It’s hard to imagine a phone connector endgame that involves any type of socket and cable anyway. It seems unlikely now that Apple will create a Lightning-to-Lightning cable that can fix this for the AirPods Max – perhaps the current headphones haven't been built in a way that would allow this to happen, anyway – but we hope lossless wired listening will be doable in any successive pair. As the Lightning-ported AirPods Max can only accept a digital (not analogue) signal when wired – and only using Apple's proprietary Lightning-to-3.5mm audio cable, which inherently cannot transmit audio losslessly due to its analogue-to-digital process – there's no way of listening to absolute lossless music through the AirPods Max. It might be a good excuse for Apple to give its wired AirPods Max headphones a rethink, too – and the firm surely wouldn't make the same gaffe twice. We would, however, feel for manufacturers who have already gone the extra mile (cost- and perhaps licence-wise) to ensure their offerings are Lightning compatible. Apple seems to be loosening its grip, with some third-party DACs now able to get around needing Apple’s camera adapter dongle by making their own. Apple will surely develop its own Lightning-to-USB-C adapter to cover its billion+ legacy devices out there, but perhaps there is an opportunity for something better too.Īs for existing third-party USB-C DACs, that could well be one less adapter (and bit of bulk) required for them to fit into a new iPhone – that is, if Apple allows them to play ball with iPhones from a software and power current point of view, which has been a hurdle for some supporting iPhones in the past. Perhaps the ‘Apple DAC’ pot is already brewing, waiting for the USB-C switch. When Apple started offering hi-res tracks on its Music service last year and it became clear that iPhones couldn’t natively make the very most of it without an external DAC, we wondered why Apple hadn’t cashed in and released its own at that seemingly appropriate time – one of a higher quality than its fundamentally crude Lightning-to-3.5mm adapter, which is essentially a DAC and low-power amplifier that arguably acts as more of an 'enabler' than an 'improver'. But indirectly, the switch to USB-C could still have implications on how we consume higher quality music on iPhones. A connection is a connection and it’ll come down to whether Apple allows the DACs inside its future iPhones and/or adaptors to passthrough higher than 48kHz sample rates uncompressed. But will iPhone sound quality be affected?ĭirectly, no. Of course, having one charging cable to fit all devices is ultimately more convenient, too. USB-C cables are generally cheaper – Lightning cables can be picked up very affordably now, but they aren't often Apple ( 'MFi') certified their transfer data speed is significantly faster than Lightning – 40Gbps vs 480Mbps (though it should be said that Apple doesn’t release all specifications of its proprietary technology) and they support fast-charging due to higher power delivery capability – currently you need a 20-watt adapter and USB-C adapter cable to fast-charge an iPhone. While there are downsides to Apple switching to USB-C, such as Lightning being a physically slightly smaller connector and therefore allowing for slightly slimmer devices, there are also benefits to the move, particularly for the consumer. That could be an ‘in-line’ portable DAC like the new Astell & Kern AK HC2 Dual DAC Cable (which comes boxed with a tiny Lightning adapter) or a USB-A-ended DAC like the Audioquest DragonFly Cobalt that requires Apple’s Lightning-to-USB camera adapter to connect to an iPhone. Over Bluetooth, the audio limitations are more severe due to the technology's need to compress.Īt the moment, if you want to listen to 24-bit/96kHz or higher, you need an external DAC filling between your iPhone and wired headphones sandwich, end of. You could alternatively go down the Lightning headphones route and plug a pair straight into your iPhone, but in our experience, their DACs tend to ‘only’ handle up to 24-bit/48kHz too (perhaps an Apple-stated requirement in order to be licensed).
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