this post was submitted on 12 Dec 2023
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And I give it a 0/10 on having a 3.5mm connector
Is that really that much of an issue in the age of USB-C?
I don't get why you get so much downvotes, because it's not as obvious as people make it out to be and there are plenty of adapters. So it's a good question.
But yes. The 3.5mm jack had the thing companies say they are striving for: simplicity.
DACs are nice and everything but the phone can just decide to not connect properly. The DAC can decide it had enough of your phone. In either case you'd need to reconnect them. And that means unlocking your phone, because a secure phone will block streaming to 'unknown' USB-C devices, unless it's unlocked during the negotiation phase. And if your connectors have become wonky for whatever reason: Well, no music for you.
And then there's the issue where you have to have them at hand when you need them. In your car, on your person, while at work.
3.5mm is great because it actually "just works". One of the few things that can claim such thing.
Negotiation is a thing for sure. It is possible, though I haven't ever seen it implemented, that digital audio over USB-C or bluetooth can be blocked by DRM. It would seem business suicide to do something like limiting audio output to certain audio products but I wouldn't put it past any short term minded profit seeking enterprise.
I recently bought a phone that lacked a 3.5mm jack, so I bought a splitter with a USBC charging port and a headphone jack. The problem I encountered was that the splitter reported to the phone that headphones were connected even if they were not. I was used to unplugging the headphones and have playback automatically pause, and resume when the headphones were put back in. With the splitter I was no longer able to do that. I don't know if I bought a cheap ass splitter or if that's the normal behavior for these things.
This is not the normal behavior, but I'd consider the adapter part of you headphone cable and just leave it on there. If you want to unplug, just unplug the headphones (including adapter) from the phone?
That means the charging cable also needs to be unplugged if I want to step away. Thanks for the info about it not being normal, I guess I just got a POS splitter.
Ah, so thats what you meant by splitter. Might I suggest, there are some very cheap battery powered Bluetooth receivers. Those might be a good solution for you, in case you hadn't considered something like that.
Yes, that's actually exactly what I ended up buying. It's got a pause/play button, so I hit that and take the whole thing with me.