Skip to main content

V-Moda’s new Lightning to headphone cable has a premium DAC and amp, but it costs $101

By

V-Moda has come out with a new Lightning to 3.5mm cable that costs $101. This might seem like yet another expensive penalty for Apple’s decision to remove the audio jack from its iPhones, but the price is on par with other companies’ Lightning to 3.5mm cables, like Master & Dynamic’s for $69 and Shure’s for $100. Belkin offers one at the low end for $35, but it lacks some of the technical advantages that V-Moda says it’s offering.

Bundled within the 17.5-gram cable is a 24-bit digital-to-analog converter (DAC), a headphone amp with 31mW of power, and a three-button control with a microphone for using Siri voice, navigating through music, making calls, and more. V-Moda says it will work with “most brands” of headphones with detachable 3.5mm ports, including models from Beats, Philips, Hyper X, Audio Technica, and more. The cable is 53 inches long (nearly 4.5 feet), and it comes with a one-year warranty. Beyond that window, V-Moda also has an “Immortal Life Program” with no expiry date, entitling you to 50 percent off a replacement if your cable ever dies.

All of these cables are being ushered in because when Apple got rid the audio jack on the iPhone, it also got rid the digital-to-analog converter. DACs now have to be located in dongles, cables, or headphones. Apple’s $9 Lightning to 3.5mm dongle does contain a DAC and amp, according to iFixit, but V-Moda’s cable is a way to skip the dongle life and get components that, knowing V-Moda, are likely to produce great audio.

Is it worth the big price jump to upgrade from V-Moda’s regular cable (or any other) and Apple’s Lightning to 3.5mm dongle to V-Moda’s new all-in-one offering? Well, that’s up to you. Is the convenience of plugging straight in and not worrying about losing dongles a priority?

But no matter if you stick to cheaper options and live the dongle life or decide to bite the bullet on a $100 cable, one thing is certain: the future of headphone cables looks expensive.



from The Verge - Teches https://ift.tt/2rbIKMa
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Magic Leap is shipping across (most of) the US

By
As Magic Leap holds the first developer conference for its Magic Leap One mixed reality headset, that headset has started shipping across the contiguous United States, instead of in a set of select markets. The Magic Leap One Creator Edition costs $2,295, just like before, but there’s now an installment plan that starts at $96 per month. All orders are supposed to arrive within 60 days. The Magic Leap One Creator Edition went on sale in early August, and while Magic Leap has touted it as a fully functional device, it’s basically meant for people who want to design apps, games, or art for mixed reality. We were ambivalent toward the hardware, which we found limited, and we noted that Magic Leap hadn’t shown off a lot of material that showcased its potential. The company’s developer conference keynote has revealed several new projects. Among other things, Spider-Man studio Insomniac Games is building an experience that will let you grow a holographic creature on your tabletop, and...
Post a Comment
Read more

The company behind the adorably doomed robot Kuri is shutting down

By
Less than a month after Mayfield Robotics said it was stopping production on its Kuri home robot, the company announced today on its blog that the company will be shutting down. Mayfield Robotics launched in 2015 as part of Bosch’s Startup Platform, but struggled to integrate with and find a business fit within Bosch. Since the cancellation of its Kuri robot, Mayfield Robotics had been looking for external partners for long-term technology development, but was unable to find investment to support its future. The company will cease all operations by October 31st. We first met Kuri at CES 2017, and it wasn’t yet able to showcase all the features it was promised to have in the future. The robot was supposed to have smart assistant functionalities like an Amazon Echo, but with a much cuter face and movable body. Promo videos showed it working as a moving home security camera that was controllable through the Kuri app, but in the demonstration we saw, it only had as much functionality a...
Post a Comment
Read more

Amazon’s plans for a New York office are under new scrutiny

By
A month ago, when Amazon announced that it would build regional offices in New York and Virginia at great expense to the taxpayers there, I wrote that it had misunderstood the moment : Perhaps the furor over Amazon’s regional offices will blow over. But it’s hard not to feel today as if the company misread the room — overestimating the public’s appetite for a billion-dollar giveaway to one of the world’s biggest companies, and underestimating the public’s ability to raise hell on- and offline. Amazon may yet feel that pain, in the long run. Today, Amazon met the room: 150 protesters who showed up to the first New York City Council hearing about the plan. According to reports from the scene, demonstrators’ concerns start with the $3 billion in incentives that New York plans to give Amazon in exchange for locating there — and, it says, creating 25,000 jobs. Here’s Leticia Miranda in BuzzFeed : ”You’re worth a trillion dollars,” New York City Council Speaker Corey Johnson told the ...
Post a Comment
Read more