Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Dope Tech: Lightning Headphones!”.
Hey what is up guys mkbhd here and there are rumors of the next iphone, not having any headphone jack at all whatsoever and actually a couple other phones too. But i made a video all about this initially and it’s sort of see-sawed back and forth between. Yes, it will no, it won’t. Yes, it will no won’t, but with the recent influx of all these lightning headphones that we’re seeing now from all these manufacturers seems pretty likely that we’re gon na see a new iphone with no headphone jack. So, by getting rid of the headphone jack apple kind of gives themselves two options with the built-in headphones that they include with every iphone box ever, which would be either make them lightning headphones.
Now, instead of a regular headphone jack or make them wireless earbuds – or i guess the third option would be to not include them anymore, but hopefully they don’t do that. Please don’t do that so bluetooth, headphones can be pretty good, but they’re also easier to lose when they’re wireless and they’re also a little bit more expensive. So a lot of people see apple, going with lightning headphones as their bundle for the next iphone, assuming it doesn’t have a headphone jack now are lightning headphones any good. You didn’t really know that before, but now there are actually a couple pairs of lightning headphones out. That you can buy, which we did buy and i’ll figure it out. So this first pair is the philips fidelio or fidelio, or it’s probably fidelia, but this is pretty much the simplest implementation.
You can find so they’re on ear headphones, pretty simple design. They have leather. All around the outside – and i guess plastic everywhere else – there’s nothing too flashy about the design, but they look like a normal pair of headphones and then they connect through the lightning port instead of the headphone jack and since there are lightning headphones, they also have a Built-In dac so digital analog converter, the dac itself is actually in the headphones. It’S not built into the cable or anything where you can see it, but you can do that with a digital signal. Now, since when you go through the lightning port you’re, not relying on the iphone’s built-in dac anymore, you can rely on the dac. That’S built into the headphones to do all the work. They are a little bit bass heavy, but they sound pretty good. I mean there’s not a whole lot to complain about as far as audio quality, and they have a little bit of a volume rocker on the side to turn the volume up and down on your iphone, while they’re plugged in as pretty much every other pair of Headphones ever also has and there’s also a giant play pause button that is the entire right hand.
Side of the headphones that’s pretty clean. Now this pair of headphones is by audis and they’re called the sign and they’re a big step up uh. The price is also a big step up, but these you can immediately tell they’re a lot heavier they’re immediately, a nicer built pair of headphones, so there’s metal all around the hinges are metal. The ear cup holders are metal, everything is all around well built, and then you have this sort of a pseudo leather finish on the backs of the ear cups, which is actually kind of nice to feel, and then the top band is also all this leather, and It’S really soft, so these are really adjustable really comfortable, slightly heavier, but also slightly better built headphones.
This one also has a built-in dac and they put it right here in the cable, so you can see it same functionality. You got the play, pause controls, volume, up, volume, down a microphone for taking calls etc, and it sort of splits, the cable, the lightning cable into two plugs one in each of the ear cups. So this pair of headphones actually comes with two different cables. One of them is just the lightning cable, so it’s a lightning end on one side and three and a half millimeter headphone jack and the built-in dac. But the other cable is just a regular three and a half millimeter cable with no built-in dac, so you’re going to be using your phone’s dash. So because of this, we actually get to directly see or hear the difference.
The advantage – because this is one of those big high-end pairs of headphones with the huge beefy drivers that can’t really be powered to their full potential by the dac. That’S in your phone. They need some sort of extra external power. So when you just go in straight with the three and a half millimeter headphone jack, you’re gon na notice, that you crank up the volume on your phone all the way to the max and the headphones still only get up to like a barely decent volume and Everything still sounds kind of flat and almost a little weak, like you’re, listening to the music from behind a thin wall.
It’S clearly struggling again, your laptop your desktop computer might not have this problem, but when you’re on the go most smartphones will not handle this pair of headphones very easily, some do but most don’t so when you do go in via lightning. You get the bundled in dac built specifically for these headphones, so in theory they’re a perfect fit for it. They have just the right amount of power, and the shape of the sound is exactly the way the manufacturer wants, and you can definitely hear the difference when you switch over. You get better instrument, separation, better volume, tighter bass, more pronunciation in the mids and highs, and just overall a much better sound as you’d expect, so the advantage is kind of real with the lightning headphones i mean just because you get the built-in custom built dac now.
Let’S still doesn’t answer the question: how do you charge and listen to music at the same time, you would need, i guess wireless headphones to be able to do that, but that’s it so far. The thing is with both of these. These have been both pretty premium headphones, meaning expensive. So i would be curious to see what a cheap pair of lightning earphones or just like a regular pair of lightning earbuds, would look like how cheap could they possibly be anyway. The iphone 7 is a few months away, we’ll get all the answers soon, but until then feel free to check out i’ll have links to the headphones i’ve showed in this article below and of course, you should watch the video all about the possibility of not having A headphone jack and a phone below as well all the advantages of a digital versus an analog connector worth it definitely watch it. That’S been it. Thank you for watching this video and i’ll talk to you guys. The next one peace .