[HiFiGuy528]

sub!

 

[HiFiGuy528]

Can someone compare the sound right off the headphones jack against an iPhone 5?

 

[Podster]

Well after I spent the money on the Apple Lightning adapter and bought a new FiIO LOD the external amping was no benefit to the headphone output for Headphone, portable speakers nor docking apps! IMHO the Nano 7G has a great headphone out

 Not so with my earlier gen touch and pods though, they for sure benefit from my Tomahawk and JDS Labs

 

[elfary]

Speaking of the devil:
 
Did anybody know that the Lightning Adaptor has not one but 2 dacs inside (one Wolfson and one Cirrus) ?
 

The Cirrus is at the right and the Wolfson  (Somewhat dislodged) at the left. According to the source (Chipworks) the Wolfson does the line out but the Cirrus is somewhat tba.
 
My subjective experience with this little bugger is that off a Touch 5 the output analog signal is less powerful than off an iPad Mini hence i wonder how actually this accesory works.And i won't vouch for the idea that is the Wolfson chip the one does the line out.

 

[ClieOS]

Let examine at what we do know - Wolfson WM8533 is a pure DAC with no extra function. Logic dictates there is no need for another DAC inside the dock. If we looks the left side of the board, they are mainly security and communication chips needed for USB-to-Lightning data communication. So what is missing? A chip that communicate between the USB/Lightning data communication to the WM8533. My guess is, that Cirrus Logic chip is a transcoder that translate serial data form the Lightning/USB to the i2S/SPI standard that WM8533 needs.

 

[elfary]

Quote:

Let examine at what we do know - Wolfson WM8533 is a pure DAC with no extra function. Logic dictates there is no need for another DAC inside the dock. If we looks the left side of the board, they are mainly security and communication chips needed for USB-to-Lightning data communication. So what is missing? A chip that communicate between the USB/Lightning data communication to the WM8533. My guess is, that Cirrus Logic chip is a transcoder that translate serial data form the Lightning/USB to the i2S/SPI standard that WM8533 needs.

 
That's a really clever idea. And it would help with clocking and jitter among other things. I guess that idea of yours is very close to the facts.
 
What i still don't get is why the output analog signal would be louder when plugged to an iPad Mini than when plugged to an iPod Touch 5 / iPhone 5...but truth to be told i didn't try these devices at the some point in time hence my memory could be cheating on me.

 

[ClieOS]

Quote:

What i still don't get is why the output analog signal would be louder when plugged to an iPad Mini than when plugged to an iPod Touch 5 / iPhone 5...but truth to be told i didn't try these devices at the some point in time hence my memory could be cheating on me.

 
The only reason I can think of, based on the fact that adapter has to draw its power from the Lightning dock - I will guess that the Lightning dock in iPad Mini must be outputing more power (either in voltage or current, most likely current) than iPod Touch or iP5, and therefore boosting the performance of the DAC.

 

[elfary]

Quote:

 
The only reason I can think of, based on the fact that adapter has to draw its power from the Lightning dock - I will guess that the Lightning dock in iPad Mini must be outputing more power (either in voltage or current, most likely current) than iPod Touch or iP5, and therefore boosting the performance of the DAC.

 
Right now i just have the iPad Mini since i sold the Touch 5 & the iPhone 5 but i might end up purchasing another iPhone 5 pretty soon (If i can get over the fact of losing the built in line out, losing output power and getting more output impedance versus my current 4S -which is a heck of a source for iems-)
 
In that case i will try a side by side comparison.
 
But for now my recollection is that:
 
iPad Mini + Adapter + iBasso T3 + UM3x was pretty good (indistinguishable from an iPod Classic 7G + LOD + T3 + UM3x)
 
iPod Touch 5 + Adapter + iBasso T3 + UM3x while quite good was audibly worse and less spacious than the Classic centric rig.

 

[ysho]

The thing is:
Can we iMod a 30-pin adapter so whenever it is paired with whatever iPod/iPhone, it gets the iMod quality? 

 

[ClieOS]

Quote:

The thing is:
Can we iMod a 30-pin adapter so whenever it is paired with whatever iPod/iPhone, it gets the iMod quality? 

 
You misunderstand what an iMod is. An iMod is to remove all the circuitry (mostly noise induced resistor and caps) after the DAC stage, and reroute the signal straight to the line-out port (or headphone jack in some case, depends on the design). That way you get the cleanest possible signal to the amp and generally only a pair of caps are in the path to deal with unwanted DC bias.
 
Inside the Lightning-to-30-pins adapter, there is no extra resistors and caps between the DAC and the 30 pins dock (even if there are some, they are extremely tiny SMD components that can't be mod'ed). So there is nothing to iMod in the first place. You are already getting the best signal out.

 

[psgarcha92]

@ClieOS,
 
We have seen external DACs for iPod Classic, the ALO Audio ones. Now, apple has made the output from the nano a digital one. Does it mean, we might see some DACs for the Nano 7G too?
 
Also, ClieOS, have you tried the Dock with all amps available? There wasn't much improvement at all?? What did the trusty old RE0s tell you? Is the HO the best when more power is not needed??
 
Regards

 

[ClieOS]

Quote:

@ClieOS,
 
We have seen external DACs for iPod Classic, the ALO Audio ones. Now, apple has made the output from the nano a digital one. Does it mean, we might see some DACs for the Nano 7G too?
 
Also, ClieOS, have you tried the Dock with all amps available? There wasn't much improvement at all?? What did the trusty old RE0s tell you? Is the HO the best when more power is not needed??
 
Regards

 
You might be a bit off with the information on iPod / iTouch / iPhone / iPad's digital-out ability. The last few generation of iDevices (with both 30-pins and Lightning connector generations) are all capable with digital-out, provided that you have a compatible DAC (CLAS, HP-P1, PHA-1, VentureCraft, etc) to work with them. I never own any of those DAC but I don't see why Nano 7G won't work with them. Of course, someone need to confirm this.
 
I am not sure what your 2nd question is about. What dock are you talking? If you means the Lighning-to-30pins adapter, then the conclusion is on the first page - to sum it up, there is no sonic or measurable improvement between the adapter and the headphone-out (with near line-level loudness) when connected to an amp.  What amps to use doesn't in anyway affect this conclusion.

 

[JohnSantana]

ok, so in this case with the lightning adapter discussion, is there any benefits in using the lightning-to-30-pin compares to the straight 3.5mm jack into the amp directly ?

 

[ClieOS]

ok, so in this case with the lightning adapter discussion, is there any benefits in using the lightning-to-30-pin compares to the straight 3.5mm jack into the amp directly ?

 
In the case of Nano 7G, no.

 

[JohnSantana]

In the case of Nano 7G, no.

Cool, thanks for the clarification.