Smoke and mirrors. Moving the the D/A and amplification circuitry a couple centimeters physically will not lead to any sonic improvement or greater utility, it will just drive up costs for consumers and line Intel's pocket. It's completely pointless from a consumers perspective.
I disagree. It would do more than just move the DAC and headphone amp, it would allow for more advanced DAC for handling multi-point audio. For instance, you could have 7.1 streams. Headphone jack is limited to stereo with mono input. The headphone could also process spacial context and alter the decoding of audio to provide spacial awareness. All of this is currently impossible with a headphone jack.
It would also let your headphone volume to be retained on the headphones instead of per device. I also think if combined with Bluetooth wireless capability, you could switch to different audio sources for your device if in range like handoff without plugging and replugging.
as far as cost, the price of a simple stereo DAC and amp is a fraction of other components like drivers. I don't think price is going to be a big issue for basic needs.
Rubbish. iPhones and many other phones already use very good DACs I doubt I or most other people could sonically distinguish them from any other DAC. 7.1 streams in a pair of headphones - what; for the 2 drivers? Spatial processing would only be relevant if you had headphones with multiple, spatially well separated drivers. If headphones only have two drivers, there is no processing you could do in the headphones you couldn't do in the phone and feed to the headphones via the 3.5mm socket. All of that is currently a herd of Unicorns nobody want's or needs.
Smoke and mirrors. Moving the the D/A and amplification circuitry a couple centimeters physically will not lead to any sonic improvement or greater utility, it will just drive up costs for consumers and line Intel's pocket. It's completely pointless from a consumers perspective.
I disagree. Moving things to the headset means the headset designer is free to implement the types of amplification and conversion it sees as best. This has the potential to demonstrate a vast array of performance levels. That is if manufactures ever go all digital. The interesting thing here is that it sounds like they are cooking up an analog out solution too. That can mean very cheap head phones to start.
Meaningless waffle. Complete tripe.
Did you know that good old analogue headphones can be very expensive and sound really, good?
I've got some amazing news for people - human hearing has not improved in the last 30 years. The fidelity of audio reproduction systems hasn't improved in the same time frame either. The big improvement in the last 30 years is that the cost of high audio quality sources has come down to the point most people can afford one and has one in their pocket, but people who were listening to large reel-to-reel tape decks in the early 80's were already there. What hasn't come down so much in cost, are the transducers that can vibrate the air in your ear canals with high fidelity, be they speakers or headphones.
The big improvement in the last 30 years is that the cost of high audio quality sources has come down to the point most people can afford one and has one in their pocket, but people who were listening to large reel-to-reel tape decks in the early 80's were already there.
Reel-to-reel - good one. Two words: tape hiss. Not horrible the first time you listened to it but the tape degraded with each successive listening due to loss of magnetic particles, especially if you didn't demagnetize your heads often and then of course there was tape stretch, distorting the sound with each rewind. Those were the good old days.
Sure they were using 1/4" jack headphones which are better than 3.5mm but the source was crap compared to digital audio. Apple's 3.5mm jack is very high quality but some other devices such as wireless lapel mics sometimes get scratchy when the cable is moved. Digital all the way is much better in my opinion. Some high end headphones already have USB input.
Better quality?? Yea, like bluetooth audio, which sucks compared to good D/A chips.
It's all about the D/A circuits. Leaving the integration of such chips up to the headphone makers will probably result in worse quality in most cases, because they opt to implement the cheapest chip they can find.
Plus, Intel is not an audio company either. So it's likely that this plug will be designed to please the masses, not music lovers. Those people who can't tell the difference between an MP3 track and 24bit/96kH recording and don't care about it.
Plus, Intel is not an audio company either. So it's likely that this plug will be designed to please the masses, not music lovers. Those people who can't tell the difference between an MP3 track and 24bit/96kH recording and don't care about it.
Music lovers are not going to settle for a cheap headphone, so you have nothing to worry about.
I disagree. It would do more than just move the DAC and headphone amp, it would allow for more advanced DAC for handling multi-point audio. For instance, you could have 7.1 streams. Headphone jack is limited to stereo with mono input. The headphone could also process spacial context and alter the decoding of audio to provide spacial awareness. All of this is currently impossible with a headphone jack.
