iPhone 7 and high resolution audio

Just wanted to offer a correction: Apple headphones and the Apple Lightning to 3.5 mm AUX Adapter do not contain DACs. The DAC is a custom-built Cirrus Logic DAC inside the iPhone that can technically handle 24-bit Integer / 96kHz conversion, but iOS limits this to 48kHz. Without a separate app, you cannot store or play files above 48kHz. You can, oddly enough, store 32-bit Floating Point IEEE files on the iPhone though.

They have simply re-routed the electrodes that connected the former auxiliary jack to the lightning connector. The sound quality is EXACTLY the same. It ticks me off when Apple themselves claims it to be an audible improvement when it can be scientifically proven to not be the case.

The only way you can use an external DAC is via Lightning to USB, rarely built into headphone cables, and usually not as good of quality as the one built-in to the iPhone, believe it or not. The Audeze may be an exception, but I'm skeptical of its DAC actually being better than the iPhone as far as sound quality is concerned.

BTW, you may want to watch some of the videos regarding the PONO Player. It seems like a scam to a true audiophile, and even if you're not a true audiophile (whatever the heck a "true audiophile" may be), it's still vastly overpriced. I don't own one, however, so if you know something I don't, let me know.

If you want to listen to high-fidelity music on the go, just downsample your music to 24-bit Integer / 48kHz or 44.1kHz, you will lose no audible quality if you do the conversion correctly, you'll decrease the file size, and it can then be played natively on the iPhone. For the best ALAC conversion, do not use Audacity or XLD or Foobar2000, use either Adobe Audition on Mac ONLY, iTunes, or Apple's ProLogicX. I'm an audio engineer, I kind of know what I'm talking about.

P.S. If you want to convert a file to ALAC in iTunes, try to already have the file be in 24-bit or 32-bit Integer, 32-bit Float files get converted to 16-bit Integer (CD-quality). You cannot hear above 22050 Hz. A file with a sampling rate of 44.1kHz has an audible range half that number, so 44.1kHz sample = 22.050kHz audible. Beyond that, you're simply storing more data that is virtually useless. The better factor is actually bit depth, so 16-bit vs 24-bit and so on. 16-bit provides 96 dB, 24-bit provides 144, and beyond that is again virtually useless for music. If you downsample your music correctly, 24-bit Integer/44.1kHz is all you need.

I just purchased a 7 yesterday, loaded my music on. I noticed that, yes, iTunes does not transfer all High-Res ALAC files, BUT, it does transfer, and the iPhone 7 DOES playback 48/24 ALAC files. So, at least the resolution compatibility goes a bit higher than CD 44/16. Maybe older devices do this as well, and it's quite possible the ceiling has been 48/24 for some time. Wanted to share my experience.

Hello all,

I am new to this thread. I am recently looking into upgrading my music listening experience. I have always bought expensive and what would be considered "audiophile" earbuds and headphones but I have never bought amps and DAC's to support them. The only time I have is for my enthusiast grade PC. Which, one can't game without hi-res audio. That would be a crime! Still, it was a crime to not support my Audeze i20 with a DAC/AMP! Now, to my inquiry. If I were to use a high end portable amplifier/DAC such as the FiiO A5, FiiO Alpen 2 E17K, or the TEAC H9P90SD would these work and which would be better? I already know the TEAC works but I am not sure about the FiiO's so I would mainly like to know about them? Thank you for the advice and take care. Cheers all.

Just adding my own comments to this. I totally agree that the best way to perform a conversion is to use iTunes (get the latest updates) or Logic Pro X (or similar DAW) if you know how to do that. iTunes will downsample to 48khz, which is arguably totally good enough, especially if you're on the move and that extra subtley of 96khz or above is lost.

My main point here is that I read that, although the iPhone & iPod might accept a 24bit file it truncates it rather nastily to 16bit (without performing dithering), which is worse than just copying a 16bit file over in the first place (as downloaded from HD Tracks or Technics Tracks).

This is correct as of pre-iOS11. I have just set up my iPhone 8 and it appears to accept 24bit/96khz ALAC files but I have yet to confirm that it is *actually* playing it back at that resolution through the analogue pins of the Lightening connector (using the 3.5mm adapter that comes with the phone). I wouldn't be surprised if it downsamples to 48khz and/or still truncated 24bit to 16bit without telling you.

Anyone know?

I think the easiest way to play hi-res audio by using 3rd party applications, currently im using onkyo hf player which is support hi-res audio flac on my iPhone.. the biggest issue compare to samsung or high end android phone are hi-res audio support! Iphone might wins on camera/video resolution with tiny margin but lost with huge margin on audio quality support! I think samsung s8 and lg v30 can produce up to 32bit/384khz far better compare to stand alone digital audio player from astell&kern or high end sony zx2..

Well I can say this much, if you plug a DragonFly Red USB DAC into the lightning connector it will always show green no matter the sound source quality. The Dragonfly shows Green: 44100.0 Hz Blue: 48000.0 Hz Amber: 88200.0 Hz Magenta: 96000.0 Hz. I have never been able to get my iphone 7 to show anything other than green. Not sure if that is a limitation of the lightning connector or the Apple Camera USB-3 to lightning connector.

Have you tried with 3rd party apps for example onkyo hf player which is can support up to 24bit/192khz and transfer rate more than 1411khz(cd quality) and above! I dont think itunes a good platform to play hi-res audio!

Sample taken from my iphone using onkyo hf player

Same audio file

Audio Playback

• Audio formats supported: AAC (8 to 320 Kbps), Protected AAC (from iTunes Store), HE-AAC, MP3 (8 to 320 Kbps), MP3 VBR, Dolby Digital (AC-3), Dolby Digital Plus (E-AC-3), Audible (formats 2, 3, 4, Audible Enhanced Audio, AAX, and AAX+), Apple Lossless, AIFF, and WAV
• User-configurable maximum volume limit

Hi Phlac, unfortunately iPhone 7 won't play hi-res audio 😟 this was my hope as well. However you can use VOX player from apple store but i am not sure if we can get that hi-res quality from lightning or with lightning to 3.5mm adapter.

With music player apps, such as Onkyo HF Player, CanOpener, or iAudioGate, you can play hi-res audio on many iPhone models. If you want maximum hi-res portable listening pleasure, check out what Bob Katz says about using the Onkyo HF app through the Lightning-connected Oppo HA-2 headphone DAC/amp driving the Oppo PM-3 magnetic planar sealed headphones: http://www.innerfidelity.com/content/katzs-corner-episode-11-oppo-explosion

i have 2 iphone 7 and i can copy hi res from itunes on ONE of them .(24/96 and 24/192 aiff or wav) ..now the output depends on the dac i guess. if i play it back on my mac it seems hires but i cant check (yet)

24/96 on my phone sounds better (than 16/44) even thru bluetooth, car or bedroom amp....and also on headphones thru the adaptor..is it 24/48 there?

why cant i copy hires on one iphone 7?not sure why the other wont accept it.same version of ios and itunes on phone and mac..