Has Apple made any improvement on the DAC?

I am actually partly quoting an Audioquest technician I spoke to about the Cobalt. He said Red is really the best for most people with high end head phones. Black for the remaining 95% if they even need a DAC.

The key, as you said is system. If you are loaded, and have a high end system, go for it. But, most people have Sony or Polk speakers or Beats headphones from Best Buy or the head unit and speakers that came in their Honda or Chevy. Black is going to be fine and save you some money.

Not to also not mention, again, the kind of music you are playing. If low rez compressed MP3s, you don't even need a Dragonfly! A basic Fiio or better maybe, a Schiit Audio Modi or similar is fine if you need a special DAC at all. All headphone adaptors for Lightning have DACs in them. You are getting a DAC no matter what. For low end, it is really fine.

To make this even more confusing, many people think you need a DAC with Bluetooth to make it sound better. Eh, that is not how it works…

Anyhow the type of DAC chip (now so common and cheap, it is more like a commodity) is less important than the over all design of the whole unit, especially the analog portion of the process.

The need for DAC pickiness is overrated. The bigger problem is that, if you get a DAC, how to get it to work right with that Lightning slot. I am still waiting for a Lightning to 3.5 Aux DAC, that eliminates the need for various USB adaptors, some of which don't work or work better than others… See the Audioquest Dragonfly page at the bottom for more on which adaptor for Lightning is the right adaptor.

Hi there,

what you Noticed now i noticed that too after selling My 6S plus and then buying the 7 Plus many years ago.I loved the explosive Audio output of my 5S,6/6S Plus from the headphone jack. I consider myself a audiophile and i know exactly how every iphone sounded cuz i upgrade to a new iphone every year.From 2008 to present I bought every iphone.Currently it is 11 Pro max 256GB.

Unfortunately there is no more dac in the iphones after losing the headphone jack.The dac is in the mini lightning adapter which is absolutely a joke.The sound from the lightning port is clean but there is no kick in it.The loudness level is poor and the phone is suffering on Low frequency punch.The low frequency bass is poor and the midbass is more prominent. I have 3 sound systems and not all of them lie. I love iphones but the loudness leval and the bass quality,specially the lower end bass is gone in the ditch after 6S PLUS.

I don't care they removed the headphone jack,they had to do it for a reason and i get that but i am seriously very dissatisfied at the loudness and the bass quality of the Iphone.These days you have other phones with advance 32 bit Dacs built in and here we are with a iphone with a crappy external dac which is built in the lightning adapter and it is nowhere near a high quality built in Dac in the phone.They use the same adapter with every iphone with no headphone jack.

The Audio output of the many years old iphone 6S plus is better then all iphones with no headphone jack,SPECIALLY the loudness leval and the bass quality.No doubt iphone speakers improved every year but they are missing big time on the DAC.

These days peoples are streaming music BT on there highend home and Car audio systems and a iphone with No built in DAC is a huge disappointment.

BT is lower quality than direct via a better DAC.

Black, Red, Cobalt are all very similar sounding or, one is better in one thing but deficient in another and vise versa for another. Result, no one dominates. If you have the money and time, buy all three, try each out, then return the two that you like less or, give them as gifts. Oh, but unless you are putting in HD (CD) or Hi-Re$ source material, you may not be able to tell much at all. Assuming your headphones are good enough. Good enough has nothing to do with price of the head phones either too!

If you use headphones, Red is plenty. Cobalt has a slightly newer chip and a jitter feature nobody needs.

If you are are price conscience, the Black is fine too and, actually may be better than the other two at certain musical playback capabilities.

For headphones that are good or you want to get better cans later, the Red is the way to go.

I would debate you on that.

The Cobalt sounds better than the Red, and the jitter reduction is likely why.

There's nothing wrong with the Red, but the Cobalt clearly sounds better if you're playing it through a system that can resolve the improvements.

I bought the Fiio BTR3 dac + the BT when i had the XS Max and it was a disappointment.BTR3 failed to bring the fuller sound like iphone 6S plus.I looked into the dragonfly red in the past but some reviews on amazon USA & canada say, it is weak on low frequency punch,and that's exactly is my complain.I might still check the dragonfly,Red,black and the cobalt version as the other user said but i prefer BT Audio which is getting better and better every year.

It was the BT on that Fiio that was ruining it.

Yes, BT is getting better but, not yet for iOS devices. Soon, we hope. Regardless, it will always be compressed by its nature. To get around that, you need a hard connection to the device.

Joseph Coates wrote:

I am actually partly quoting an Audioquest technician I spoke to about the Cobalt. He said Red is really the best for most people with high end head phones. Black for the remaining 95% if they even need a DAC.

That is likely true.

The sound quality differences are quite apparent when you use the headphone jack to feed a higher end system or even a good quality pair of self-powered speakers; I can readily hear the improvements driving a pair of AudioEngine A2+ speakers with it.

Of course if you feed it with a 128K MP3, everything will sound like garbage. 😁

yeah i agree the BT quality degrades but it wasn't too bad on my 6S plus.Most of my listening is in the car and pairing your phone with the Car audio system is very convenient.No messy wires,pick your phone and leave,come back and it pairs instantly. My new 11 promax is less louder then the last years XS Max.There is nothing wrong with the phone,some other users noticed the something.GSM arena gave the 11 pro good numbers but also noted it lacks loudness for a flagship phone.Another report said iphone XS max sounds slightly better then 11 pro max.To me 11 pro max sounds slightly more cleaner but less louder then

XS max.Dolby atmos and spatial audio defiantly makes a difference but the Richness,the fullness,kick in the bass is not there.

I am considering a LG G7 or G8 with quad 32 bit DAC for Music only.

Fiio actually made it a little more louder but there was no improvement of the bass.Even a wired connection doesn't bring the loudness and fullness of the sound.I might buy another brand of phone with built in dac for the Music.

I agree I just had my iPhone 11 Pro Max on my high-end system and I lost a bass for some reason. I think the best product that Apple made was the iPod fifth generation that’s what I have and it sounds much better than anything with the exception of the 5.5 generation with the upgraded digital audio converter the only thing that sucks is my lightning adapter rarely ever works I have to fiddle with it constantly and it drives me insane

The iFixit teardown found a Cirrus Logic codec that was

marked 338S00509 which seems to be a part number unique

for Apple. Beyond that, not much else is known.

If you are an audiophile, plug in a Dragonfly Red.

Or Dragonfly Cobalt, depending upon your budget.

The Cobalt sounds better than the Red, but of course is also more expensive.