Gadgetory

pocket now's iPhone 7 coverage is brought to you by D brand to buy the best fitting skin for your phone or tablet please visit D brand calm alright folks we're less than 24 hours in to using the new iPhone 7 and honestly folks there's not a whole lot to report in terms of using this as a smartphone just yet but I'm not sitting here to waste your time or milk you for extra video views so I actually did want to spend a little time to talk about audio quality of course the most controversial aspect of the iPhone 7 is the fact that Apple got rid of the 3.5 millimeter jack on the bottom of the phone now going back and re watching Apple's press conference Apple's announcement for the iPhone 7 I find it very telling that the reason they gave for getting rid of this port was courage the courage to do something daring do something new do something different it's telling because now that I've spent some time listening to music off of this port the reason definitely was not to improve audio quality so just to recap what you get in the Box you get your ear pods they're not my favorite headphones but they sound decent enough I guess I just wish they had a better seal around the ear canal I can still hear everything that's going on around me which means I know I'm listening in my music louder than I should be but those terminate now in a lightning connector port so plugs directly into the bottom of the phone and and make sure you check out because it comes in a new cardboard casing that you flipped that cardboard casing over extend my compost already threw this away you get your lightning to three point five millimeter jack adapter while this is definitely a nice consideration that Apple has included this in the box they're not making you pay an extra twenty bucks or thirty bucks at time of purchase just to get your adapter for your headphones I kind of wish they had made this just a little bit nicer maybe a little bit longer and just a little bit thicker some better shielding around this cable that's all geeky griping about cables and connectors now obviously because we're going through the Lightning port this is a this is a digital connection it's Scott is sound better than you know an analogue connector which was invented oh-hey 1870s am i right it's the year 2016 you've heard me repeat time and time again that audio quality is determined by the DAC and the amp when we take the digital file convert it into an analogue signal that's what the DAC does digital to analog converter and then the amp boosts that analog signal so that it can properly drive your headphones and if we look at this little adapter there's no room here to include a DAC and an amp of any quality now on phones that have a traditional headphone jack once you've converted that signal and you've amplified it it goes directly to the metal connectors that interact with the jack on your headphones and typically for your headphones you need four connections your left channel your right channel the microphone and then a ground to make sure you don't electrocute yourself with your headphones so what's happening on the iPhone 7 is the phone is still sending out those four connections through the Lightning port and then there's an additional bridge through this adapter to then send the audio signal through the 3.5 millimeter Jack hope what is this all mean for that headphone audio quality on the iPhone 7 I mean the truth is it's good it's just that we're probably dealing with the same DAC and amp that we have in the iPhone 6s it's punchy it's loud it does a pretty good job of driving my headphones but it truncates your audio to 16-bit output this phone will play 24-bit and 32-bit audio files but the actual output will be cut back down to 16-bit audio if you're still watching this you're probably thinking same DAC same amp no harm no foul right I mean the iPhone has always been good enough at all of these tasks like headphone audio playback and that's mostly true but again we still have to go through the adapter and in our testing we'll be expanding on this in the full review for the iPhone 7 but every test that we can throw on this phone audio quality is slightly degraded from the iPhone 6s we're talking very small scientific differences between these two phones and if I'm being perfectly honest the differences are so slight I doubt most people would be able to hear the differences in a blind taste test but the fact of the matter still remains that not only is there no tangible consumer benefit to moving to the Lightning connector and not only has audio quality not improved it's actually gotten ever so slightly less good it's just the knowledge of knowing that Apple has made this move and it does kind of bum me out why does it bum me out because it starts speaking to a future where we can kind of slack off on what's actually built into the phone and push that responsibility onto consumers for their accessories purchases do you want to hear the full scope and dynamic range of your high quality audio files well for an iPhone user that means you're gonna have to buy headphones that have their own DAC and amp built into them that's going to increase the cost and those manufacturers are going to have to license the Lightning connector so that it'll play nice with the iPhone and that's an additional cost I personally feel in making this move that Apple's getting to hide behind some misinformation or just the general lack of understanding on how this stuff works and this is different than when Apple would get rid of something like the floppy drive when that happened there was already a better solution available to consumers and it didn't make sense to continue supporting a legacy interface anyone who's walking around making the argument about how old the 3.5 millimeter jack is fundamentally does not understand how audio works especially at a time where we have phones like the HTC 10 or the LG v 20 the 32-bit DAC built into this phone which outputs to a 3.5 millimeter headset jack is capable of generating frequencies of sound that dogs cannot hear we do not have a problem with quality on this old connector folks we're still really early days into testing the iPhone 7 I mean early days were early day into testing the iPhone 7 and obviously I'm very passionate about things like headphone audio quality we are talking about the premium the top-tier the most expensive smartphones on the market today and so I have an expectation that those things are going to deliver and this is one situation where new isn't better and at best isn't even quite a lateral move from what we used to use pocket now's iPhone 7 coverage is made possible by D brand manufacturer of precision cut vinyl skins for smartphones tablets laptops gaming consoles and more if you're looking to customize the appearance of your gadget while adding a bit of protection and grip check out D brand calm or visit the link in the description below so stay tuned folks we've got a lot more ground to cover on this phone of course the real camera review is coming up we've got some comparisons which i think are going to be a lot of fun the full review should be interesting in how we evaluate improvement and refinement from product year to product year as always folks thanks so much for watching be sure to subscribe to this channel for all of those goodies that I just described and to help us out with some sharing on your favorite social networks for pocket now I'm Juan Carlos bag now some gadget guy on Twitter and Instagram and I will catch you all on the next video