At only $10 the Apple DAC would seem to be the deal of the century. How did it ever make it to market at that price considering that Apple likes to overprice everything?
The only issue is that the apple DAC doesn't play nicely with android since android expects the hardware volume to be set at 100% by default and it controls it in software, which the apple dongle doesn't default to. there are workarounds but they're hacky and some cost money. other than that you may have issues with in line controls not working since apple-configured DACs expect the mic and ground to be flipped which most headphones don't do.
@@JessicaFEREM That figures. Apple likes to do things their own way, so if you haven't bought into their more expensive products then I guess you don't deserve to use a cheap DAC.
Same experience for me. I have a number of portable dacs, including the dragonfly cobalt and chord mojo. My ears don’t distinguish much sound quality difference, maybe different sound flavours though. However, the volume they can achieve with hard to drive headphones is essential. But with my Shure SE535 in ears, the Apple dongle is plenty good enough. Thanks for the video.
If I can make a suggestion, the fiio ka13, the qudelix 5k, are both under 100 dollars and they provide a stark difference in sound from each other and from the apple dac.
Love using the Apple dongle for my IEMs, I find that even when I forget to set it to full volume on UAPP, it still drives most of my IEMs at about ~80% volume on my Samsung phone. I do however also carry a Fiio BTR15 for a more portable setup, and a Fiio KA13 when I need a bit of power. I forgot to bring my KA13 to a headphone store and missed out on being able to properly demo some headphones as the Apple dongle didn't cut it in terms of power. I haven't tried to sit down and properly compare all my sources (including a Meizu Hifi Pro and a Fiio K7), but there's no obvious difference that'd make me do a double take between any of them when I switch between DAC/AMPs.
What a great track. I heard the screeching over bluetooth on youtube music with the high bitrate enabled. Whislt testing out my Soundpeat Engine4. This is through my pc using Nahmic Custom EQ.
Interesting question..I hate carrying my phone everywhere when I’m using a tethered iem ..so I went with an IFI GO BLUE..and I’m very happy with that feeling of great sound without carrying both a phone and dongle 😎
Apple usb-c dongle is really great for low impedance headphones. For high impedance you need additional amplifier or other dongle with more powerfull on board amplifier
All DAC’s do sound the same. Do a frequency sweep, all modern dac’s have a flat 20hz-20khz. Where is the difference? If the output is flat, it cannot sound significantly different
I have been thinking about this from past few days.. i have kz castor . I used EQ and tone generator to have neutral profile.. when i connect jcally jm 04 pro and HEAR to sine sweep or tones generated i see there are dips and peaks now.. either jcally is not transparent or my phones dac or castor is behaving differently due to power.. i used another iem i have and i heard same dips and peaks with jcally.. so its not the iem.. People say all dacs measure flat.. any place to see graphs ?
I think you needed better DAC's (not necessarily more expensive) for this test to be worth it and to hear some real differences. I had similar experiences at the beginning with portable DAC’s. Is not about the amount of money as much as getting something current and well implemented. Some recommendations for the future: Hidizs SD2: $46 (right now it has a 15% discount in Amazon), very solid performance for the money and only DAC I have with MIC input. Meizu HIFI Pro: $23 (Considered one of the very best dongles for the money, value budget king) TANCHJIM Space Portable: $89 , maybe the best dongle at that price point and very small HiBy FC4: $80 (but many times at $60 with coupon at Amazon), the DAC that converted my kids to the dark side. The difference from their cheap $10 - $15 dongles was just too great to ignore. I almost wasn’t able to get it back.
It didn't work great on my Chromebook. So far the SoundBlaster 3 is the best of the inexpensive dongles. People say it was made to work best with Apple. I tried Google and Samsung's nothing special a FIIO JA11 is almost as good as the SoundBlaster but the SoundBlaster does a very admirable job hooked to an old school stereo for streaming. The expensive dongles are a snob thing but you do need a good one.
Hi Bob. I have that If I go link hooked to my tablet. Sounds amazing. I use a douk line level booster to get a little more gain and control of the volume on the tablet.
The Apple dongle DAC kills at it's price. Sure, you're right, it does not drive my Sennheiser 660S2 well but it is perfect when paired with my Beyer DT770 Pro 32 ohm headphones and my Moondrop Starfield IEMs.
@@benjamenYTDeadTheGamer I'd say that depends on what I am using as the source but I do tend to hear distortion creep in when I turn the source up using the Apple dongle. I don't listen at high volumes (around 75db usually) but I'd say I have way more headroom using one of my dedicated headphone amps. They sound fantastic on my Pietus Maximus or my Ragnarok.
