A great add-on to your phone. From a renowned brand. Seems on a decent price now.
Audiolab P-DAC USB Type-C to 3.5mm Headphone Amplifier DAC $139.99 + $10 Delivery @ Audio Visual Revolution
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qt139 on 16/08/2021 - 05:08 avrevolution.com.au (596 clicks)
Last edited 17/08/2021 - 09:57 by 1 other user
Last edited 17/08/2021 - 09:57 by 1 other user
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I recently compared Cyrus soundkey to the apple dongle and could not find any discernible difference. I think a lot of people confuse volume increase from voltage difference to the sound quality. Sure, some would claim and they may be right with golden ears, but as you say, a-b blind test afaik has never found a difference.
The big difference here is that the apple device is 24/48 while most others like the above are 24/192 or even better.
There's a difference in sound between most music that is of a different resolution even if its the same album… perhaps due to mastering.
But if you have some high res music the apple dongle will not be suffiicent.
I have embarrassingly quite a few dacs, they are cheap enough that you can just buy them and use them and swap them out when you feel like it.
To me they sound different, not better or worse but I do have a preference for some devices over others.
But really since 24/96 was introduced decades ago and dacs have improved they are all remarkably good now and most people would be fine with anything 24/192 now.
Apple dac is fine for everything except high res.
could not find many (if any) youtube reviews on this device..
would be much obliged if anyone could post any decent reviews on this device
Looks like this has a built in DAC so this might actually work better than other dongles like those from Apple and Google. Can get similar ones for cheaper on ebay though (minus the branding).
It's got the basic ESS Sabre ES9018 audio chip. For this price there are more and better options.
What would you recommend? Go the CHIFI route? Heard good things about the Shanling UA2 or iBasso DC03
iBasso DC04 can had for under $80. The other one would be Hiby FC3 for approximately $98 on Aliexpress. The Hiby FC3 can decode MQA and DSD128, and has an ES9281p audio chip. It's also HIRES audio certified.
@[Deactivated]: Is it really worth paying more for MQA support if there's supposedly little to no discernible difference between regular FLAC files?
@YeemaiI: It is debatable if there's a significant (or even discernible) gain in audio quality the same way some believe DSD doesn't sound that better than the humble CD. So to put that aside and if you've got $100 bucks to part with, I'd go for the Hiby FC3
@[Deactivated]: every piece of dsd music i ever got sounds better than the flac equivalent however the flac was so suffificiently good you woudnt bother with the dsd given not all dacs support it and no all win s/w does either.
as an academic excercise its nice to experience dsd but ehh…. why bother
as to these dongles, i have an issue paying for any dongle with a fixed cable rather than jacks for obvious reasons
The Apple/Google dongles have DAC's built in too btw. I don't think much info is available about the specific DAC's used in them though.
ahem 46L06-CWZR Chip from Cirrus Logic
https://www.cabledo.com/apple-usb-c-digital-to-3-5-mm-headph…
Pretty much every USB to 3.5" has a DAC. That's what DACs are - Digital to Analog Converters. USB is always a digital signal, 3.5mm in this case (for headphones) is always Analog.
Apple dongle is just as good for same price
i want a one with OPL3
Thanks for posting OP. Would love to see someone do a blind test a $15 Apple USB C to 3.5mm vs the Audiolab to see how it goes.
Some context linked here, but it's not the Audiolab being compared: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/r…
Apple dongle here for $15: https://www.apple.com/au/shop/product/MU7E2FE/A/usb-c-to-35-…
Maybe on a dark and stormy night when Tidal Master streaming waves are synchronised with Jupiter rising it sounds better. The rest of the time? Maybe. Maybe not.