[lolhero]

Reversing the concept and using the adapter on an input as in the case above that started the conversation is obviously technically different. In that case the adapter will connect the 4.4mm negative input of the amplifier to the ground of the 3.5mm source device but that is the input side so essentially all that is happening is the negative side of the amplifier doesn't receive the negative signal, the voltage isn't being received by the amplifier and there is no short That isn't dangerous but as we both stated isn't going to make proper use of the balanced architecture anyway so it a pointless exercise.

Yeah its pointless, but if you got only 4.4mm ic available at the time, atleast you can still connect. With Mojo2 you arent going to get balanced anyway, since it only has unbalanced outputs, but being anble to use an adapter to still connect it with a balanced input of the amp, is still viable, if you got no other cable or option..it would sound just like connecting to the 3.5 unbalanced input no? I was merely asking about the possible damage and to see if this is even an option.

 

[BS5711]

Yeah its pointless, but if you got only 4.4mm ic available at the time, atleast you can still connect. With Mojo2 you arent going to get balanced anyway, since it only has unbalanced outputs, but being anble to use an adapter to still connect it with a balanced input of the amp, is still viable, if you got no other cable or option..it would sound just like connecting to the 3.5 unbalanced input no? I was merely asking about the possible damage and to see if this is even an option.

What you are saying is correct.

You have no voltage to the negative input to the amplifier so are not getting optimal performance but there is nothing shorted.

That is the logic and I just did exactly that set up with an original Mojo into the 4.4mm of an iFi Gryphon and a A&K PA10 and they both work absolutely fine and sound absolutely normal out of the 4.4mm headphone jack.

With a high end amplifier like yours it makes utter sense to get a proper 4.4mm source or use the 3.5mm but technically what you say above is accurate.

 

[Daniel Johnston]

With a normal balanced amplifier that has a functioning ground and the positive and negative per channel the adapter simply makes a single ended circuit leaving the negatives unconnected so no short and no risk. That is what is happening inside most balanced devices with a 3.5mm jack, they don't usually have a dedicated 3.5mm amplifier, they use the positive from each channel and a common ground just like the adapter does. The adapter will sound exactly the same as the 3.5mm output.

I’m not sure the truth of this statement. You can’t just take a balanced signal to SE in this manner and still maintain the voltage and current delivery. From what I surmised in my research, you’ll get about 25% the output of the balanced output with this method. I don’t see the balanced out providing 4x higher power output on the specs of most devices that have both. There’s other ways to sum the output and not have a separate amp circuit to SE. Again, not damaging amp, but not necessarily equivalent to a well designed SE output. I’m sure in your application, what you say is true. This may or may not apply to other applications. I agree ifi wouldn’t sell an amp damaging device, but that doesn’t mean it is equivalent to a well designed summed SE output. Although not “rocket science”, it’s far more nuanced than what ifi and ddHifi are explaining. Yes, the adapter will play sound, but will it be sonically equivalent to the dedicated SE? Not sure. I’m sure you were given good advice over PMs for your specific application.

I get your point but I believe that technically it is very rarely true and I just think it is best that folks understand what is technically accurate, there are lot of comments about blowing things up which, for the most part, are based on a lack of understanding of the circuitry.

Agree to disagree I guess. The pentaconn connection does have various configurations. It’s a pretty flexible use connector. That ifi adapter is not universally compatible from some searching. The ddHifi and ifi adapters specifically won’t blow up amps, but they also are not truly replicating a dedicated SE output. Maybe they are using one method to create a SE output, but not the only design or even best design to create an SE output in a balanced device.

In general, I would 100% agree that from a true balanced amp, a 4.4 to 3.5 (except the aforementioned ddHifi and ifi) can damage your device. Maybe not blow it up, but certainly cause it to operate out of its design specs. And even using the ifi or ddHifi device, you aren’t going to necessarily get the same audio quality as a dedicated SE output. That’s a fairly wide consensus and not just made by ignorant sources.

This is all academic for sure.

