y ago
    not an iPhone owner, but I think the dongle DAC that ships with iPhones is actually not considered too bad. the dongle that came with my pixel 2 is not great. sounds worse than my dell tower at work. the real issue is all the third party dongle makers.
Johnny555 7y ago
When I got my Pixel 3, I found it super annoying to have to carry around a dongle, I have a handful of headphones in the car, home, office, etc. Finally I just bought a half-dozen USB-C->headphone dongles, one for each headphone and keep the dongle on the headphones all the time. I'm still annoyed that I can't charge and use headphones at the same time (I have a different dongle with a charge port that I use on the plane), but other than that, it's not so bad. Still annoying that I had to pay $60 to use my phone the way I want to, but with so many phones dropping the headphone jack, I gave up trying to resist. (I'm still resisting moving to bluetooth headphones, I can never remember to keep them charged) Dongles are available on Amazon for as low as a few dollars, but I couldn't tell which ones were good and which were junk, even the Google branded ones had reviews saying they were not legitimate Google branded, so I bought the $9 ones off Apple's website, which work fine on my Pixel.
- Bedon292 7y ago
  What dongle do you use on the plane? Hadn't found one yet that was definitely going to work on the Pixel 3.
  - Johnny555 7y ago
    I got this one on the advice of a coworker: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=B07GSZ124H&ref=is_s https://www.amazon.com/s?k=B07GSZ124H&ref=is_s It works ok, but charging is slow, it keeps my phone from discharging while watching a movie, but it barely charges (like it would if plugged directly into a USB cable)
holy_city 7y ago
Because I'd need three dongles for home/office/car when a couple bucks of copper does the job. Personally, I just stopped using my phone as an audio device. The only thing I listen to on it are videos, and I don't plug in headphones for that.

Why is it so hard to just use a dongle? I use old-school wired studio headphones with my iPhone... I just leave the dongle that came with the phone on them.

by beat 7y ago

Why is it so hard to just use a dongle? I use old-school wired studio headphones with my iPhone... I just leave the dongle that came with the phone on them.

leetcrew 7y ago

if you only use that pair on headphones for your phone, it's only a minor inconvenience to just keep it attached to the headphones. if not, it becomes yet another small item that you can forget or lose. the real issue with dongles from my perspective is that they move the DAC out of the phone. manufacturers already tend to cut corners with onboard DACs, and they're likely to use even worse components in a $5 dongle. in theory, usb-c could enable headphone manufacturers to move the DAC to the headphones themselves and use much better components than a mass market phone would. unfortunately I think the future is probably "good enough" but convenient wireless protocols.

beat 7y ago
I actually use those headphones for other things (I'm a studio recording musician in my copious spare time, and they're my favorite studio headphones). I just put the dongle in the same pocket as my wallet and loose change. Haven't lost it yet. I'm not sure the iPhone dongle is even a DAC. It seems like an analog pass-through, but I could be wrong. At any rate, after decades of playing music and producing numerous albums, I figure I'm as golden-eared as anyone, and I don't feel the sound is compromised.
- wilsonnb3 7y ago
  It is a DAC, and according to this source a pretty good one. https://www.kenrockwell.com/apple/lightning-adapter-audio-quality.htm https://www.kenrockwell.com/apple/lightning-adapter-audio-qu...
  - twic 7y ago
    When it comes to cameras, Ken Rockwell is infamous for never giving a bad review. Apparently everything is awesome.
    - beat 7y ago
      I dunno. I used to read Ken Rockwell a lot back when I bought a lot of camera gear, and he can be pretty harsh on things he doesn't like. His attitude is mostly positive, but I think that's in part because he documented an era of incredible improvements in camera technology.
- leetcrew 7y ago
  not an iPhone owner, but I think the dongle DAC that ships with iPhones is actually not considered too bad. the dongle that came with my pixel 2 is not great. sounds worse than my dell tower at work. the real issue is all the third party dongle makers.

Johnny555 7y ago

When I got my Pixel 3, I found it super annoying to have to carry around a dongle, I have a handful of headphones in the car, home, office, etc. Finally I just bought a half-dozen USB-C->headphone dongles, one for each headphone and keep the dongle on the headphones all the time. I'm still annoyed that I can't charge and use headphones at the same time (I have a different dongle with a charge port that I use on the plane), but other than that, it's not so bad. Still annoying that I had to pay $60 to use my phone the way I want to, but with so many phones dropping the headphone jack, I gave up trying to resist. (I'm still resisting moving to bluetooth headphones, I can never remember to keep them charged) Dongles are available on Amazon for as low as a few dollars, but I couldn't tell which ones were good and which were junk, even the Google branded ones had reviews saying they were not legitimate Google branded, so I bought the $9 ones off Apple's website, which work fine on my Pixel.

Bedon292 7y ago
What dongle do you use on the plane? Hadn't found one yet that was definitely going to work on the Pixel 3.
- Johnny555 7y ago
  I got this one on the advice of a coworker: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=B07GSZ124H&ref=is_s https://www.amazon.com/s?k=B07GSZ124H&ref=is_s It works ok, but charging is slow, it keeps my phone from discharging while watching a movie, but it barely charges (like it would if plugged directly into a USB cable)

holy_city 7y ago

Because I'd need three dongles for home/office/car when a couple bucks of copper does the job. Personally, I just stopped using my phone as an audio device. The only thing I listen to on it are videos, and I don't plug in headphones for that.