
3.5mm audio vs. USB Type-C: the good, bad and the future - jswny
http://www.androidauthority.com/3-5mm-audio-usb-type-c-701507/
======
Daneel_
The notion of removing the headphone jack from flagship phones is infuriating
and ludicrous to me.. When I first read about it I couldn't help but think
'haha, nice joke!'

There are so many downsides to removing the jack, specifically around
connections to other devices and systems - hifi systems, car audio, external
microphones, and yes, even selfie sticks.

I would consider myself an audio enthusiast (Westone W60 headphones for daily
use), and I don't relish the thought of needing to have either a) a bulky and
inconvenient adaptor with an external DAC, b) new headphone cable with a DAC
built in, at probably considerable expense, or c) switching to a new handset
manufacturer that hasn't lost their mind.

The people who want external DACs can already make use of the USB or lightning
connector while the rest of us quite happily make do with the convenience of
the 3.5mm jack.

Apologies for the somewhat-ranty nature of this post, it just frustrates me to
see functionality taken away for no good reason. Phones are already too thin,
and I constantly have issues gripping my iPhone 6 - the thicker iPhone 5 felt
much more comfortable in my hand, and was far easier to grip into with the
square bevelled edges. We're heading in the wrong direction with thickness at
the moment - I'd rather extra battery life via a larger battery than an extra
0.6mm thinner.

~~~
mseebach
A lot really hinges on what a USB-C to jack adaptor will look like. If it's
not bulky and inconvenient (or expensive), none of your listed concerns apply.

In the meantime, the 3.5mm jack actually takes up a not at all trivial volume
in the handset.

~~~
olympus
A usb-c to 3.5mm adapter will almost certainly be inconvenient. It has to plug
into the usb-c port, which means that it will protrude from the phone, and the
3.5mm plug will stick out past that. Integrating it into the phone was much
better since you didn't have the additional protrusion.

~~~
Yhippa
The biggest drawback for me: one more think to keep track of with my phone.

------
chiph
I wonder how strong the Type-C connector is, especially to off-axis abuse. The
3.5mm is a pretty solid piece of metal, and the part that usually breaks is
the solder connection from the internal jack to the circuit board. And this is
easy to repair. I suspect a damaged Type-C jack will not only be unrepairable,
it will leave you with a phone that can't be recharged (can't even be used as
a phone anymore).

~~~
wepple
yeah, USB/lightning in general have never really been designed for being
tumbling around in my pocket/backpack while connected, like my headphone jack
has learnt to expect.

~~~
arrrg
Weren’t they? Honest question!

They are both definitely recent enough that a use case like that must have
been considered during their design.

I don’t know whether that was considered, but you seem quite sure about that
and I don’t know where you get your certainty from and I would like to know.

------
falcolas
> To be fair, the USB Type-C standard is capable of transmitting analogue
> audio through the interface’s Sideband Unit (SBU) pins.

To be equally fair, this is not a required part of the USB Type-C spec, so
it's unlikely to be widely or properly adopted.

The whole thing strikes me as a net negative for the average consumer; those
who want quality audio will simply continue to use high quality external DACs
(assuming this isn't prevented by some convoluted DRM implementation).

------
chrisbennet
Definitely user hostile. I have 4-5 Apple earbuds kicking around [in my
office, in my car, some at home, etc.]. That's one of the "lock-ins" with my
iPads and iPhones.

On the bright side, maybe phone manufactures who don't treat the users in this
way will be more competitive. Competition is good.

------
nix0n
There have been a few articles on HN about this topic but this one has a
little bit more detail on the sad state of available USB-C peripherals.

------
dzhiurgis
iPhone doesn't play some hi-res formats and I suspect new headphones will be
even less compatible. Not that I dread about sound quality, but it is an
inconvenience that now you need to downsample your music.

Regarding adapter problem, all decent headphones come with removable cable.
You'll probably be able to buy OEM replacement with tiny DAC that is hidden in
the cable.

~~~
peatmoss
However, for consumers, Apple has set the bar for audio quality at compressed
AAC, which is arguably discernibly below CD quality. I'd be very happy if
Apple went to CD quality, which very few people would need to downsample.

People with the (perceived?) need for higher resolution audio than CD seem
like the sort of people who would probably want to hand-select their own DAC
anyway, which should obviate downsampling their higher sample rate tracks.

~~~
klodolph
You say it's arguably discernibly below CD quality. Can you make that
argument? Last time I checked, most audio compression formats could achieve
transparency at reasonable bit rates with all or nearly all source material.
For example, AAC encoded with iTunes generally achieves near transparency at
128 kbit/s, and complete transparency for by 192 kbit/s. Music you buy from
iTunes is 256 kbit/s which, honestly, is overkill.

Hydrogen Audio has done some of the more accessible tests, but there are other
tests in more controlled conditions which you might prefer.

