Yep, turns out the balanced cable gives this setup with the TC44C just the little extra boost I needed with these phones. Didn't sound the best running flat out on single ended.

Nice review, I love these phones. I have a balanced cable coming in tomorrow; can't wait to check that out since my phone dongle doesn't drive these very well in single ended.

Lol ya got nothing. You are effectively arguing that the Apple dongle is the last word in headphone amp fidelity, and that people can’t hear differences in sound. Look at you.

Yeah, not so smart when you think about it that way are you?

It does get louder, but when comparing I adjust it to be as close as I can get it. It is also clearer and has less smearing of details at all listening volumes.

Are you saying that the Apple dongle is the ultimate headphone amplifier and can not be surpassed in fidelity?

I don't get it. I don't think they understand what they're saying, but people in here are basically arguing that the Apple dongle is the end of the road and the final word in headphone amp fidelity.

Mine sound different, not just louder.

Please do not trust me bro. I should not have trusted the people who said the Apple dongle was the last word in headphone amp fidelity, and you should not trust me.

You way off track. I'm sorry but people can actually hear objective differences in sound. We can be tricked, but more often we are right. Especially those of us who are trained to critically listen to sound, which as a recordist, I am.

So are your fucking eyeballs, yet you can tell the difference between red and orange. Done with you dunces.

Haha, I promise I'm not. I assume it's the amplifier that's making the bigger difference, not the DAC.

To be clear, I meant that the two devices sound objectively different from each other. Which one is preferred is naturally subjective.

I will for sure not get another dongle DAC. I didn't want to have to buy this one but I'm glad I did. Not sure I will buy any more IEMs either, at least for now. What I have is good for on-the-go fun but I think only headphones will get me what I want in my home studio. I have an order in for Ollo S5X and hopefully that will do it so I'm not tempted to spring for Audeze MM-500.

Yeah it's impossible to match exactly, it's like between 2-3 clicks difference. Even so there's more than that going on here, it's obvious enough.

Every single aspect of how an audio device sounds can be measured, it's just that not all those aspects are measured or published. They are instead oversimplified into marketing statistics that are easier to understand (and hide inconsistencies).

For example, I was using a very nice sounding audio recorder (Sound Devices MixPre 10II) to measure the performance of a mic preamp I had built, using a loopback with REW. It showed unexpected distortion in the sub bass. I measured again with the mic pre out of the loop and the rise in distortion was still there. I sent my graphs to Sound Devices asking if my recorder was broken, but they confirmed my results. The device was in spec (and sounds "good"), but it has significantly more distortion in the sub bass than most modern audio interfaces. So while it has excellent THD spec, that is not telling the whole story.

So far I have Hook X and Elixir. Nothing crazy and both low impedance. It's not that it's not loud enough.

Yeah that's all fine (and standard) but what I'm saying is the difference is enough that it is clearly noticeable, so not in the zone of audiophile wishful thinking. Again I only bought this because the Apple dongle clearly sounded worse than my desktop setup (MOTU ULmk5 into SSL SiX).

Also there's a lot more to audio than frequency response and THD, such as frequency dependent distortion and ringing after transients. I'm sure if I measured just the FR of both these devices they'll be +/- 1dB 20-20.

I'm not sure there's much difference in the DAC part but in the amp there sure is.

That's interesting, maybe I have a bad Apple dongle? I didn't think it sounded particularly bad on its own but when switching around the difference is pretty clear. It's like the high end is relatively slushy and undefined. I'll have to pick up another one of these days.

Hmm I hadn't considered that this might be contentious. The difference in sound, while not huge, is IMO enough to be well out of the "subjective" category. Is it going to be worth $100+ to everybody? No, but to me it's a significant upgrade.

Hi there, long time audio nerd here.

I'm just getting into IEMs so I've been watching a lot of product videos and trying out new stuff. One thing I noticed is that a lot of the talking heads in the IEM world blather on and on about all the minute differences in sets but then go on to say that using the Apple dongle is just fine. So that's how I started out, but I instantly noticed a difference between listening on my desktop setup and with the Apple dongle.

So today I got this DDHiFi unit and instantly it was a very noticeable upgrade to the Apple dongle and put the detail and clarity on par with my other systems.

Yes the Apple dongle is great for what it is and fine for a budget setup. Yes it has no right sounding as good as it does for being so small and cheap. But the difference between that and a better dongle DAC is far from snake oil, even on mid price IEMs.

rant over