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Inside Apple’s Lightning Audio Adapter

Discussion in 'Article Discussion' started by Melody Bot, Oct 7, 2016.

  1. Melody Bot

    Your friendly little forum bot. Staff Member

    This article has been imported from chorus.fm for discussion. All of the forum rules still apply.

    Jeff Suovanen, writing at iFixIt, tears down Apple’s new headphone dongle:


    The takeaway seems to be that in some areas, the sound quality does measure a bit worse from the adapter than we might be accustomed to. For instance, when playing an uncompressed 16-bit audio file on the iPhone 6s, the dynamic range dropped from 99.1 dB at the headphone jack to 97.3 dB at the adapter. Though keep in mind, this slightly lower measurement is still higher than the theoretical maximum you get from a compact disc (which is 96 dB). So, is it a difference you are likely to notice? If you sit in a quiet room with a really, really good pair of headphones … and you’re a canine, the answer is: maybe.

    Those x-ray photographs are pretty incredible.

     
  2. theredline

    Trusted Supporter

    I feel like I'm not looking for audiophile quality when I'm using my phone. I'm at work, in the car, on the bus...it doesn't matter. At home, where I care, I have vinyl. I just don't get people going apeshit over this. My ears just don't hear a difference
     
    SPine likes this.
  3. Supernova

    Prayers/Triangles Prestigious

    I did notice that once I swapped phones and started using the adapter vs straight 3.5 jack in my vehicles, I had to turn the volume up a couple notches to get where I want to be volume wise. With my Pioneer radio I 40-41 was normal, now it's 42-45. In my Subaru stock radio it was 30-32, now its 32-34. Not scientific, but reading some of that with the dB changes, that makes it all make sense.