"Textured Soy Protein" (texturedsoyprotein)
11/08/2018 at 10:00 • Filed to: None
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"Textured Soy Protein" (texturedsoyprotein)
11/08/2018 at 10:00 • Filed to: None | 1
| 22 |
My Essential PH-1 has no headphone jack. While this is less than ideal, it doesn’t bother me much, because I don’t use wired headphones that often. At worst, it’s a minor inconven ience on the rare occasion where I might want/need to plug in to some kind of audio system, but I don’t have the dongle with me. But now, for the audiophiles, there are better dongles available!
I did not intend to research the topic of high quality DAC dongles, but it’s a rabbit hole I’ve now fell into accidentally, twice. Personally, the most in-depth dongle research I’ve conducted was to compare the sound quality of my Essential’s dongle (which is a nice braided cloth cable) with the headphone jack built in to my Macbook Pro, when plugged in to my cheap but awesome !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . The MBP headphone jack sounds slightly better.
But, a video editor friend of mine posted on facebook that he hates that the new iPad Pro, while it switched from Apple’s proprietary Lightning port to a standard USB-C port, also
!!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!!
. He and I agree that on a device the size of a tablet, even one like the new iPad Pro and its skinny bezels, there’s no excuse for ditching the headphone jack. He really despised the idea of having to use a dongle to plug his assorted fancy headphones into a hypothetical iPad Pro he’s not actually planning to buy.
Being as I’ve never met a random gadget-related complaint that I can resist following up on, I searched for USB-C DACs. I knew there were assorted flash drive-sized USB-A DACs on the market that some people plug in to their phones with USB-C adapters, but I wanted to see if there was something that was natively USB-C.
I did a quick search on Amazon, and found some generic dongles that claimed to have fancy DACs in them like !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , but the reviews indicated that at best maybe it was a little cleaner sounding than the typical dongles that ship with phones.
Then, for friggin $150, I found the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , which is about the size of a giganto headphone jack dongle, or a really small USB power bank with a cord on the end of it. It comes in different versions for the different USB plugs, including USB-C.
Apparently, this thing is pretty awesome, but may have some trouble driving the highest-impedance fancy headphones out there. Using it with a phone looks...not completely totally awkward?
Then, while browsing the Essential phone subreddit, I found a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! comparing the different phone makers’ dongles and how well they work with the Essential. Someone mentioned that they use the Sonata HD DAC Cable II, which upon further googling turned out to be the thing at the top of this post, which is the exact same form factor as any of the dongles provided with phones. Supposedly, it is a noticeable improvement in sound quality over the typical dongle. It might not be as good as the Nextdrive Spectra, but it’s also a much more manageable size, and only 30 bucks.
So there you have it, people who care more about wired headphones than me: your dongle options are improving, supposedly, according to some shit I read online and have no personal experience with!
facw
> Textured Soy Protein
11/08/2018 at 10:12 |
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Given that dongles exist, I always find it a little surprising that people get so worked up about the headphone jack. The biggest problem to me seems to be that you can’t charge and listen at the same time (without another dongle, or a wireless charger). Beyond that, just keep a dongle attached to your headphones, and it’s practically the same.
davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com
> facw
11/08/2018 at 10:24 |
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It’s annoying. I just don’t want to carry another thing in my pockets, or have to think about grabbing one every time I travel. So, I have one at work, one at home, and one for travel (as do probably 50% of people who own a modern iPhone or other). It’s wasteful, and for what? Another millimeter of thinness?
And now they’re getting rid of the Lightning connector, which will make these millions of dongles trash soon...
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Textured Soy Protein
> facw
11/08/2018 at 10:24 |
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In the couple months of owning my Essential, so far there’s been one time where forgetting my dongle almost caused me a problem.
My wife’s side of the family threw my mother-in-law a big surprise bday party in a meeting/party room at a casino/hotel in Milwaukee. I was responsible for the assorted a/v stuff including putting together a slideshow of photos of her.
Ideally, we wanted to play this slideshow on the projector that was in this room, but the casino wanted to charge us another $250 to use the thing. My brother-in-law and I decided to not agree to this charge, but attempt to cajole the casino people into letting us use the projector once we arrived.
In the process of this cajoling, at one point I called their bluff of not letting me use the projector and said I would instead put my laptop on a highboy table near the bar, and asked if there was some way to play our own music instead of the horrible music they were piping into the room. The a/v guy said he could get a 3.5mm audio cable to hook into the room’s audio system. That jack was in a different part of the room from where my computer would be set up, so we’d need a phone to play the music. Then I realized, shit, I didn’t br ing my dongle. But wife’s phone has a headphone jack, so we were going to use that.
Eventually the casino people came to their senses and just let me hook up the damn laptop to the projector without the ridiculous charge, but that was a time where I was nearly caught with my dongle-less pants down.
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davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com
> Textured Soy Protein
11/08/2018 at 10:25 |
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NO EXCUSE! See my response to facw.
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facw
> davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com
11/08/2018 at 10:29 |
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I have a headphone jack (that I basically only use when travelling, since my noise cancelling headphones are wired ) , but seriously, I’d just keep the dongle attached to the headphones so there’s never a question of losing it. If you use multiple sets of headphones with your phone, you probably care enough about audio that buying and extra dongle is not a big deal.
