The headphone port? socket? receptacle? on my MacBook is beginning to flake out (occasional intermittent contact on one channel, any headphone). Most everything having to do with audio electronics hardware is a deep mystery to me, but it seems to me that the simplest solution would be a USB to phono adapter. I’m pretty confident the USB ports are type A, based on Wikipedia. And the MacBook system report says it has a USB 3.0 bus. IAC, I can plug a typical USB thumb drive into one, no problem.
So my question is whether this an example of a valid option?:
The user reviews talk about its audio quality. That’s concerning to me, since all I want from this solution is the equivalent of a passive substitute for my phono jack receptacle. The headphone should get essentially the same signal as it would plugged into the phono receptacle. I don’t want to have to re-do all my EQ configs, let alone degrade the level of sound quality I’m now getting in any more general way.
And if there’s a better product/option you know of that’s available in Canada that’s great!
I got a little confused for a second because when I saw phono, I thought of phonograph or turntable lol
If you want similar sound quality to your macbook, then this adapter would work. You would just set it as your headphones in mac os, and it would work as a headphone out. You could spend more for more quality and buy something like an audioquest dragonfly in the same form factor and get much better sound quality, but it would be a lot more then that adapter.
I don’t know if it would mess up your eq, because I don’t know how it was configured, but it most likely wouldn’t.
Actually, a Dragonfly was first thing I thought of. But there are a number of QC issue reviews on Amazon going years back, yet also still showing up now even for the new Cobalt DF. Even iFi portables and certainly the Mojo have been hit by reports of QC issues. Should these reports concern me?
The other concern for me re a DragonFly was the thought that if the headphone jack in the headphone socket applied torque to it over years of daily use, might not the thumb-drive-like Dragonfly incur the same risk over time?
The Sabaj Da3 introduces the addition of a third physical element cabled between the laptop and the headphones. If I bite that bullet I would want a reliable, preferably all-in-one option that provides sound quality to bring out the best from my DT 1990s. What would that be? (Not looking for lowest cost here.)
Well, if you want something sort of portable and size isn’t a concern, the ifi iDSD micro black label is an all in one portable to end them all. The mojo and xdsd are also great, and i have had qc issues with the older xdsd (one with micro b) but not the mojo or newer xdsd (type c version). Something cheaper could be the xduoo xd 05.
Edit: the fiio q5s is a solid dac/amp combo as well. The ifi idsd nano black label is also solid for a lower price then the mirco
So I bought mine right when it came out, and the metal body (magnesium I think??) was untreated. This caused overtime the actual body of the unit to lose its finish and actually patina, causing the surface to like rust or become rough. I also kept this thing indoors in good humidity and temperature, but it was in my sweaty hands every day. This version had a micro b plug on it for charging. I contacted ifi and I returned mine and got back a new one. This one had a darker coating over the metal and a type c plug. This one shouldn’t have issues, as I don’t, but the coating is coming off a bit but that’s because of my stupidity of keeping it in my pocket next to a car key in 110°F.