Using Apple Dongle with my planar magnetic Hifiman and i need to beef up the volume to around 70-80 percent to achieve my normal listening db comparing to powered amp that only uses 40-50percent. Still workable if you just need something lighter than a dac-amp dangling on your phone 😂
The main reason to buy a $50 dongle instead of a $10 one is compatibility. Not only the Apple dongle, many others at that price point perform differently when attaching to various devices. Sound wise, a casual listener cannot hear differences (if they all perform at their best).
Really liked this comparison video. I also wanted to point out the apple dongle isn't actually a DAC; it's just an adapter that allows the use of the phones internal DAC because phones don't generally have headphone jacks anymore. The analog signal is sent from the internal DAC to pins on the USB/Lightning port, and the dongle simply transforms those pins into a 3.5mm jack. This is the reason for the level difference between your iPhone and the Android phone and really speaks to the higher quality of the iPhone's internal DAC.
apple dongle is not just a adapter. that include DAC chip. Every phone has internal DAC. if you using wired headphones with dongle? external dongle DAC works. using speaker, internal DAC works.
You really can't even get the apple dongle dac to work on android... System updates break it .. Youll get it working and it will stop. Its just not worth it. The apple dac also doesn't work if you have harder to drive headphones... And even on less hard to drive ones there will be less overhead= dynamics.. Also the implementation of the chip matters significantly. Thats being said, some have certain characteristics, like the cirrus chip in the 80 dollar dac you have there is able to supply way more power (and more efficiently) than basically any other "mobile" dac chip... If you're going to spend more than 80 bucks or so you probably don't want to be looking for dongle dacs anymore... You want a "normal" form factor.
I'm nopt a headphone user but just play most music in the car or PC. Playing WAV tracks on ad android phone sounds poor with or without a dongle DAC (Dragonfly Cobalt or Astell & Kern HC3). Using an iphone 6S however, the sound is better even with no DAC, better with the Cobalt and much better with the A&K HC3. I don't know why the iphone 6S is better than android (Samsung/Oppo) but it really is. The only issue is that the iphone is knackered for anything else but music and has only enough room for 150 tracks. Sounds great though and improves the PC as well. But WHY? I assume the output from Apple iphone is better than adroid?
I think it varies by android phone but some reduce the output power but you can download an app to fix it. I saw this in a similar dongle video on iiWi Reviews
I have an LG G8 android, it has a built in quad DAC and a 3.5mm headphone jack. My brother got a LG V60, which has these same features and also sounds great even with big headphones. These were probably the last android phones to take audio quality seriously. They are really cheap nowadays, so if you don't require the latest specs you could give them a try.
@@akash5180 i did volume match using a microphone because it is very hard to do by ear under 1db difference, i also used a hardware switch that instantly switch between the 2 sources into my iem, if there is a difference, my ear is not trained enough or my source data ( youtube compressed audio ) does not hold enough information to make the difference but i doubt it as i cannot hear a difference between mp3 and uncompressed in a online blind test either. so my conclusion is that source difference is less noticeable than eartips differences (which i can hear, especially between wide bore and narrow bore) so i resold my chord mojo :)
At only $10 the Apple DAC would seem to be the deal of the century. How did it ever make it to market at that price considering that Apple likes to overprice everything?
That’s such a great question!
The only issue is that the apple DAC doesn't play nicely with android since android expects the hardware volume to be set at 100% by default and it controls it in software, which the apple dongle doesn't default to. there are workarounds but they're hacky and some cost money. other than that you may have issues with in line controls not working since apple-configured DACs expect the mic and ground to be flipped which most headphones don't do.
@@JessicaFEREM That figures. Apple likes to do things their own way, so if you haven't bought into their more expensive products then I guess you don't deserve to use a cheap DAC.
@@JessicaFEREM USB Audio Player Pro will use the Apple dongle and unlock the reduced volume and poor sound on Android.
@@davidhaberman3447 yea you can do that but it's an extra hidden cost to use something that should just work
Same experience for me. I have a number of portable dacs, including the dragonfly cobalt and chord mojo. My ears don’t distinguish much sound quality difference, maybe different sound flavours though. However, the volume they can achieve with hard to drive headphones is essential. But with my Shure SE535 in ears, the Apple dongle is plenty good enough. Thanks for the video.
Thanks for watching and sharing your experience!
If I can make a suggestion, the fiio ka13, the qudelix 5k, are both under 100 dollars and they provide a stark difference in sound from each other and from the apple dac.
Thanks for the suggestion. I will have to check those out!
Are the the medical weed dispensary guy
BTR7
5k is straight garbage for the price.
