comparing material things who has what it is not at all. If someone thinks that a $ 3000 headphones, DAC, amplifier ect is better please.
I’ll say it frankly.
Playing a smartphone music is great, but comparing it to an amplifier is nonsense. Sure, it does the same job as a PC with ones and zeros. But it won’t be able to replace a Dac or amplifier today. Maybe in 5-10 years.
You have a very big mistake in thinking about this. You compare a smartphone with a Dac / amp and there are technical differences. A smartphone is there to make calls and a Dac / amp to listen to music. Then you complain that you hear no difference? Apple is certainly one step further than others, but it is still a long way off, so if you have to buy / configure something beforehand, it has nothing to do with a tail comparison in material matters, but logical thinking, sorry. Tv’s can automatically upscale because it is wanted. A Dac not if it is not wanted. Especially the older Dacs were also intended for this. The manufacturers did not expect it or thought that it would work on a smartphone. Because it still works Any manufacturer would tell you, even Steve Jobs out of the grave if he could still talk.
But if you feel that you don’t hear any difference then that’s the way it is, I can’t help it, and it’s good for you, you save your money or spend it on something else that makes you happy, it’s nothing bad.
no offense but i dont understand what you are saying, and im not just saying it because the sentence structure is kind of awkward (its clear you aren’t a native english speaker and thats perfectly fine)… maybe my phone is too good with audio (LG V35 so it has the acclaimed DAC… might as well be a streaming DAP for me)… but i wasn’t meaning to compare it to an iphone… i was referring to the cheap DAC in my $500 laptop…
i just mentally see it all as a pissing contest in my brain (mostly because insecurity over not being the best)
I think for many it’s not a pissing match, for some yes, but for many it’s about getting that extra something. Many in this hobby have an addictive personality and or OCD. They want the best sound they can obtain.
me_irl
i wanna be the best and i feel like i just have bad ears
Kinda like Mon said, I think once you get higher up the chain with dacs you can hear more of a difference. Tech is getting cheaper and they can do some really good stuff at a much cheaper price point.
Unless you have physical hearing damage due to some trauma or overexposure to noise, you very likely don’t have bad ears. In fact, assuming good ear health, I don’t think audiophiles have meaningfully better physical hearing acquity than the general population - in other words our ears don’t work any better than average. Listening to music is more about memory and pattern recognition. We audiophiles tend to care more about and pick out patterns and slight changes in the patterns of sound(s) we’re hearing in the music. To say one DAC sounds different than another is really to say that our ears are perceiving a difference in the sound pattern(s) through one DAC as compared to another (or through one amp vs another, etc). It also takes time for the brain to memorize patterns (of any kind, not just sound) to the point where it will detect slight changes to those patterns. To do so new physical connections have to be created in the brain - new synaptic pathways have to form - and that takes time. If you’re new to the hobby and can’t tell the differences yet, don’t fret, your brain is working on it. Give it time.
Ears are bad by default. Poor design. Here’s something that someone told me that helps -Pick 5 songs with varying styles that you know by heart and test every headphone with those songs. It makes it a lot easier to see what each headphone does without having to question your ears so much. It’s a lot easier to see which headphones/iems emphasize what. Definitely preferable to listening to whatever demo they provide that will certainly play to their strengths
This is especially true when compared to the human ability to detect visual patterns. HD video took off like wildfire while most people were happy with lossy mp3 audio files - a step back in audio quality compared to CD - because our brains process the visual much better than the aural.
This is awesome. There should be a button we can press to say this.
i do have a kind of tinnitus though so maybe
(i aparently cant hear up to 13 Khz unless its super loud and in my brain i hear like a 16Khz or so sine wave all the time)
I have tinnitus too. A much lower frequency than yours but same kind of thing. Your brain will compensate.
Just my 2 cents… 
I have been “rolling” my KTB, ifi Nano BL and Micca Origen G2 in the form of DAC’s on my 789 Amp. I can hear the difference between all of them. Maybe because they are all using different DAC chips… The differences are subtle but I can hear them. The KTB is my favorite.
I did the same “DAC Roll” on my PS Audio Sprout 100 and I hear the same differences. The KTP and the Sprout DAC are both ESS so I really can’t say I can hear a difference there.
Maybe some day I will have a more high-end DAC but I do enjoy the sound from a ESS type DAC. But in the end, it comes down to what sounds good to you, that is all that really matters…
Good listening is a learned skill, you need to develop it and improve it with experience, train yourself to be a better listener
A few things:
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Apple sucks at hardware design. Design choices like “let’s put 48V for the laptop backlight right next to 0.8V GPU-data” is 40 tons of raw sewage levels of shitty design.
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All types of DAC except large R2R (there are integrated R2R-DACs, but they can’t do the frequency range required for audio) are available as integrated chips. Manufacturers could easily stuff the most expensive DACs into a smartphone (and LG did).
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Just because it is expensive to buy does NOT ever mean it is expensive to make. A 24-bit 192KHz DAC-chip is 3€ a piece. There are integrated powerstages that are triple that price.
No sane person would accept a 4x markup on a motherboard, but for a DAC it is okay?!
This. 100%.
A lot of people seem to forget about the different technologies DACs have , which all have their pros and cons with minimal, yet audible, differences.
As well as this, higher end DACs tend to have filters which again, with minimal yet audible differences, will change the sound of your music. For better or worse? It’s up to you.
How much one spends on a DAC is entirely relative, what is expensive for some isn’t for others. Different incomes as well as different tastes on music will determine what one gets from a DAC. They all do the same thing but they can have the ability to sound different.
Personally, my budget can not justify very expensive DACs, some people’s budgets can though and if they want to buy them then it’s up to them.
They’re is however audible differences between DACs, be it through filters or topology.
Felix
and in testing, volume should stay the same. Like in doctors hearing test, they don’t raise the volume on sounds you do not hear with test levels. 
It kinda ruins the hole purpose.
Hearing is what it currently is.
Some audio folks like to “cheat” as to say to “hear more” and don’t even understand the hole concept.
I also know the details that are not mentioned here, just in general… so no need to be donkey for anyone. Unless you someone wants to “iaaaa”.
This where the audiophile “magic fairy dust” comes into play.
i just wanted to know how to make music sound better… using an equalizer is annoying and i feel i need to amplify the trebel and mids since my headphones have a bit too much bass that it muddies some of the vocals. i mostly just want something that says “ok here is some pretty stuff”
Unless a DAC is deliberately engineered to colour the sound then most are transparent I think. I think headphone amplifiers make more difference as if you have hard to drive headphones then a beefy amplifier with a lot of headroom does make a big difference and is necessary to make the most of headphones. Even there if you have very easy to drive headphones you probably don’t need an amplifier. I think some objectivists obsess over numbers to the point where it just becomes another form of subjectivism. If you do a level matched double blind test of a DAC (or amplifier ) it’s quite eye opening as I find differences tend to get much smaller. I think if you get brain overload and an anxiety attack discerning differences in a level matched double blind test then it indicates that even where differences can be discerned they are basically irrelevant.