Quote:
Originally Posted by dslknight
Any new updates on this? I'm just curious to see if there are any plans to make this available for purchase in the near future.
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Ken was gracious enough to sell me his "beta" iPhone cable to test out for myself, and I have been quite pleased with it. It works basically just as he has described it and I have found the sound quality of the line out to be far superior to that of the iPhone's "proprietary" headphone jack.
The only drawback to the cable (and this is Apple's fault, not Ken's) is the steps you have to go through to make it work, i.e., power down the iPhone before plugging it in and placing the iPhone in "Airplane mode" to avoid some nasty interference on the line. To me, those drawbacks are tolerable since the iPhone has a fairly quick boot up time and it would be kind of a pain to answer a phone call on the iPhone when you have a line out routed to an amp and the iPhone in your pocket or a bag.
The big plus for me is the drastic improvement in sound quality. When listening to the iPhone with my UE5c's through the headphone jack (with the stupid adapter, of course) I was getting quite a bit of background hiss, even with the volume turned all the way down. That has been eliminated with the ALO Line Out plus my amp. At this point I'm using the iBasso T2. Now that I have a line-out solution, I may be looking for a Tomahawk or the new Pico in the future.
Anyway, I'm not sure what Ken's plans are regarding future marketing of the line-out cable. I know he is frustrated by the quirky nature of the iPhone and the fact that it is not "plug and play" simple like the iPod. However, I think the demand for the iPhone cable (at least in these parts) would be great given the sonic benefits and the fact that Ken's cable is the best way to avoid Apple's stupid recessed headphone jack.