I used an apple dongle as a DAC for quite a while. No headphones. ITX PC>Dongle>Amp>Speakers. It is surprisingly good for $9 CAD.
Awesome thanks for sharing and watching!
Cirrus Logic DAC chip inside the Apple dongle...Very respectable for $10 and caps out at 24/48 which again for $10 is fantastic!
Agreed! Thanks for watching and sharing!
Can you share the source for the Apple dac specification?
Love using the Apple dongle for my IEMs, I find that even when I forget to set it to full volume on UAPP, it still drives most of my IEMs at about ~80% volume on my Samsung phone. I do however also carry a Fiio BTR15 for a more portable setup, and a Fiio KA13 when I need a bit of power. I forgot to bring my KA13 to a headphone store and missed out on being able to properly demo some headphones as the Apple dongle didn't cut it in terms of power. I haven't tried to sit down and properly compare all my sources (including a Meizu Hifi Pro and a Fiio K7), but there's no obvious difference that'd make me do a double take between any of them when I switch between DAC/AMPs.
Awesome! Thanks for watching and sharing!
What a great track. I heard the screeching over bluetooth on youtube music with the high bitrate enabled. Whislt testing out my Soundpeat Engine4. This is through my pc using Nahmic Custom EQ.
Interesting question..I hate carrying my phone everywhere when I’m using a tethered iem ..so I went with an IFI GO BLUE..and I’m very happy with that feeling of great sound without carrying both a phone and dongle 😎
That sounds great. Thank you for sharing!
The only issue, there, is that BT cannot handle hi-res.
@@gwine9087 True..but the question is ..does it sound good to you ..especially when using IEM’s 😊
Have a great weekend
Got the IFI Go Blu and I like the versality and realistic bass boost. Any gripes with any of them is volume limits. All acceptable these days!
Thanks for watching and for sharing!
Those sennheisser headphones kickass.. Ive had mine for a couple years.. Got my mom a pair. They're incredible.
Awesome! Thanks for watching!
Apple usb-c dongle is really great for low impedance headphones. For high impedance you need additional amplifier or other dongle with more powerfull on board amplifier
Great point thank you!
All DAC’s do sound the same. Do a frequency sweep, all modern dac’s have a flat 20hz-20khz. Where is the difference? If the output is flat, it cannot sound significantly different
Thanks for watching!
I have been thinking about this from past few days.. i have kz castor . I used EQ and tone generator to have neutral profile.. when i connect jcally jm 04 pro and HEAR to sine sweep or tones generated i see there are dips and peaks now.. either jcally is not transparent or my phones dac or castor is behaving differently due to power.. i used another iem i have and i heard same dips and peaks with jcally.. so its not the iem..
People say all dacs measure flat.. any place to see graphs ?
I think you needed better DAC's (not necessarily more expensive) for this test to be worth it and to hear some real differences. I had similar experiences at the beginning with portable DAC’s. Is not about the amount of money as much as getting something current and well implemented.
Some recommendations for the future:
Hidizs SD2: $46 (right now it has a 15% discount in Amazon), very solid performance for the money and only DAC I have with MIC input.
Meizu HIFI Pro: $23 (Considered one of the very best dongles for the money, value budget king)
TANCHJIM Space Portable: $89 , maybe the best dongle at that price point and very small
HiBy FC4: $80 (but many times at $60 with coupon at Amazon), the DAC that converted my kids to the dark side. The difference from their cheap $10 - $15 dongles was just too great to ignore. I almost wasn’t able to get it back.
Awesome I’ll check those out thank you!
It didn't work great on my Chromebook. So far the SoundBlaster 3 is the best of the inexpensive dongles. People say it was made to work best with Apple. I tried Google and Samsung's nothing special a FIIO JA11 is almost as good as the SoundBlaster but the SoundBlaster does a very admirable job hooked to an old school stereo for streaming. The expensive dongles are a snob thing but you do need a good one.
Hi Bob. I have that If I go link hooked to my tablet. Sounds amazing. I use a douk line level booster to get a little more gain and control of the volume on the tablet.
Awesome. Thank you for sharing!
The Apple dongle DAC kills at it's price. Sure, you're right, it does not drive my Sennheiser 660S2 well but it is perfect when paired with my Beyer DT770 Pro 32 ohm headphones and my Moondrop Starfield IEMs.
I’d love to try some moon drop IEMs soon!
How loud would you say your 660S2s get?
@@benjamenYTDeadTheGamer I'd say that depends on what I am using as the source but I do tend to hear distortion creep in when I turn the source up using the Apple dongle. I don't listen at high volumes (around 75db usually) but I'd say I have way more headroom using one of my dedicated headphone amps. They sound fantastic on my Pietus Maximus or my Ragnarok.
