My vote would be Violectric Chronos. Small enough to fit in the wallet, you can control volume via phone slider, and low power draw. Plus it sounds good
I wish there was a way to know which devices worked that way. My Lotoo and FiiO dongles can only control volume at the device (iPhone volume has no effect).
Better than the Plus 4? I don’t have any... I have the two E1DA’s, 9038D6K & 9038S that are great too. They’re all “transparent” to me, which is exactly what I want, so I do t think I can give you a good advice!
Just completed my first review for something other than iems, the Hiby FC4. It's a great little dongle DAC/amp. Check out the review below if interested. Thanks!
Geting back to home use of dongles and how to make them their best. I see the idea that Polky74 uses with the external amplification and I get it, but I like the different flavor that the internal amplification adds to the tuning of the dongles. They all sound different because of the DAC technology, implementation and the amplification used. So I am going to go straight out the 3.5mm to my home stereo.
iFi iDefender+ was mentioned. I have it and I think that I am about to return it. I can't figure out any use for it. If it absolutely cut the 5v power then it would possibly be another option for those of us trying to maximize the performance of our dongle at home. Sort of like the unfortunate cb19 cable from iBasso, battery brick and hub or the powered hub options.
But, It does not cut the 5v as far as I can tell. It seems to only do so when it thinks that there is a ground loop. I do not know if we would encounter ground loops with dongles, DAPs and phones ????
I also purchases the iFi iSilencer+ plus which is a filter like the audioquest jitterbug but reportedly better. I really don't know if it does anything but I am going to keep it. I also purchased the iFi LAN silencer filter and put it just before the LAN cable to sends signal to my dongle. Going to keep it, like the iSilencer+ for piece of mind.
1. the battery brick and hub work well (sounds good, but I do not know why) - unless it is simply the introduction of more power from the battery brick as you ARE getting power from your phone which is kind of defeating the purpose of what we are trying to do with this method - that being a signal only from the phone that is unpolluted by the power signal from the phone going down the same cable. If you think only the brick is powering the dongle and that this method is doing exactly what we wish, then simply unplug the brick while listening to music and see if everything comes to a halt. It does not because the phone is sharing or even entirely powering the situation. Still sounds good but it does not fundamentally do what I wish it did.
- a solution would be to unsolder or cut the red wire inside of the USB cable from the acele hub to the phone. (that is the 5v power wire that we are trying to render useless. (I am not adventurous enough to do this yet and I have no tools).
- another option would be to find an unpowered hub like the acele that DOES NOT have a cable attached but only open ports. A USB cable could be made that does not carry 5V to the hub from the phone (or purchased ? - have not seen one). I have not seen a data only calbe, I mean, but there is a hub like that available: no cables attached, only ports. I am thinking about buying it because it is cheap and worth the try. I have not figured out how to solve the USB-without-power-transfer-cable part of the equation, yet.
2. The powered USB hubs like the pilwtp / minisopuru are working well for me. I am running some supercapacitor banks between its power supply and the hub and a sonic scientific quicksilver USB cable which has a supercapacitor inline from the powered port to the dongle. I like this, but It bothers me how incredibly cheap the USB cable from the hub that goes to the phone must be... we talk about buying better USB cables for sound quality then run the whole show through a cable (long one at that !) which can be attached to a powered USB hub, and sold along with a 12 v power supply for $24 US for a profit. hmmmm...
That decent, short, ddHiFi USB c to c cable costs that much or more on its own. I have no idea of a work around here. It sounds good but just bothers me intellectually. Oh well. I am at the nerd out phase of this. Eventually all of this stuff will end up collecting dust and I will just plug into my phone, knowing me.
3. Maybe some company will make a good product like the sucky iBasso cb19. that would solve everything. A battery brick with a super capacitor / capacitor bank inline powering a split USB cable would likely be the best possible world for making dongles their best.
I wish there was a way to know which devices worked that way. My Lotoo and FiiO dongles can only control volume at the device (iPhone volume has no effect).
Maybe I could gather some more information on this issue from the users out there that use an iOS device? For those of you that don't mind, could you please post whether or not a specific USB dongle supports volume changes via iPhone/iPad interface? Maybe others would find this useful as well. Here is a start:
Lotoo Paw S2 - hardware buttons only, no iOS volume control
Hiby FC3 - hardware buttons only, no iOS volume control
Dragonfly Cobalt - iOS only (no volume buttons on device)
Questyle 12, 15, 12i, 15i - iOS only (no volume buttons on device)
Violectric Chronos - Volume buttons actually change iOS volume - i.e. linked
Note that there may be fourth type that has independent volume controls both on the device and in iOS, similar to BT/USB devices like Q5k, BTR5, etc.
The battle between the best A&K dongle and the best iBasso dongle begins... soon the result... or rather "my" result...
The immediately obvious thing is that it doesn't have an independent volume control despite having buttons... basically using its buttons modifies the Windows volume level, and the other thing is that the volume has an exponential gain "like the L&P W4 " that is, at the beginning it doesn't seem to rise but after the 40/50 level it starts to rise really much.
Let's start by saying something a little strange that I don't know how to explain... the HC4 of all the dongles is certainly the one with the widest current swings I've ever seen... on the PulWtop it goes from a minimum absorption of 0.2 watt up to the maximum that exceeds 1 watt. I don't know what it means, but I imagine that when connected to a normal USB port (which provides a maximum of 0.5) it cannot do this and therefore thinks that its performance is much lower than when connected to the PulWtop which instead allows these peaks of demand for it current. Someone more knowledgeable than me could perhaps explain what this means on a practical level when a dongle has such high current variations. Thank you.
Maybe I could gather some more information on this issue from the users out there that use an iOS device? For those of you that don't mind, could you please post whether or not a specific USB dongle supports volume changes via iPhone/iPad interface? Maybe others would find this useful as well. Here is a start:
Lotoo Paw S2 - hardware buttons only, no iOS volume control
Hiby FC3 - hardware buttons only, no iOS volume control
Dragonfly Cobalt - iOS only (no volume buttons on device)
Questyle 12, 15, 12i, 15i - iOS only (no volume buttons on device)
Violectric Chronos - Volume buttons actually change iOS volume - i.e. linked
Note that there may be fourth type that has independent volume controls both on the device and in iOS, similar to BT/USB devices like Q5k, BTR5, etc.
I guess the only way to know for sure is to ask someone who owns a device before purchasing (if volume control type matters to you). I would personally prefer independent volume control which is the best of both worlds.
Anyone willing to tell me how the L&P W4 handles volume with an iOS device?
I guess the only way to know for sure is to ask someone who owns a device before purchasing (if volume control type matters to you). I would personally prefer independent volume control which is the best of both worlds.
Anyone willing to tell me how the L&P W4 handles volume with an iOS device?
The W4 on Android has a separate volume from the application, while the Astell & Kern HC4 that I just received has volume buttons that instead regulate the Windows one... so it doesn't have a separate volume.
The W4 on Android has a separate volume from the application, while the Astell & Kern HC4 that I just received has volume buttons that instead regulate the Windows one... so it doesn't have a separate volume.
To have a finer adjustment and above all to use all the dynamics present at the source level, I set the phone volume to maximum and then adjust the dongle volume as desired, but I think that no one is stopping you from doing the opposite. In your specific case though I would look for something like the Questyle M12 which doesn't have a volume adjustment at all and you're good to go.
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