Driving headphones from phones without 3.5mm socket

[nails666]

Hi, with so many phones now dropping the 3.5mm headphone socket I was wondering what the options are for driving proper headphones from them? In this context I'm thinking of headphones like the Sony MDR-1A that can be driven fine from most phones and not super high end cans that have always needed a dedicated amp.
I know many of the phones come with usb -> 3.5mm adaptors, are they generally just a pass through of the analogue signals, i.e. the DAC is still in the phone, and do they work as well as driving directly from the phone used to?
If not then is some form of portable usb DAC/AMP required now?

Thanks for any thoughts.

 

[MrRockliffe]

You've just opened a can of worms.

On the Android side of things, the dongle situation is a mess, with no standard way of doing it.

Some phones have the DAC inside them, others in the dongle.

This makes it extremely tricky to find the right dongle (if one isn't already included), and almost impossible to find a pair of USB C earphones/headphones.

See here:

https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/24/...hone-adapter-ec270-charge-listen-review-tests
https://www.pcworld.com/article/328...e-jack-why-usb-c-audio-still-doesnt-work.html

 

[EsaT]

You've just opened a can of worms.

On the Android side of things, the dongle situation is a mess, with no standard way of doing it.

Good way to try to force people to buy now also headphones as brand accessory.

 

[neil_g]

Used the huawei USBc adapter but it was super flimsy.

Now use www.ear-studio.com. Not cheap but I can run balanced on the go now with LDAC Bluetooth audio. Just about runs the 660s.

My previous comments..

Thought I'd come back to this. Got the EarStudio ES100 just over a month ago now and have been using it mainly with my Brainwavz B400 on the 2.5mm balanced output.

I originally asked if it was worth the money, I'd say yes. I've never experienced good bluetooth audio before, it always sounded compressed. And those cheap little receivers they always struggled for Bluetooth strength or buffered etc.

They added LDAC support last month which I've been using from my P20 Pro (just because) and it sounds good and performs well with no buffering etc. Battery life is also very good. Plenty of support from Radsone with regular firmware updates.

I'm actually considering selling my Q1ii and X1ii combo, because they're just not getting the use.

 

[nails666]

Ah right, I thought it might be something like that. So buying different dongles is a bit of a minefield but I can't find any reviews of how good from an audio quality point of view the dongles are once you have one that works.
Has anyone on here actually used one yet? The reason I'm interested is that I'm considering getting a OnePlus 6T but listen to a lot of music at work and don't want to end up comprising the quality of that.