I have The apple dongle and the ifi. The dongle sound better on my iPhone. . Lol. but the ifi pushes more power.
Using Apple Dongle with my planar magnetic Hifiman and i need to beef up the volume to around 70-80 percent to achieve my normal listening db comparing to powered amp that only uses 40-50percent. Still workable if you just need something lighter than a dac-amp dangling on your phone 😂
Thanks for watching and sharing!
My iPhone 6 Plus has a 3.5 headphone jack and doesn’t need a Dac. I use it as a stand alone music player.
They are cheap to buy.
Awesome. Thanks for sharing!
The main reason to buy a $50 dongle instead of a $10 one is compatibility. Not only the Apple dongle, many others at that price point perform differently when attaching to various devices. Sound wise, a casual listener cannot hear differences (if they all perform at their best).
Great point, thank you!
Really liked this comparison video. I also wanted to point out the apple dongle isn't actually a DAC; it's just an adapter that allows the use of the phones internal DAC because phones don't generally have headphone jacks anymore. The analog signal is sent from the internal DAC to pins on the USB/Lightning port, and the dongle simply transforms those pins into a 3.5mm jack. This is the reason for the level difference between your iPhone and the Android phone and really speaks to the higher quality of the iPhone's internal DAC.
Thanks for watching and for sharing!
apple dongle is not just a adapter. that include DAC chip. Every phone has internal DAC. if you using wired headphones with dongle? external dongle DAC works. using speaker, internal DAC works.
You really can't even get the apple dongle dac to work on android... System updates break it .. Youll get it working and it will stop. Its just not worth it.
The apple dac also doesn't work if you have harder to drive headphones... And even on less hard to drive ones there will be less overhead= dynamics..
Also the implementation of the chip matters significantly. Thats being said, some have certain characteristics, like the cirrus chip in the 80 dollar dac you have there is able to supply way more power (and more efficiently) than basically any other "mobile" dac chip...
If you're going to spend more than 80 bucks or so you probably don't want to be looking for dongle dacs anymore... You want a "normal" form factor.
I use a $8 aliexpress dongle dac on android and pc. It's loud enough for my needs lol. edit: I basically only listen to IEMs now
Thanks for sharing! What’s your favorite IEM right now?
I'm nopt a headphone user but just play most music in the car or PC. Playing WAV tracks on ad android phone sounds poor with or without a dongle DAC (Dragonfly Cobalt or Astell & Kern HC3). Using an iphone 6S however, the sound is better even with no DAC, better with the Cobalt and much better with the A&K HC3. I don't know why the iphone 6S is better than android (Samsung/Oppo) but it really is. The only issue is that the iphone is knackered for anything else but music and has only enough room for 150 tracks. Sounds great though and improves the PC as well. But WHY? I assume the output from Apple iphone is better than adroid?
I think it varies by android phone but some reduce the output power but you can download an app to fix it. I saw this in a similar dongle video on iiWi Reviews
I have an LG G8 android, it has a built in quad DAC and a 3.5mm headphone jack.
My brother got a LG V60, which has these same features and also sounds great even with big headphones.
These were probably the last android phones to take audio quality seriously.
They are really cheap nowadays, so if you don't require the latest specs you could give them a try.
i could not hear much of a difference between my apple dongle and my chord mojo ( there is one but it is a minuscule difference) with em6L
Thanks for sharing!
And to say .. mojo is a wallet heavy dac amp! Haha😅
Unfortunately, no matter how good the Apple dongle is, it does not play well with Android.
Very true. Thanks for the reminder!
I did compare apple dongle to chord mojo and i also could not hear a difference
Thanks for sharing!
What really
@@akash5180 i did volume match using a microphone because it is very hard to do by ear under 1db difference, i also used a hardware switch that instantly switch between the 2 sources into my iem, if there is a difference, my ear is not trained enough or my source data ( youtube compressed audio ) does not hold enough information to make the difference but i doubt it as i cannot hear a difference between mp3 and uncompressed in a online blind test either. so my conclusion is that source difference is less noticeable than eartips differences (which i can hear, especially between wide bore and narrow bore) so i resold my chord mojo :)
ALL DACS SOUND THE SAME
Lol.....Not even close.
No offence, but definitely noob choices. If you want a big difference from the apple dac, you gotta spend a lot more. 200ish. Get the new Onix dongle.
None taken! I pointed out in the video that results might differ if you spend more 😊. Thanks for watching!
Were you listening to it at the highest possible audio quality?
Yeah via Tidal