![]() ![]() Keeping sound in the digital domain on the phone allows for all sorts of things that Apple just isn’t doing yet. The wasted opportunities here are endless, however. The DAC/amp used seem to be of high quality, just like in the older phones. In a side-by-side comparison, it’s essentially impossible to tell a sound difference. This could be due to the new DAC/amp or it could be due to a sensitivity tweak. The volume is handled differently, with a slightly louder output than the old EarPods. The cord is a little nicer than the old one. ![]() The sound and fit are both acquired tastes, which I happen to enjoy. They have a wider soundstage than the average ear bud. They sound best for podcasts, acoustic music, and female vocals, but they’ll work for anything in a pinch. The sound is still strongly mid-treble-leaning, and although they’re not totally without bass…they’re much more prone to sibilance than to thumpiness. The myriad vent ports are still in the same places. They fit my ears very well, but they don’t fit everyone’s ears. The Pods themselves are fully identical in design and basic function to the old ones. Well I’ll tell you: They’re 99 percent identical to EarPods. These are headphones and you haven’t talked about how they make the audio go. I’d wager a guess that the new lightning-to-headphone jack dongle is using this same thicker Lightning plug to hide the audio hardware. Most Bluetooth/Lightning headphones to this point have placed the DAC and Amp either inside the ear cups, or inside the control button unit on the cable.īoth of those options add extra weight to your head, so adding the weight to the plug in your pocket is quite clever. I’m not going to rip open the plug to find out, but putting the components in there is a really smart call. It’s a thicker and longer hunk of plastic than on the standard Lightning connector, and a little heavier too. On these new EarPods with Lightning Connector(tm), I’m reasonably certain that the DAC and amp are housed inside the plastic attached to the Lightning plug. Now, those pieces have to live either in your headphones, or inside a dongle. It can deliver digital sound data through Bluetooth or the Lightning port, but you still need a DAC and amp to actually play that audio on headphones. The iPhone 7 cannot deliver analog audio at all. Many people wrote articles about the removal of the headphone jack from the iPhone 7, but the DAC and amp were removed too. Apple’s amps were never studio grade or anything, but they were quite capable of powering most portable headphones and in-ear monitors. Next the audio passed into an analog signal amplifier, which would push the audio through the headphone jack and also power your plugged-in headphones. Apple always used high quality DAC components, but limited the playback rate to 48khz, preventing high-res audio compatibility. Your digital file would first hit a DAC (digital-to-analog converter) chip inside the phone, where it was converted from ones and zeroes to analog audio waves. In the bygone days of a few weeks ago, when the iPhone had a headphone jack, audio was delivered through a multi-step chain. My other lightning headphones, the Sony MDR-1A DAC, work just fine on older versions of iOS, but the Lightning EarPods require iOS 10. I plugged the EarPods into the lightning port of my iPhone 6 Plus…and was promptly asked to update to iOS 10. The box has a few too many little flaps inside for my liking, but it’s got that classic Apple design. Instead, they come in a recyclable paperboard box. The EarPods with Lightning Connector don’t come in the solid plastic case the old model used. My old EarPods have seen some serious action, and so I thought, “Why not get the new ones? They’re cheap and my Apple store has some in-stock.” I bet you wish your Saturdays were as exciting as mine.
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