It would also let your headphone volume to be retained on the headphones instead of per device. I also think if combined with Bluetooth wireless capability, you could switch to different audio sources for your device if in range like handoff without plugging and replugging.
as far as cost, the price of a simple stereo DAC and amp is a fraction of other components like drivers. I don't think price is going to be a big issue for basic needs.
Rubbish. iPhones and many other phones already use very good DACs I doubt I or most other people could sonically distinguish them from any other DAC. 7.1 streams in a pair of headphones - what; for the 2 drivers? Spatial processing would only be relevant if you had headphones with multiple, spatially well separated drivers. If headphones only have two drivers, there is no processing you could do in the headphones you couldn't do in the phone and feed to the headphones via the 3.5mm socket. All of that is currently a herd of Unicorns nobody want's or needs.
Meaningless waffle. Complete tripe.
Did you know that good old analogue headphones can be very expensive and sound really, good?
I've got some amazing news for people - human hearing has not improved in the last 30 years. The fidelity of audio reproduction systems hasn't improved in the same time frame either. The big improvement in the last 30 years is that the cost of high audio quality sources has come down to the point most people can afford one and has one in their pocket, but people who were listening to large reel-to-reel tape decks in the early 80's were already there. What hasn't come down so much in cost, are the transducers that can vibrate the air in your ear canals with high fidelity, be they speakers or headphones.
I see you want to avoid my discussion on driver type and impedance. Probably a good choice, lest you prove even further how ignorant you are about audio.
An integrated dac/amp/speaker becomes possible with data connections such as Lightning or USB-C. This enables system optimization. Texas Instruments has their "Smart Amp" concept, where the particular speaker characteristics are first modeled. Then, the driver circuitry makes use of this information, while also using real time feedback to get the most out of any given speaker.
pmz: problem is that EU has mandated that all phones have a standardized power supply. It's either mini- or micro-USB (micro, I think, but I'm not sure). There's a push to switch the standard to USB-C.
I guess that Apple could meet this requirement with a dongle but it might take the opportunity to add USB-C so that it could kill two birds with one stone:- EU compliance and digital headphones.
Let's face it - if this move by Intel gets traction, there will be a lot more USB-C headphones than there ever will be with Lightning.
They made that MicroUSB standard a law, Now they're going to change it? The whole point it to keep people from throwing all these cables into the landfill. What happens if/when they change the law? The whole point is thrown out the window.
Th EU directive says that in 2017 all new smartphones should have one standardized charger (nothing more, nothing less). It is up to equipment vendors to decide which standard. As things are evolving right now it will be USB-C. It remains to be seen if Apple would be allowed to circumvent the directive by offering a dongle, because the directive does not allow that 2 chargers are shipped.
I disagree. It would do more than just move the DAC and headphone amp, it would allow for more advanced DAC for handling multi-point audio. For instance, you could have 7.1 streams. Headphone jack is limited to stereo with mono input. The headphone could also process spacial context and alter the decoding of audio to provide spacial awareness. All of this is currently impossible with a headphone jack.
7.1 via headphones? Where's the ".1" (the sub)? Where's the centre channel?
Think it through -- spacial awareness is created by differences in arrival time, frequency variations caused by the path to the eardrum, and phase differences caused by reflections. How are you going to reproduce those phenomena when the speaker is sitting directly on (or in) the ear? Please don't say DSP unless you have some actual examples of such hardware and software that actually work and are actually available for implementation. While it MAY be possible to artificially recreate the subtle time, phase and frequency variations required to create an illusion of surround, it's harder in practice than in theory.
Here's the most important part: Any system that successfully creates an immersive experience via headphones will still only require two speakers, and could just as easily work with conventional, passive headphones. There's no need (or even reason) for a digital path to an active device. There's no inherent advantage to moving the digital parts of the signal chain out of the playback device and into the headphones.
Beat me to it. cnocbui and hodar (with the ridiculous "Current goes one direction, drive moves up, reverse the current flow and driver moves down" comment) don't have a clue what they're talking about.