~~~
peatmoss
I've never seen a robust study, but I'd love to! I've seen a lot of anecdata
and quasi-scientific experimentation, but most of those seem to be fatally
flawed or have a pretty obvious bias at the offset. Hence, my couched language
:-)

~~~
klodolph
Here:
[http://wiki.hydrogenaud.io/index.php?title=Hydrogenaudio_Lis...](http://wiki.hydrogenaud.io/index.php?title=Hydrogenaudio_Listening_Tests)

Read the methodology and the statistical analyses, they are reasonably
thorough and rigorous (amateur, but definitely not "quasi-scientific").

Here's another:
[http://soundexpert.org/encoders-192-kbps](http://soundexpert.org/encoders-192-kbps)

And another:
[http://soundexpert.org/encoders-256-kbps](http://soundexpert.org/encoders-256-kbps)

You can see that the differences at 192 Kbit/s AAC are generally beyond the
capabilities of human perception, and at 256 Kbit/s, AAC has a very healthy
margin.

So the argument that AAC is perceptually inferior to CD quality has little
basis according to the evidence.

------
ZenoArrow
I'm surprised the article didn't mention DRM, which is almost certainly one of
the main reasons behind this push.

~~~
Vexs
That doesn't make sense. If you're recording off the 3.5mm jack, then you can
record the output of the external dac just as well. Moving the dac out of the
phone doesn't make piracy harder.

~~~
ZenoArrow
The DAC will be hard wired into the headphones, there won't be a jack between
the headphones and the DAC that you can plug into.

At the start, you'd need to modify headphones to be able to record the signal,
but I doubt this will work in the long term. At some point it's highly likely
the DACs will come with DRM so that only approved headphones work with a
device.

~~~
VLM
From an EE perspective headphone elements are merely small very low
performance speakers.

The only "DRM" I can think of with USB-C is playing impedance games. So right
now you could probably get away with soldering a 1K resistor and a RCA plug in
place of the headphone element and you'll have a usable signal, but if they
played weird impedance games you might need a simple opamp in there to adjust
the levels to normal.

Something that's annoying today is to get line level audio out of the
bluetooth connection to my car stereo I need to bypass a nanny warning about
blowing my ears out, but only on my phone. Apparently "line level" on my BT
adapter that makes my BT volume about the same as, say, the radio or CD,
would, if connected to a BT earpiece or headphones, blow someones ears out.
You can safely assume the people who screwed up something so incredibly simple
as setting levels, will successfully find a way to screw up usb-C headphone
levels. So one brand will nanny-state and prevent anything louder than a
church whisper, others will sound different levels based on what device they
connect to, it'll be the predictable epic fail.

Speaking of my nice bluetooth headphones with their couple hours of battery
life, since buying them many years ago I haven't plugged headphones into my
phone or tablet. They're nice enough headphones. I'm just surprised the
marketing push is to keep shoving audio thru legacy wired cables instead of
going full on bluetooth. I suppose there's a lot of money to be made in worn
out headphone cables. When I'm not listening to music, but speech instead
(audio books, podcasts, etc) I'll swap my bluetooth headphones for my
bluetooth earpiece thingy.

~~~
ZenoArrow
> "The only "DRM" I can think of with USB-C is playing impedance games."

I didn't mean to imply DRM existed in USB-C today, what I was implying is that
the move away from the 3.5mm jack to USB-C audio is at least partly driven by
DRM (in the long run). It's like what happened with HDMI. HDMI is more or less
DVI-D video + digital audio + DRM (HDCP). What was the point of adding in the
DRM to HDMI? What risk was posed by unencrypted DVI video streams? In my
opinion, similar arguments for adding DRM to HDMI will be given for adding DRM
in future revisions of USB-C audio. Perhaps the phone manufacturers will also
use the argument that dodgy USB-C cables can damage devices (due to the high
power spec for USB-C). In any case, I'm fairly certain that those that seek to
benefit from DRM will be looking to add it in.

------
LastZactionHero
Years ago I had a Windows Mobile phone that needed a bulky, USB dongle for
audio out.

I'm excited to relive those days.

------
hammock
Pretty detailed and well written article.

This is good for audio-conscious consumer, since it allows greater
specialization via a custom DAC. It's likely mixed for the consumer, who will
end up with lower-quality (but possibly cheaper) aftermarket DAC/headphones.

~~~
Vexs
Not really though. You already could have a USB dac plugged into your phone-
heck, I have one plugged in right now. It doesn't offer audiophiles anything,
and gives the average "what's the difference between a 20$ dac and 100$ dac"
consumer nothing either.

------
kevin_b_er
If it moves to digital audio, I can almost guarantee the calls for DRM'd audio
output. This will result in a drastic loss of public choice in headphones. The
copyright cartel has long hated any form of analog holes in a DRM scheme.

~~~
LastZactionHero
It only it didn't have to be analog in order for our ears to hear it- then
they'd be all set.

------
FireBeyond
Seems to me at the very least that there's a good case to be argued for
potentially two USB-C sockets on the phone. I certainly wouldn't relish daisy
chaining headphones to power supplies or similar.

------
JustSomeNobody
What about FM radio? I know that the iPhone doesn't support FM, but other
phones do and they use the 3.5mm jack as the antenna. sure they could include
the antenna _in_ the phone, but I am not sure that's as practical as using the
3.5mm jack (please correct me if I'm wrong.)

------
PretzelFisch
Why do we expect a usb type-c to be used as a audio jack? No one likes wires,
this looks more like Apple moving use to wireless bluetooth or some new format
they have developed.

------
yaris
Looks like fixing an issue that does not exist.

------
arpa
Not going to happen.

