This means it will work perfectly with your iPhone when connected to the Lightning port and a pair of hi-res wired headphones. Stepping things up a gear, this DAC is currently priced at $130 (down from its usual $140) and carries the all-important MFi certification, which stands for Made For iPhone.

The DAC has a battery life of around seven to eight hours, and is charged via a USB cable. ALternatively, the DAC can be connected to the USB-C port of your Mac for hi-res Apple Music there instead. Headphones are connected via either a 3.5mm or 2.5mm jack. The DAC has a USB-C port so you'll need both a Lightning adapter and a USB-A to USB-C cable to hooking up your iPhone. So, providing your headphones can also handle that quality, this will give you the best audio experience Apple Music has to offer. Yes, this means a USB-C DAC connected to an iPhone needs both an adapter and a cable.Īt $70 this DAC by Fosi Audio is reasonably priced and can output audio at 24-bit and 192kHz, which is the highest hi-res audio quality Apple Music is capable of. You might also need to invest in a USB cable that has USB-A at one end (for connecting to the Apple adapter plugged into your iPhone) and USB-C at the other for attaching to a DAC. This costs $29 and is a short cable that plugs into the Lightning port of your iPhone, and has a USB socket on the end, ready to be connected to a whole range of devices, including DACs. It is likely that your favorite playlist will sound different on each DAC you try.īefore we highlight some popular DACs, most need to be bought with Apple's Lightning-to-USB adapter.

If you can, you should sample a range of different DACs before making your purchase to work out what kind of audio characteristics you prefer. As with most technology products, quality increases with price, but it is also true that different DACs produce different types of sound across the price range. These vary in price, shape and performance, but all perform the function of sending hi-res audio from Apple Music, uncompressed, to compatible wired headphones. But for the step up to hi-res audio you will need extra hardware, known as a digital to analogue converter, or a DAC.

A good pair of wired headphones is all you need to listen to lossless tracks from Apple Music.

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