Seeking recommendations for USB-C DAC manufacturers & component specs

[ts1981]

Hello Head-Fi community!
I'm interested in having a simple, high-quality portable USB-C DAC with a 3.5mm headphone output manufactured. To be clear, I'm not looking to manufacture it myself - I need help identifying the right specifications to provide to potential manufacturing partners, and ideally connections to reliable manufacturers who specialize in audio equipment in low MOQ.

I've looked through several threads discussing commercial portable DACs like the DragonFly, iBasso, FiiO, and AudioQuest products, but haven't found much information about manufacturing partnerships, component selection, or specification requirements for creating such a device. As far as I understood, these brands will not manufacture OEM portable DAC for me.

What I'm looking for:

• A clean, transparent sound signature without equalization or "coloring" of the audio
• Compact and portable design (similar to a small USB dongle or adapter cable)
• USB-C connection for modern smartphones/tablets
• 3.5mm headphone output
• No fancy features needed (no Bluetooth, no volume control, no battery, just direct USB power)
• Sufficient power for most studio headphones (nothing requiring substantial amplification)

My specific questions:

1. Which DAC/amp chipsets would you recommend for a transparent, high-quality sound?
2. Are there reputable OEM manufacturers who specialize in this type of product with low MOQ?
3. What would be your estimate on minimum order quantities and approximate costs?
4. What specifications would I need to provide to a manufacturer?
5. Does anyone have contacts or recommendations for audio equipment manufacturers (in Europe?)?
6. Any recommendations on product testing/certification requirements?

I'd greatly appreciate any insights from those with experience in this area, especially if you have connections to reputable manufacturers or knowledge about the component specification process.

Thank you in advance for your help!

 

[dunring]

There's so many of these devices on the market, the practical way is a white label version of something already in production. Alibaba has these smaller manufacturers that will talk to you on a branded version of quantity is high enough.
Developing and designing from scratch is going to be a huge investment if you don't have a prototype. The market is flooded with dongles already. Selling the thousands or tens of thousands it would take to do a production run, plus FCC and EU certification would cost a lot and take years.
I'd scout some places on Alibaba to do a white label run of a proven product. They just silkscreen your brand on it.

 

[ts1981]

Thanks for your resposnse. I definitelly don't plan to manufacture my own, that makes no sense at the moment and would rather choose an existing product.

Alibaba has these smaller manufacturers that will talk to you on a branded version of quantity is high enough.

I know Alibaba has a lot of these small manufacturers doing all crazy adapters, but usually they have relative high MOQ when I need a change (e.g. put my logo, different packaging,..). I need around 100-200 of these in the first batch and this is too low for these Alibaba guys.

The problem is that there are too many products and too many chips. Can you recommend a good quality chip or an existing product that could meet my needs? Maybe I could start sourcing that model and ask some of the Alibaba sellers if they can produce that one for me with my design.

 

[fliz]

It's hard to offer advice w/o knowing *why* you want to do this.

as far as chipsets go, I don't think you can do better than sabre's top of the line.

 

[ts1981]

It's hard to offer advice w/o knowing *why* you want to do this.

What I would like to achieve is to have the same output from different mobile devices. For example if my clients will use Apple iPad, Samsung phone, Xiaomi phone, iPhone 15,... and other mobile devices, where some don§t have the 3.5mm output at all, I would like to achieve with this external adapter to have the same output on different devices.

I expect that the manufacturers in cheap Android devices use different DAC than in iPad/iPhone or high-end Android devices. With this adapter, all users could have the same DAC audio output. Or am I missing something?

 

[fliz]

What I would like to achieve is to have the same output from different mobile devices. For example if my clients will use Apple iPad, Samsung phone, Xiaomi phone, iPhone 15,... and other mobile devices, where some don§t have the 3.5mm output at all, I would like to achieve with this external adapter to have the same output on different devices.

I expect that the manufacturers in cheap Android devices use different DAC than in iPad/iPhone or high-end Android devices. With this adapter, all users could have the same DAC audio output. Or am I missing something?

But this is already a solved problem

 

[ts1981]

But this is already a solved problem

What do you mean by a solved problem? I don't want to reinvent the wheel again...

But I have situations, where one client has a basic Motorola phone with a 3.5mm jack, so he can plug the headphones (for example AKG-K72) directly into the phone. Other client has an iPhone 15 without a jack, so he need the extra USB-C to 3.5mm adapter to use the phones (e.g. the same AKG-K72). Will these two have the same audio quality in the headphones? Will they hear the same?

