Apple Lightning to Headphone Jack review

Tiny box, not reusable, maybe not recyclable? Nicely made, but the skinniest little cable amplifier I’ve witnessed, barely the length of my thumb. Nice rubbery cable. The tiny plugs are of a piece, made of pleasing gloss‐plastic. Soft strain reliefs may work. Feels too skinny to be robust, but the small size and construction feel convincing. The ultra‐short cable may be tidy if the phone is upside down in a pocket. Should run all generic headphones. Good looks, which look wrong with non‐white Apple phones.

Volume is reasonable overall. Heard as flat. Volume range is compressed. Timing envelope seems accurate but dull. Overall sluggish. Swells keep distinctions precisely, but blur. Highband range is good. Seems a little treble bias, but that’s maybe accuracy. Better near woodwinds. Lowband also there, but poorly defined. Color widely and lightly papered for massed instruments. Detail is good. Scale is good, positioning outstanding.

Voice and orchestra is outstanding. Everything else—Rock, Pop, solo instruments has good highband, even, and clean, but distant, muted and sluggish. Soundtracks fall in between with no drama. Hi‐Res tracks show the same issues. Given the custom socket, this is a system. So I did an unusual amount of cross‐testing. The setup played with simple non‐Apple switchgear, but I didn’t test much. The Apple USB‐C adaptor on Android was unusably underpowered, but replay was more immediate. The adapter can not be tricked.