Might this work for iPhone 5 --> Fiio E17

It would stay digital, regardless of whether it worked as that's how USB works (differential signal). The question is whether the adapter decodes the encrypted digital stream. Apple's description says

here , and since iTunes may be able to decrypt the signal for syncing, I'm not 100% sure what the answer is. It would depend whether there's a little chip to convert inside that adapter or not. However, I presume so since the lightning cable is rather small and does so. See here So my answer is probably. Someone will just have to try.

After reading a bit further, there's no way to force the iphone to be a USB host which is necessary for the E17 to work. The camera connection kit, which works for the iPads, will not work on the iPhone. So you need MFi to use a DAC or resort to amping only.

Quote:

Originally Posted by inertianinja 

Is that a limitation of the phone, or the connector?

 

if it's that the phone itself will never put out USB audio, that's unfortunate, but I assume it's possible to create a small Lightning --> Analog Audio cable.

 

If it's just that there are no licensed cables that yet exist that contain the necessary chip to pass along a digital signal to the E17, that's solvable. I wouldn't be surprised if Apple intentionally left everything but power out of their Lightning-MicroUSB adapter.

It outputs USB audio, but it's encrypted. You have to have MFi certification, and the requisite circuitry, to decode it. I doubt a cable that does such a thing is technically feasible given the decode overheard, or that apple would allow such a cable.

I do assume it's possible to create an integrated lightning LOD cable, however. That doesn't solve the problem of not being able to use a DAC. It just reduces your amp setup to one cable for a Fiio device.

Of course, it's always possible someone will do an unlicensed cable product, but this hasn't happened for previous iPhones, so why now? My guess is that beyond the technical challenges of designing such a cable, you may be hitting the power limit of the iphone anyway if you could solve it. No way Fiio would do an unlicensed solution.