Is MQB better quality than iPhone internal DAC?

[JJMiles6263]

Hi,

I bought iFi Go Bar to use external portable DAC connected to my iPhone 13 PRO MAX. I use Tidal iOS (Masters MQA) since Qobuz is not yet available in Canada.

I only get MQB and not MQA with this setup. This is a limitation of Tidal iOS since Tidal macOS yields MQA from MacBook PRO (Exclusive mode…)

TIDAL support has been of no use at all.

So, my question is rendering MQB, cannot find what this means in terms of quality, better than what iphone’s internal DAC can render using lightning to 3.5 mm jack adaptor?

If not, Go Bar is pretty expensive solution for my needs.

thanks

 

[Joachim Herbert]

mqb?

 

[JJMiles6263]

Yes

Also called Original sample rate by IFI

 

[staticV3]

better than what iphone’s internal DAC can render using lightning to 3.5 mm jack adaptor?

There's no internal DAC inside your iPhone. The DAC is inside the Lightning to 3.5mm adapter:


To answer your question, the DAC inside the ifi GO Bar is worse than the one inside the Apple headphone adapter.