DAC Chip: Apple (Single)
PCM Undisclosed, SNR: Unspecified, Power: Unspecified, USB Type-C Male, 3.5mm SE (Microphone: Yes), Plastic Chassis with Short Cable
Listening Equipment: Etymotic ER4SR, ER2XR, Shure KSE1500, TIN HiFi P1, HZSOUND Heart Mirror
LISTENING EQUIPMENT USED IMPARTED HUGE INFLUENCE TO SOUND IMPRESSIONS & RATING
💚PROS
- Natural timbre with balanced tonality, pleasantly organic
- Vibrant dynamics, well controlled and engaging.
- Lush Mids with crisp Male and Female vocals
- Crisp Treble with commendable textures, snappy decays
- Commanding and fast Mid-Bass with ample punch and textures
- Sub-Bass is present and with good seismic feedback.
- Surprisingly good details retrieval with proper nuances
- Spacious and open soundstage with decent imaging, great layering
- Sounds best with EBM and modern music.
- Great speed and transients handling, no congestion observed.
- Great resistances to sibilance
- Very forgiving on source quality (but also less transparent)
💔CONS
- Slightly grainy edged for Treble decays
- Dull edged extensions for Treble and Percussions
- Exceedingly meek driving capability due to Android SRC limitations
- The build seems very flimsy with the data cable being very thin.
- Mids focused and somewhat recessed highs and lows, rolled off slightly shorter.
VERDICT
Apple Type-C. In all fairness this Apple Type-C is a decent dongle with natural sense of sound that is not compressed and artificial. The Achilles heel for this unit is when you plug it directly to a stock Android phone. To unlock the full potential, you will need to switch to nerd mode and work it up with UAPP. However, I already stated that I don’t use UAPP as I prefer stock user experience and if a similarly priced dongle can do the job out of the box without tweaking then it is obvious to me that using Apple Type-C is not practical. To make things worse, there are several similarly priced dongles that perform on 4 stars rating level and this further made it even more difficult to appraise the Apple unit.
I was only able to do this impressions with my HZSOUND Heart Mirror (80/100 Volume) which is so easy to drive and synergize. The Tin HiFi P1 and Etymotic ER2XR was not even usable at 100/100 volume with everything sounded distant and recessed.
⭐⭐⭐ ($12.00)
Best Pairing: Anything below 32 Ohm and no less than 105db of sensitivity
Back to #donglemadness
Andy.EF AudioVault 
Apple are confirmed using 46L06-CWZR chip from Cirrus Logic in their USB-C to 3.5 mm Headphone Jack Adapter.
https://www.cabledo.com/apple-usb-c-digital-to-3-5-mm-headphone-adapter-teardown/
PCM format up to 24bit/48kHz. Can check via device properties on Windows.
Measurements can be found in ASR forum.
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/review-apple-vs-google-usb-c-headphone-adapters.5541/
Maximum potential difference is vary according to region. US version able output 1 V, while EU version limited to 0.5 V only due to EU regulations. All of this information can be found in ASR forum (link above). There are other versions mentioned too.
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Apple are confirmed using 46L06-CWZR chip from Cirrus Logic in their USB-C to 3.5 mm Headphone Jack Adapter.
https://www.cabledo.com/apple-usb-c-digital-to-3-5-mm-headphone-adapter-teardown/
PCM format up to 24bit/48kHz. Can check via device properties on Windows.
Measurements can be found in ASR forum.
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/review-apple-vs-google-usb-c-headphone-adapters.5541/
Maximum potential difference is vary according to region. US version able
to output 1V, while EU version limited to 0.5V only due to EU regulations. All of this information can be found in ASR forum (link above). There are other versions mentioned too.
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why so little love for the apple $10 dongle, crinacle use it to graph all it’s iems, don’t apple has enough money to hire competent hardware engineers ?
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Maybe because of the volume limitation on android? He doesn’t seems to have tested the dongle with very sensitive IEMs. (im talking things at less than 32 OHM or more than 110 DB sensitivity)
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At the time of the testing, 32 Ohm was the lowest I have. And 32 Ohm is the most common impedance even now besides 24 and 16 Ohms. But other than that, Apple Dongle is just outright weak for that segment of compact dongles
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using my most demanding iem (the planar shuoer s12) casual listening level on my apple dongle dac (EU version) is about 25%, abigail is also around 25% so power is enough for all my iems. but most importantly i could not hear any difference in sound quality when switching from apple dongle to btr5 on the balanced output (at least to my untrained ears).
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IT means that you have a non EU models. It has been said that the EU model of Apple dongle are limited
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my apple dongle is model a2155 so this is the EU version. on my mac no problem but on android it is true that if i don’t use usb direct mode in UAPP,neutron or hiby app, i have to raise volume to 95% for casual listening level, so the limitation seems to be only on android and if you let the system manage the usb dac (there is a workaround i have not tried : https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/apple-usb-c-to-3-5mm-dac-dongle-and-android-remove-the-power-limit.3917495/ )
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how did you train yourself to hear such subtle differences in dacs ? or is it just that you were lucky in the genetic lottery and got a better than average hearing ? not only that i cannot hear any difference between the $10 apple dac and the $130 btr5 ( on my most resolving iem, the s12, plugged in the bal output of btr5 ) i could not either hear any difference between compressed and uncompressed audio with the same gear in this blind test https://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2015/06/02/411473508/how-well-can-you-hear-audio-quality, can you successfully pass this blind test ?
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It is not difficult if you spend half of your day listening to music. The reasons I use Etymotic ER4SR and Shure KSE1500 is because both being super resolving and transparent that it will reveal even subtle nuances in note weight of the sound, the timbral balance be it digital or analogue sounding, the strength of imaging, of how cleanly defined the resolved tone of a guitar, piano, cello etc. The distinction of separation lines and many more. All these things can be audibly heard once you trained your ears long enough. This is not about compressed or uncompressed audio, I never touch on that subject and I have no interest in doing any sort of test on it. Music is about savoring the sound and enjoyment. I listen casually and that’s what matters to me. This whole thing about #donglemadness is something I do because it is amusing. Not to prove anything. And I am sharing my adventures for those who find my journey equally amusing. Cheers
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I’ve been eyeing on the apple dongle for a while now. Been enjoying the Titan S for its clarity but somehow my motherboard with ALC887 seems to have some noise floor (slight bit annoying on my audiobooks). Bought the Abigail dongle to fix that issue but instead found another issue. On one hand the Abigail dongle removes that noise, but on the other it changes the clean bright-ish tuning of the titan s to something more like a bassy mess or sometimes it smooths out instruments. On audio tracks like Revolution by Eternal Eclipse, separation and detail seem to take a hit for the string instruments compared to ALC887. Do you think that the apple dongle could be a worthy partner for the Titan S? Just looking to get a dongle at this price point that would eliminate the noise floor and preserve the tuning. I would not mind if it has lower volume on android since this is for windows desktop use case.
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