The best example of this is the engineers are free to choose whatever driver (speaker) they like. For example, impedance. The generic headphone amplifier in a smartphone does a good job with a wide range of headphone impedance, but it's not optimized for ALL of them. Especially ones at the extreme high or low impedance range. This is why headphones only come in a few standard impedance versions (like 32 or 600 ohm). For a headphone designer this is now irrelevant. They use the driver of their choice, and can then make a specific amplifier that's optimized for the impedance of that driver. If they want to use a higher impedance driver they can also include a DC-DC converter in their headphones to increase the voltage (power supply) for their amplifier so it works better with that SPECIFIC driver. Further, they can now use non-standard drivers (like electrostatic).
Having the D/A, amps and processing in the headphone are just a side benefit. The real benefit is freedom of choice for the driver/amplifier.
Valid points, but is it worth it?
How many people are using an iDevice with the expectation of an audiophile experience? Is it worth once again limiting our choices to Apple-specific versions, with the inherent increase in cost, to satisfy what even you and I have to admit is a vanishingly small segment of the market? Especially for what will be, at best, a tiny improvement over a high-quality set of passive cans?
There's no inherent advantage to moving the digital parts of the signal chain out of the playback device and into the headphones.
Except that an audio jack that relies on electrical contacts that are swiveling around using spring tension and make contact with the wrong pole upon insertion or extraction is inherently inferior and is subject to physical degradation. Plus an analog wire is much more susceptible to radio interference.
pmz: problem is that EU has mandated that all phones have a standardized power supply. It's either mini- or micro-USB (micro, I think, but I'm not sure). There's a push to switch the standard to USB-C.
I guess that Apple could meet this requirement with a dongle but it might take the opportunity to add USB-C so that it could kill two birds with one stone:- EU compliance and digital headphones.
Let's face it - if this move by Intel gets traction, there will be a lot more USB-C headphones than there ever will be with Lightning.
That's what I was thinking too. This might force Apple over the long run to drop Lightning for USB-C on future iOS devices. Despite Lightning incorporating the better connector design.
By removing the 3.5 mm jack, device manufacturers will not have to put in an amp/DAC that would normally be used for audio out (and they're not likely to pass the savings onto the consumer). Meanwhile, headphone manufacturers will have to add an amp/DAC into their headphones or the wire of their headphones (which will bring up the cost).
There's also the compromise of using a USB-C port that unlike a 3.5mm plug cannot rotate and will likely become damaged or unplugged rather easily.
The consumer does not win here, all this is doing is moving the location of parts to outside of the device. I suppose my next car will come with a pump, so when I'm at a petrol station I can siphon it directly from the ground.
Ideally, we would just continue as is and keep both an analog and digital output.
There's no inherent advantage to moving the digital parts of the signal chain out of the playback device and into the headphones.
Except that an audio jack that relies on electrical contacts that are swiveling around using spring tension and make contact with the wrong pole upon insertion or extraction is inherently inferior and is subject to physical degradation. Plus an analog wire is much more susceptible to radio interference.
The degree of signal degradation in those contacts is almost too small to measure, much less hear. At worst we're talking about three orders of magnitude below an ohm.
Radio interference only matters in a signal that is amplified. It doesn't affect passive devices. Even if a headphone cable picks up a signal, it's at microscopic levels. To be heard the signal would have to be strong enough that skin burn would be a much greater concern than impure audio. If anything, moving the DAC and amplifier downstream makes it MORE likely that RF could be a problem.
I'm all for letting go of old standards in the name of progress, but sometimes the payoff doesn't justify the cost. I think this is one of those cases. Until today I would have said there's NO payoff, but I now concede there may be a tiny benefit to a tiny segment of the market (specifically those who argue over the relative merits of various speaker wires). What are the benefits to the average consumer that make worthwhile a wholesale change away from a proven system?
I disagree. Moving things to the headset means the headset designer is free to implement the types of amplification and conversion it sees as best. This has the potential to demonstrate a vast array of performance levels. That is if manufactures ever go all digital. The interesting thing here is that it sounds like they are cooking up an analog out solution too. That can mean very cheap head phones to start.
Beat me to it. cnocbui and hodar (with the ridiculous "Current goes one direction, drive moves up, reverse the current flow and driver moves down" comment) don't have a clue what they're talking about.
