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USB-C analog audio and / or portable DAC

Al Batar

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Apr 13, 2021
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Hi, I'm new here and I need to buy a additional adapter USB-C to jack 3.5 mm for my new phone (a Xiaomi MI 10T Pro). I've found this forum, full of interesting reviews and comments, and hope I could get here tips and /or answers to some questions.

The first is : does anybody knows if my phone is compatible with analog audio over USB-C ? And how one can find a silly adapter ? I don't know if chinese adapters sold at 2 or 3 $ do include cheap DAC or not. Additionally, I'm interested in USB-C adapters allowing both audio communication AND charging simultaneously and wonder if they also rely or not on DAC chip.

Lastly, I use a Sennheiser Momentum 1 and 2 (low impedance, I've forgetten if it was 32 or 18 ohms) and currently own a portable DAC (Encore mDSD) which I find quite good (but I have no other DAC to be used in side-by-side comparison !)... and it takes too much place in the pocket. I've started to search for another DAC, with smaller footprint. As I read this forums, it appears that the following products should be interesting for me :
  • Hidizs S9 (should I wait for the incoming Pro version ?) ;
  • Hidizs S8 or its clone Sonata HD Pro ;HiBy FC3 ;
  • E1DA #9038D.
Reading some customers' review on AliExpress, I found a guy saying the E1DA 9038D was quite power-demanding to let it express its full qualities, and that with more power, the DAC was sounding far more better (see 2nd comment here). Would it be a problem with low impedance headphones ?

And does anyone sincerely believe that I will be able to ear a major difference between any of these products ? I'm quite old now (47) and I do know my ears are not anymore what they used to be ;-). And, to be complete, I'm specially demanding on the quality of the tones of analog instruments (I play cello, I love the « matter » of a sound), I hate cramped or metallic sounds (eg. violins on mean products), skimpy soundstage. But I also prefer transparency over artificial warmness.

Thanks for reading this far, and more thanks in advance for any piece of advice.

AB

PS : my apologize for all English flaws, it's not my native language...
 

VintageFlanker

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Hidizs S9 (should I wait for the incoming Pro version ?) ;
Wait for the S9 Pro to be sure about what you get.
Hidizs S8 or its clone Sonata HD Pro
Don't seem that reliable...
E1DA #9038D
I think the S9 is a more versatile product, with both balanced and unbalanced output and more power.
Reading some customers' review on AliExpress, I found a guy saying the E1DA 9038D was quite power-demanding to let it express its full qualities, and that with more power, the DAC was sounding far more better (see 2nd comment here). Would it be a problem with low impedance headphones ?
Either of these 3 DACs will be quite demanding regarding power. My S9 drains 12% per hour of listening out of my 4080mAh Pixel 5.
And does anyone sincerely believe that I will be able to ear a major difference between any of these products ?
Your headphones aren't SOTA ones for sure, nor they are hard to drive. Yet, we don't know about how poor the performance out of your Xiaomi is. I would say: the best way to know is to try by yourself!;)
 
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