Nom De Plume
> Textured Soy Protein
11/08/2018 at 10:29 |
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Anyone actually worried about sound realizes they’ve been forced into using a USB-C to USB-(?) OTG cable just long enough to act as an interconnect for a DAC that is strapped to/lying next to their source device. Said device needs to be reasonably advanced since the DAC in most new phones is quite capable for mobile listening. Hence owners of new devices with headphone jacks (LG G7) need nothing.
Why put something in the signal path that more than likely will degenerate quality just to create a standard 3.5mm headphone jack. A set of BTLE headphones costing just as much will sound better. Or a competent ‘portable’ device + OTG cable will sound much better.
Daily Drives a Dragon - One Last Lap
> Textured Soy Protein
11/08/2018 at 10:30 |
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Dongles are stupid. No one is really trying to get a thinner phone at this point.
random001
> Textured Soy Protein
11/08/2018 at 10:32 |
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Jesus, that title...
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Nom De Plume
> random001
11/08/2018 at 10:44 |
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It’s all about the dangle of your dongle.
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Textured Soy Protein
> Nom De Plume
11/08/2018 at 10:46 |
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The Hidizs DAC dongle that’s the same size as any other dongle makes a lot of sense to me. It can handle high sample rate audio files like an external DAC but doesn’t add any additional bulk to the equation vs. a plain old included-in-the-box dongle.
As for bluetooth vs. wired, a lot of people already have wired headphones they’d like to continue using. And l et’s just say for the sake of argument, while they care about audio, they also prefer to avoid shitty LG or Samsung software . Well, the options there are Pixel, Essential, OnePlus 6T, and the new Razer 2 . Guess how many of those have headphone jacks.
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davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com
> facw
11/08/2018 at 10:47 |
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It’s not a big deal, just annoying and wasteful. See also: Square card readers.
How many people bought nice, expensive, new headphones (wireless or with a Lightning connector) that didn’t really need them? Man, I’d be really pissed if I’d invested in really nice headphones with a Lightning connector just to have them drop it!
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Textured Soy Protein
> random001
11/08/2018 at 10:48 |
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Textured Soy Protein
> Daily Drives a Dragon - One Last Lap
11/08/2018 at 10:50 |
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Now the phone companies are claiming it’s to make room for bigger batteries and/or in-display fingerprint readers. At least that was OnePlus’ rationale for ditching the headphone j ack on the 6T. At least in that case there’s something gained in return for losing the jack.
HFV has no HFV. But somehow has 2 motorcycles
> Textured Soy Protein
11/08/2018 at 10:57 |
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I’ve given up on cords and use bluetooth headphones now and I dont even have a stupid jackless phone. Its a bit annoying when i switch between phone, and tablet and once didn’t charge the headphones which was a real bummer.
the only real advantage i can see for Bluetooth headphones is you dont have to worry about breaking the cord. 9/10 times I lose a set of headphones its because the cord gets snagged on something and pulls out on one end, or more recently they are chewed by a kitten.
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Nom De Plume
> Textured Soy Protein
11/08/2018 at 10:57 |
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Alright you seem to be getting upset. I had hoped to discuss this like adults but if you insist.
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Textured Soy Protein
> HFV has no HFV. But somehow has 2 motorcycles
11/08/2018 at 11:02 |
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I use bluetooth headphones at the gym. They’re nothing fancy, so if I found myself regularly commuting on the subway, or flying, I would probably get some nice bluetooth noise canceling headphones. But there’s something to be said for a nice cheap pair of high quality wired headphones, which are extremely plentiful.
Personally it doesn’t bother me too much because the main times I use wired headphones are either A) while I’m working or B) watching videos in bed on my tablet. I work at home now, but when I didn’t, I just kept my headphone dongle and good earbuds in the same pocket in my work bag. My tablet has a headphone jack, and I definitely wouldn’t buy one without a jack.
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random001
> Textured Soy Protein
11/08/2018 at 11:03 |
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The real reason, and the one they’ll never mention because most people would not understand, is to get rid of a ground required for the headphone jack. Yes, it’s been done for, literally, years, but putting an analog ground into a digital system takes much more than just the jack. The isolation required is not just free. But people, the masses, understand “bigger battery!” and don’t understand “ground loop fault” and “EMI shielding and isolation requirements”, etc...
If only EssExTee could be so grossly incandescent
> Textured Soy Protein
11/08/2018 at 11:48 |
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It’s more than just the dongle, soundcards and audio drivers have a significant effect on sound quality. The same pair of headphones is going to sound different plugged into my phone than into my JBL-driven laptop. When you tested the dongle against your laptop the difference you noticed could’ve just been innate to the devic es. There’ll even be a difference between a cheap phone and an expensive phone from the same brand.
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If only EssExTee could be so grossly incandescent
> HFV has no HFV. But somehow has 2 motorcycles
11/08/2018 at 11:48 |
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I don’t want BT headphones because that’s just yet another thing to remember to charge...
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HFV has no HFV. But somehow has 2 motorcycles
> If only EssExTee could be so grossly incandescent
11/08/2018 at 11:51 |
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it is the biggest problem. if only there was a way I could plug them int my phone so that my phone could power them.
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If only EssExTee could be so grossly incandescent
> HFV has no HFV. But somehow has 2 motorcycles
11/08/2018 at 11:54 |
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I already have my phone, my laptop, my camera, my tablet, and my smartwatch. My desk is like a forest of cables.
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HFV has no HFV. But somehow has 2 motorcycles
> If only EssExTee could be so grossly incandescent
11/08/2018 at 11:57 |
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dont worry in 10 years your desk will be one giant wireless charger.