 

[BS5711]

I’m not sure the truth of this statement. You can’t just take a balanced signal to SE in this manner and still maintain the voltage and current delivery. From what I surmised in my research, you’ll get about 25% the output of the balanced output with this method. I don’t see the balanced out providing 4x higher power output on the specs of most devices that have both. There’s other ways to sum the output and not have a separate amp circuit to SE. Again, not damaging amp, but not necessarily equivalent to a well designed SE output. I’m sure in your application, what you say is true. This may or may not apply to other applications. I agree ifi wouldn’t sell an amp damaging device, but that doesn’t mean it is equivalent to a well designed summed SE output. Although not “rocket science”, it’s far more nuanced than what ifi and ddHifi are explaining. Yes, the adapter will play sound, but will it be sonically equivalent to the dedicated SE? Not sure. I’m sure you were given good advice over PMs for your specific application.



Agree to disagree I guess. The pentaconn connection does have various configurations. It’s a pretty flexible use connector. That ifi adapter is not universally compatible from some searching. The ddHifi and ifi adapters specifically won’t blow up amps, but they also are not truly replicating a dedicated SE output. Maybe they are using one method to create a SE output, but not the only design or even best design to create an SE output in a balanced device.

In general, I would 100% agree that from a true balanced amp, a 4.4 to 3.5 (except the aforementioned ddHifi and ifi) can damage your device. Maybe not blow it up, but certainly cause it to operate out of its design specs. And even using the ifi or ddHifi device, you aren’t going to necessarily get the same audio quality as a dedicated SE output. That’s a fairly wide consensus and not just made by ignorant sources.

This is all academic for sure.

I get all of that and understand you perspective and respect your opinion based on your research

I am certain it is a wide consensus but that doesn't make it accurate, there is a lot of backside covering for people that don't understand the circuits created with various adapters and rightly so.

However, out of technical interest, I have tried these adapters from about half a dozen devices with balanced and single ended outputs and there is no discernable volume of performance difference versus plugging into the 4.4mm with an adapter and a 3.5mm cable or directly into the single ended output of the same device.

The chap I was referring to was a senior designer at iFi for some time and he stated that is how the single ended output works from most balanced portable devices. There are no doubt exceptions. That was a general comment as an extension from my very specific query about my iFi Diablo and from that I got curious and tested it out on the devices I owned and what I was told was most certainly accurate based on the relative performance.

As agreed it is generally not especially practical but it is technically interesting I think.

 

[MgMGM]

Why play the mojo through an amp only to then listen on headphones.?. To use an amp to hear the mojo through speakers I can get my head around. To me the least amount of kit between source and ears is the way to go.!.

 

[BS5711]

Why play the mojo through an amp only to then listen on headphones.?. To use an amp to hear the mojo through speakers I can get my head around. To me the least amount of kit between source and ears is the way to go.!.

I agree but the comments that started this little conversation were about a very expensive high end IEM/headphone amp that the chap wanted a good source for so that is probably understandable.

The set up pictured above was just to show it could be done, not that I do it.

 

[MgMGM]

I agree but the comments that started this little conversation were about a very expensive high end IEM/headphone amp that the chap wanted a good source for so that is probably understandable.

The set up pictured above was just to show it could be done, not that I do it.

Cheers...All good.

 

[o0genesis0o]

Makes sense to me. There’s a lot of noise variability from PC to PC, and from other software processes running simultaneous to music playback. PCs can be really noisy sources. Always good practice to use an isolator with a PC.

Can attest that the USB port at the back of my gaming laptop is unusable for dongles. It’s not slightly noisy or collapsing stage or something. It’s extremely noisy, hissing like TV without signal.

 

[Kozwoz]

Hi everyone. Could I get some help using the Mojo 2 with my Android phone - One Plus 12. I’m running Android 14 and I can’t seem to turn off Dolby Atmos in settings. In order to toggle off Dolby Atmos my phone says I need to connect earphones to the device however the Mojo 2 isn’t recognised as a headphone therefore I can’t turn it off.

