I went back to my stressed headphones and just investigated the best iPhone audio improvement ever. This is how I improved my iPhone audio.
As someone who is very concerned with sound quality, there are several reasons why I still choose wired headphones over wireless ones, even if some of the best wireless ones produce excellent sound despite Bluetooth’s bandwidth limitations and current, state-of-the-art technology.
The Sony WH-1000XM5 headphones, the recently released Bowers & Wilkins Px8 flagship headphones (pictured), which both enable wired and wireless connectivity, as well as wired-best in-ear video display units like the Sennheiser IE 600, are just a few of the headphones that I’m fortunate enough to test out in my capacity as an audio editor.
Even though I spend a lot of time listening to music using an iPhone connected to any set of wireless headphones or earbuds I’m reviewing, I’ve recently noticed that for private listening, I tend to gravitate toward stressed headphones to keep me grounded to what a non-compressed audio sign looks like on a few headphones free from virtual signal processing.
It’s not as simple to listen to music while moving through traffic while using stressed headphones as it formerly was. Of course, it is challenging to utilize an iPhone (or almost any smartphone) as a music playing source inside the wi-fi environment that has developed since Apple removed the headphone port from the iPhone 7 in 2016.
However, there is a class of portable devices called DACs that may deliver excellent audio benefits to any modern virtual playback device with a port. And I’ve started familiarizing myself with a next-generation version, which has improved my ability to listen to music while on the go.
DAC Magic
The Chord Electronics Mojo 2 DAC I’ve been using doubles as a headphone amplifier, but at $775 on Amazon (opens in new tab), it’s really only for very wealthy audiophiles. That may sound expensive, but if the sound quality of your song is important to you and you already subscribe to one of the top music streaming services that offers CD-quality and/or hi-res lossless streams, you owe it to yourself to listen to your music through a DAC connected to a pair of stressed headphones.
I had evaluated the original Chord Mojo, but the Mojo 2 performs much better. It is a great option for music lovers looking to boost sound best at the flow for a tool that fits into the palm of your hand. Although unquestionably opulent, it may easily be paired with portable playback devices connected through USB connection or virtual optical audio. I spent $10 on an Amazon Lightning to USB Camera Adaptor to connect it to my iPhone 12 Pro (opens in new tab).
Getting used to a cabled music player after the freedom that wi-fi access gives requires some getting used to, but any minor inconvenience is well worth it, and the sonic benefits speak for themselves.
Things simply sounded cleaner and more realistic than anything I had previously heard using the same pair of headphones connected wirelessly. The soundstage felt stronger with the vocalist clearly placed in the middle of the song, creating a virtually tangible, 3-dimensional sonic image in my head. The Mojo 2 will definitely work with your headphones and any song you are listening to.
With popular players like Apple Music and Spotify HiFi (albeit delayed) offering lossless audio to the masses, hi-res audio will become the norm, making the allure of an additional DAC that may sound just as good as the exceptional audio files more alluring than ever. Additionally, it might improve the audio quality of compressed song streaming.
A DAC is what?
You are no longer alone if you have never heard of a DAC; don’t be afraid. A DAC, or “virtual-to-analog convertor,” is a device that converts virtual audio signals into analog ones. For example, it might take a virtual audio signal from a music streaming service.
You see, the audio system within the audio tool you are listening on is now powered by analog signals rather than virtual ones. Therefore, some types of conversion are required between the audio signal provided by the virtual music file you are playing and the analog-driven audio system that generates the sounds that reach your ears.
DACs are found in many types of audio playback devices, including the nice laptops and nice tablets, but adding a standalone DAC will typically make it sound better.
You may also be perplexed as to why this is the case given that any playback device to which your headphones are connected has a DAC that expertly handles virtual sign conversion. The fact is that music does not always sound as well as it may via the included DAC on many devices, thus adding a good DAC, like Chord’s Mojo 2, will improve audio quality for both music and pleasant audio enthusiasts.