The best example of this is the engineers are free to choose whatever driver (speaker) they like. For example, impedance. The generic headphone amplifier in a smartphone does a good job with a wide range of headphone impedance, but it's not optimized for ALL of them. Especially ones at the extreme high or low impedance range. This is why headphones only come in a few standard impedance versions (like 32 or 600 ohm). For a headphone designer this is now irrelevant. They use the driver of their choice, and can then make a specific amplifier that's optimized for the impedance of that driver. If they want to use a higher impedance driver they can also include a DC-DC converter in their headphones to increase the voltage (power supply) for their amplifier so it works better with that SPECIFIC driver. Further, they can now use non-standard drivers (like electrostatic).
Having the D/A, amps and processing in the headphone are just a side benefit. The real benefit is freedom of choice for the driver/amplifier.
People are more interested in wireless, ear-looped headphones that don't drain their phone battery paired up by Bluetooth, and completely disinterested [generally speaking] in adding weight and cost to headphones that provide better impedance ranges but the same shitty wired cluster frack that is what they are while exercising, driving the car, etc. Hands free also means wire free.
Throw in the features of noise cancellation via a touch interface on your phone and you kill the idea of the 7mm mini jack or USB-C jack for audio.
In the article.."Improved audio quality is one obvious plus" Having worked in pro-audio for over 40 years, that's not obvious to me at all. The route usually taken if for the minimum quality to keep costs down. Also, every monitoring situation will now require its own DAC.
By removing the 3.5 mm jack, device manufacturers will not have to put in an amp/DAC that would normally be used for audio out (and they're not likely to pass the savings onto the consumer). Meanwhile, headphone manufacturers will have to add an amp/DAC into their headphones or the wire of their headphones (which will bring up the cost).
There's also the compromise of using a USB-C port that unlike a 3.5mm plug cannot rotate and will likely become damaged or unplugged rather easily.
The consumer does not win here, all this is doing is moving the location of parts to outside of the device. I suppose my next car will come with a pump, so when I'm at a petrol station I can siphon it directly from the ground.
Ideally, we would just continue as is and keep both an analog and digital output.
Phones will have to keep a crappy DAC and amp to drive the phones speaker, though the quality can be dialed down considerably as it would only be for calls.
I'd just like to continue to listen to music / play a game / talk with someone while having the phone plugged in. Oh well, that's progress I suppose. :-/
Plus, Intel is not an audio company either. So it's likely that this plug will be designed to please the masses, not music lovers. Those people who can't tell the difference between an MP3 track and 24bit/96kH recording and don't care about it.
That would everybody who is not self-deluded as shown by A/B blind listening tests between 320Kbps MP3 and high def audio -- where audio experts couldn't tell the difference.
And that's on GOOD speakers. On average headphones and everyday listening scenarios, it's a non starter.
I do audio engineering work - 24/96 is only needed for recording and DAW processing, to avoid degradation with the many effect, processing steps involved and have the headroom to mix. As a delivery format it doesn't give much over regular 16 bit audio.
In fact even professional studios don't always use 24/96, as the dynamic range (24) is more important than the resolution for the final result, and most just use 24/44.1 recording/processing (or the equivalent 24/48 for cinema/tv work).
Just waiting for giants like Apple,Samsung to adopt. It's inevitable. Only, concern is one port used for multiple insertion per day by wired audio jack into the same port use for charging. Within few months of usage, phone will still be perfect but the port went bad. Solution is BT earbuds, wireless charging.
This is another meme that's become really tiresome. I have a dock at work, and at home, and in the car. I keep my phone on the dock whenever I'm in any of those locations. I likely plug and unplug my iPhone several dozen times a day. The Lightning port is absolutely pristine. It has to be one of the most robust connectors I've ever seen in an electronic device.
But this definitely supports what I've been saying about Apple since this rumor started -- there's a need to eliminate the 3.5mm jack in mobile devices to reclaim space for other things.
This is the only reason it makes sense for Apple to remove the 3.5mm headphone jack, because all of the other flagships are going to have to remove it as well at some point, and Intel is getting a jump on Apple by promoting it now before Apple has a chance to introduce it in September.