Maybe I am asking the wrong question or simply can't ask the correct one. Many thanks for any advice on this topic (I am not a professional).

 

[fliz]

What do you mean by a solved problem? I don't want to reinvent the wheel again...

But I have situations, where one client has a basic Motorola phone with a 3.5mm jack, so he can plug the headphones (for example AKG-K72) directly into the phone. Other client has an iPhone 15 without a jack, so he need the extra USB-C to 3.5mm adapter to use the phones (e.g. the same AKG-K72). Will these two have the same audio quality in the headphones? Will they hear the same?

Maybe I am asking the wrong question or simply can't ask the correct one. Many thanks for any advice on this topic (I am not a professional).

Ah..ok.

Yes. This is a unique request, but unfortunately not easily accomplished.

There are two problems that need to be solved here.

1) converting a digital signal to an analog one and amplifying that for headphones.

2) converting an analog signal to digital so that you can use the same solution from #1 for phones that have a 3.5mm jack.

#1 is a solved problem.

Every phone with a usb-c jack will sound almost identical using the same device across different phones.

The small differences that remain will be impossible to fix though, because they'll be the result of things intrinsic to the design of the phone.

The bigger issue is for phones that have a headphone jack and no USB jack.

Getting those to sound like a modern phone will be tough.

The signal out the 3.5mm jack is already analog and went through whatever converter is in the phone. Even if you build a device that takes this signal and converts it to digital, only to be converted back using the same device you're using on the phones that support a USB dac, you're still going to get the sound signature of that particular phone because you're starting with its converted analog stage.

Ultimately, my opinion is that any phone that isn't capable of feeding a digital signal to a USB dac simply won't be able to perform like you want.

These clients need newer phones.

 

[ts1981]

Old phones that don't have USB-C are simply old phones and I will not focus on them. If so and I will have the solution, it will be in the near future and there will be even less phones without a USB-C, so this problem will be getting smaller and smaller. Also the clients will change the phones to newer ones soon.

I would like to focus only on the Android (maybe Huawei) and Apple phones and here are still phones that have either a:

• 3.5mm jack and a USB-C connector
• only the USB-C connector

My goal is to give all the clients with these phones the same experience, e.g. to playback exactly the same on any device. USB-C seems like a solution even if the phones has a 3.5mm jack.

My question is - if every client will use "my adapter" (USB-C to 3.5mm) and plug-in their studio grade headphones, the audio output comming out from the adapter will be the same? Is the audio data sent by the phone (or by the app) through the USB-C the same? The DAC used in the adapter will converte this audio data from 0 and 1 to analog in the same way? Let's imagine that the 3.5mm jacks will not be used and everybody will use the USB-C adapter.

The other scenario is to have my own studio headphones (let's say similar to AKG-K72) with a built-in USB-C adapter in the cable (e.g. analog headphones but with a USB-C connector). If I plug these headphones into USB-C of any phone, does the audio output be the same? Or a combination of an existing headphone and the adapter (bundle or kit)? Can this be the ulmitate solution?

 

[fliz]

USB-C seems like a solution even if the phones has a 3.5mm jack.

yes

USB-C to 3.5mm

this is what's already a solved problem. Plenty of these "adapters" exist. (I put quotes around the word adapter because that's not accurate. It's a converter that's taking digital information and converting it to an analog signal.)

There is no reason to reinvent the wheel here. Plenty of these exist at every price point. Just pick one.

Is the audio data sent by the phone (or by the app) through the USB-C the same?

Depending on who you ask, yes or no.

Many people insist that "it's just 1s and 0s" and that as long as the signal is "bit perfect" the results will be identical regardless of what is providing those "1s and 0s".

I am not in that camp.

Even a "digital signal" is still electricity being transmitted via traces and wires, and electrical signals are affected by noise. How much difference that makes from one phone to another is something we can only speculate on, unless you critically listen to every phone w/ your chosen adapter.

The fact remains, what you're looking for already exists, and the market is absolutely saturated with them.

my on-the-go solution is this one, because I like the ess sabre chips and this one uses the es9038q2m (which is the 2 channel version of their previous flagship, the es9038pro. They make a 9039 now though.)

https://www.audioquest.com/products/dragonfly-cobalt

Here's something new that uses the 9039. it's half the price of the cobalt. I haven't heard it and can't speak to it's quality though.

https://headfonics.com/7hz-artemis39-review/