It’s very obvious that Dolby Atmos is using compression + spatialization + equalisation which is not what I want because not only does it sound ‘reverby’ but it’s clearly not bit perfect.

What are head-fiers doing to get around this? I imagine a lot of people are using Android 14. Any advice would be much appreciated!

 

[trickyRoadsDummyTOOL]

Why play the mojo through an amp only to then listen on headphones.?. To use an amp to hear the mojo through speakers I can get my head around. To me the least amount of kit between source and ears is the way to go.!.

You are certainly right, if you consider let's say an estimated 75% of people/use cases, and it's very important that anyone reading this thread gets it right, that the Mojo2 is designed to listen to directly with headphones and being mobile, and with that the Mojo2 is practically unrivaled (or extend its/ones capabilities/use cases to listening to speakers in the end).
But there still exist a plethora of use cases, where the Mojo2 is used together with an amplifier for a reason, whereas the percentage of meaningfulness may in fact range from 1 to 100.
In my eyes, the reasons range from freedom of choice to adding a special flavor to the Mojo2 to fulfilling haptic requirements, only to name some most important to me, named some more specific reasons/requirements in my last post above.
I'm sure, people here could ad a lot of reasons I didn't mention above. And surely, the amount of reasons would decrease rapidly towards/against 1 after adding a TT2 to the chain.

Preserving from diminishing/loss in sound quality might always be first goal, as listening to mojo2 purely is, too.EDIT: @BS5711 I forgot, +1 for album selection in your picture above and giving background/details about possible/impossible use usages.

 

[Meridian7]

What are head-fiers doing to get around this?

I use Usb Audio Player Pro app that uses its own bit perfect drivers and bypasses the phone standard ones.

 

[Kozwoz]

I use Usb Audio Player Pro app that uses its own bit perfect drivers and bypasses the phone standard ones.

I guess that’s a solution for Tidal. As far as I know UAPP doesn’t support Spotify - which I realise is lossy anyway.

So currently no way to use Spotify with a DAC on Android 14 without Dolby Atmos enabled?

 

[User9876]

I guess that’s a solution for Tidal. As far as I know UAPP doesn’t support Spotify - which I realise is lossy anyway.

So currently no way to use Spotify with a DAC on Android 14 without Dolby Atmos enabled?

Correct, its the reason I swapped to an iPhone, I appreciate its not for everyone but getting bit-perfect out of music steaming apps is much simpler.

 

[Meridian7]

It's a real shame that Spotify Connect is not widely implemented.

 

[Hypops]

You are certainly right, if you consider let's say an estimated 75% of people/use cases, and it's very important that anyone reading this thread gets it right, that the Mojo2 is designed to listen to directly with headphones and being mobile, and with that the Mojo2 is practically unrivaled (or extend its/ones capabilities/use cases to listening to speakers in the end).
But there still exist a plethora of use cases, where the Mojo2 is used together with an amplifier for a reason, whereas the percentage of meaningfulness may in fact range from 1 to 100.
In my eyes, the reasons range from freedom of choice to adding a special flavor to the Mojo2 to fulfilling haptic requirements, only to name some most important to me, named some more specific reasons/requirements in my last post above.
I'm sure, people here could ad a lot of reasons I didn't mention above. And surely, the amount of reasons would decrease rapidly towards/against 1 after adding a TT2 to the chain.

Preserving from diminishing/loss in sound quality might always be first goal, as listening to mojo2 purely is, too.EDIT: @BS5711 I forgot, +1 for album selection in your picture above and giving background/details about possible/impossible use usages.

For myself (and many others), the Mojo 2 actually works best as a desktop DAC feeding a separate amp rather than as a solo DAC/amp. I won't go into all the reasons, but the two big ones are 1) I need the additional power to drive certain headphones, and 2) the Mojo 2 sounds cleanest at very high output, too high to be comfortably listenable on most headphones. My amp can more cleanly play at a wider range of gain levels. Less is not always more when it comes to a gear chain.