Rubbish. iPhones and many other phones already use very good DACs I doubt I or most other people could sonically distinguish them from any other DAC. 7.1 streams in a pair of headphones - what; for the 2 drivers? Spatial processing would only be relevant if you had headphones with multiple, spatially well separated drivers. If headphones only have two drivers, there is no processing you could do in the headphones you couldn't do in the phone and feed to the headphones via the 3.5mm socket. All of that is currently a herd of Unicorns nobody want's or needs.
Meaningless waffle. Complete tripe.
Did you know that good old analogue headphones can be very expensive and sound really, good?
I've got some amazing news for people - human hearing has not improved in the last 30 years. The fidelity of audio reproduction systems hasn't improved in the same time frame either. The big improvement in the last 30 years is that the cost of high audio quality sources has come down to the point most people can afford one and has one in their pocket, but people who were listening to large reel-to-reel tape decks in the early 80's were already there. What hasn't come down so much in cost, are the transducers that can vibrate the air in your ear canals with high fidelity, be they speakers or headphones.
Impedance-matching is a real thing. When you try to feed a changing signal from a source of one impedance to a receiver of a different impedance, you get a standing wave. Some power gets reflected back into the amplifier where it ends up as heat, and it doesn't drive the receiver. This is most obvious with >10W amplifiers, but some headphones (specifically those with planar magnetic drivers) have ludicrously high impedance, and are very difficult to drive as a result. There is much debate on whether planar magnetic drivers are worthwhile, but there is no debate on whether they need special amplifiers or impedance-matching networks. That's a matter of physics.
I dislike the idea of moving the DAC out of the device and into the headphones. Pretty sure the only people who want that are DAC manufacturers. Early DACs were questionable, but any remotely modern one is practically free and will outperform any driver.
The path between the DAC and amplifier can be an issue ... if you hose down your setup in salt water on a regular basis. Unless a transmitting radio's antenna is literally touching your low-power path, there is basically no chance of significant interference. Keep in mind, after all, that the power of the transmission goes down at a rate between the square of the distance (for an ideal dipole) and the cube of the distance (for an ideal point source).
Amplifiers have improved significantly. Not by discovery of new amplification techniques, but through dramatically improved tolerances and better component matching techniques. Most amplifiers now outperform all but the most sensitive drivers.
Driver technology has not changed a huge amount in 30+ years. Along with encoding, it is most frequently the limitation on sound quality.
Comments
Meaningless waffle. Complete tripe.
Did you know that good old analogue headphones can be very expensive and sound really, good?
I've got some amazing news for people - human hearing has not improved in the last 30 years. The fidelity of audio reproduction systems hasn't improved in the same time frame either. The big improvement in the last 30 years is that the cost of high audio quality sources has come down to the point most people can afford one and has one in their pocket, but people who were listening to large reel-to-reel tape decks in the early 80's were already there. What hasn't come down so much in cost, are the transducers that can vibrate the air in your ear canals with high fidelity, be they speakers or headphones.
Sure they were using 1/4" jack headphones which are better than 3.5mm but the source was crap compared to digital audio. Apple's 3.5mm jack is very high quality but some other devices such as wireless lapel mics sometimes get scratchy when the cable is moved. Digital all the way is much better in my opinion. Some high end headphones already have USB input.
It's all about the D/A circuits. Leaving the integration of such chips up to the headphone makers will probably result in worse quality in most cases, because they opt to implement the cheapest chip they can find.
Plus, Intel is not an audio company either. So it's likely that this plug will be designed to please the masses, not music lovers. Those people who can't tell the difference between an MP3 track and 24bit/96kH recording and don't care about it.
I see you want to avoid my discussion on driver type and impedance. Probably a good choice, lest you prove even further how ignorant you are about audio.
http://www.ti.com/lsds/ti/analog/audio/smart-amp.page#smartamp
7.1 via headphones? Where's the ".1" (the sub)? Where's the centre channel?
Think it through -- spacial awareness is created by differences in arrival time, frequency variations caused by the path to the eardrum, and phase differences caused by reflections. How are you going to reproduce those phenomena when the speaker is sitting directly on (or in) the ear? Please don't say DSP unless you have some actual examples of such hardware and software that actually work and are actually available for implementation. While it MAY be possible to artificially recreate the subtle time, phase and frequency variations required to create an illusion of surround, it's harder in practice than in theory.
