Indeed let us not forget to mention here for those who don't understand the context here: that Apple and others took away the 3.5 mm jack to begin with and pushed wireless forward (now Sony's XM4 makes wireless on par with wired with DSEE Extreme
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...e-ultimate-dsee-extreme-do.14832/#post-523812) and also limited to 24/48 PCM so that any higher rates were downsampled on playback.
Thanks to these two factors we had an influx of 'dongles' via USB-C of which at present the Apple, Tempotec, and E1DA dongles among many others, appear to be winners in the ranking based on ASR measurements.
But I think these factors are not relevant now. Xperia 1 II regained the 3.5 mm jack, and people know that wired headphones using DSEE Ultimate can surpass wireless using DSEE Extreme (analogous to CS43131 being good but ESS chips having potential for further excellence), so why bother with wireless? Wired is risky but it can be excellent. And Archimago made
the case that 24/48 PCM is more than enough for most of us, unless we are mastering engineers ourselves. archimago.blogspot.com/2020/07/summer-musings-post-hi-res-audio-why-hi.html
If the factors which ushered in the dongle era aren't relevant, what takes their place? Clearly it is convenient to be able to choose what DAC to use without swapping devices. Having it externally connected may be good for sound. However, I can only think of one reason for dongles to continue existing which is that it avoids us using badly designed codecs found in PCs and phones. Naturally, onboard audio these days will rarely have audible problems, but it won't ever be hi-fi like select VAIO PCs capable of DSD recording were from 2005-2011. Those who care about sound but are on a tight budget will naturally notice the dongles.
I do use Apple USB-C dongle because it suits lossy audio upsampled using DSEE HX on free Sony software. I can hear the differences clearly whereas I can't do so with 'better' DACs. I also use a second hand iPhone 4S as backup as it's a gift from a Canadian relative. Some reckon Apple USB-C dongle costs less than it should, but a full appraisal of its quality and the Cirrus chip it has in it would lead to a conclusion that it is also designed for profit as one of its foremost priorities. I don't think iPhones have ever truly exceeded fans' expectations nor are they worth selling one's own organs to buy which I remember hearing in the news.
Finally, the dongle market may have existed to cash in on the lack of 3.5 mm jack, but its more pressing purpose is to provide users with the cheapest and highest quality audio which the big players have not provided us with, at least in terms of iPhones and Windows PCs if not Android phones thanks to Qualcomm's WHS94xx chips. The problem is that even if 24/48 PCM is good enough for us, 24/48 limited chips may not be. So we can listen to 24/48 PCM only, but we still want 32 bit codecs to be in every iPhone and Windows PC, only then will the dongle market gradually fade. But still, it is preferable to be able to use the same product/implementation knowing its potential performance based on ASR measurements. So we may never accept using all kinds of implementations which are unmeasured. Therefore Dongles are here to stay forever!
Thank you for reading my rambling on about nothing.