Here's the most important part: Any system that successfully creates an immersive experience via headphones will still only require two speakers, and could just as easily work with conventional, passive headphones. There's no need (or even reason) for a digital path to an active device. There's no inherent advantage to moving the digital parts of the signal chain out of the playback device and into the headphones.
Valid points, but is it worth it?
How many people are using an iDevice with the expectation of an audiophile experience? Is it worth once again limiting our choices to Apple-specific versions, with the inherent increase in cost, to satisfy what even you and I have to admit is a vanishingly small segment of the market? Especially for what will be, at best, a tiny improvement over a high-quality set of passive cans?
There's also the compromise of using a USB-C port that unlike a 3.5mm plug cannot rotate and will likely become damaged or unplugged rather easily.
The consumer does not win here, all this is doing is moving the location of parts to outside of the device. I suppose my next car will come with a pump, so when I'm at a petrol station I can siphon it directly from the ground.
Ideally, we would just continue as is and keep both an analog and digital output.
The degree of signal degradation in those contacts is almost too small to measure, much less hear. At worst we're talking about three orders of magnitude below an ohm.
Radio interference only matters in a signal that is amplified. It doesn't affect passive devices. Even if a headphone cable picks up a signal, it's at microscopic levels. To be heard the signal would have to be strong enough that skin burn would be a much greater concern than impure audio. If anything, moving the DAC and amplifier downstream makes it MORE likely that RF could be a problem.
I'm all for letting go of old standards in the name of progress, but sometimes the payoff doesn't justify the cost. I think this is one of those cases. Until today I would have said there's NO payoff, but I now concede there may be a tiny benefit to a tiny segment of the market (specifically those who argue over the relative merits of various speaker wires). What are the benefits to the average consumer that make worthwhile a wholesale change away from a proven system?
People are more interested in wireless, ear-looped headphones that don't drain their phone battery paired up by Bluetooth, and completely disinterested [generally speaking] in adding weight and cost to headphones that provide better impedance ranges but the same shitty wired cluster frack that is what they are while exercising, driving the car, etc. Hands free also means wire free.
Throw in the features of noise cancellation via a touch interface on your phone and you kill the idea of the 7mm mini jack or USB-C jack for audio.
Having worked in pro-audio for over 40 years, that's not obvious to me at all. The route usually taken if for the minimum quality to keep costs down.
Also, every monitoring situation will now require its own DAC.
And that's on GOOD speakers. On average headphones and everyday listening scenarios, it's a non starter.
I do audio engineering work - 24/96 is only needed for recording and DAW processing, to avoid degradation with the many effect, processing steps involved and have the headroom to mix. As a delivery format it doesn't give much over regular 16 bit audio.
In fact even professional studios don't always use 24/96, as the dynamic range (24) is more important than the resolution for the final result, and most just use 24/44.1 recording/processing (or the equivalent 24/48 for cinema/tv work).
But this definitely supports what I've been saying about Apple since this rumor started -- there's a need to eliminate the 3.5mm jack in mobile devices to reclaim space for other things.
This is the only reason it makes sense for Apple to remove the 3.5mm headphone jack, because all of the other flagships are going to have to remove it as well at some point, and Intel is getting a jump on Apple by promoting it now before Apple has a chance to introduce it in September.
I dislike the idea of moving the DAC out of the device and into the headphones. Pretty sure the only people who want that are DAC manufacturers. Early DACs were questionable, but any remotely modern one is practically free and will outperform any driver.
The path between the DAC and amplifier can be an issue ... if you hose down your setup in salt water on a regular basis. Unless a transmitting radio's antenna is literally touching your low-power path, there is basically no chance of significant interference. Keep in mind, after all, that the power of the transmission goes down at a rate between the square of the distance (for an ideal dipole) and the cube of the distance (for an ideal point source).
Amplifiers have improved significantly. Not by discovery of new amplification techniques, but through dramatically improved tolerances and better component matching techniques. Most amplifiers now outperform all but the most sensitive drivers.
Driver technology has not changed a huge amount in 30+ years. Along with encoding, it is most frequently the limitation on sound quality.