USB-C to 3.5mm jack adapters quality

[CrisR82]

Over the last few days I feel like I'm gaslighting myself over a discussion with people around me regarding a very simple question which somehow gets very different responses from people, so I really need a check with an actual tech community - on an Android phone, is there any difference at all between using a branded USB-C to 3.5mm adapter (let's say a $20 Samsung one) compared to a generic Chinese one (for example a $1.5 Temu no-brand one)?

 

I'm sitting here thinking that this being a digital signal, there shouldn't be one, but people around me make arguments that the headphones are still analog and if you use a cheap adapter, the audio quality will be worse due to worse conversion between the two or other arguments along those lines.

 

Can anyone back me (or my friends) on this? At this point it's much more a "I'm very curious" than a thing that really matters to me and would love some insights on it.

[Agall]

18 minutes ago, CrisR82 said:

is there any difference at all between using a branded USB-C to 3.5mm adapter (let's say a $20 Samsung one) compared to a generic Chinese one (for example a $1.5 Temu no-brand one)?

I've only used one of these, and even with my brutalized and fully reconstructed eardrums, I could hear the horrendous quality coming from it. With that sample of 1, I can say definitively that at least some USB-C to 3.5mm adapters have terrible sound quality.

[mariushm]

Yes, there will be a difference... could be higher noise floor, distortion at very high volume, etc

 

Very cheap adapters may use cheaper audio codecs , they may use ceramic capacitors where film or electrolytic capacitors would give better sound quality, or they may use less optimal component values (because a particular part is cheaper or free, over stock, or leftovers from another product)

[Psittac]

So everything that is a digital format and outputs sound has three thing's.  The digital file, a DAC (digital to analogue converter) and an amplifier.  Even a USB-C to 3.5mm adapter has this.  This means that while the original file is unchanged unless it has to downsample, the quality of the components can matter.  Going from digital to analogue first is where the initial signal is made so if it's not a good interpretation of what that signal should be, then it can potentially affect the tone of the audio.  Second is the power of the amplifier, which depends more on what headphones it's driving.

 

There are many many factors, but at the core best practice, yes quality can and will make a difference.

 

Now whether or not it's enough of a difference depends on many factors.  First of all being your meat sack (ears) and whether or not you can notice a difference.  Second what headphones you're driving and whether or not they care about what's driving them.  Then there is the bitrate of the original source, if you're watching YT video's then it doesn't matter, if you're streaming Tidal at max resolution it would be good to have a higher end solution.

 

Some headphones just don't care what is powering them, some care a lot.  Lastly does it even matter to you?  What is your goal and how much do you want to spend to achieve that goal?  The Apple brand USB-C 3.5mm adapter is affordable and decent, I'm personally not a fan of the sound signature but a lot of people enjoy it.  I have a $250 portable dac/amp because I'm old with a good job no wife no kids and this is my hobby.  I actually rarely use it but must have the cool stuffs.  I also have used the Apple and for most people the $13usd or so is plenty.

 

*edit: also there is a threshold which once you reach it gains are minimal.

[CrisR82]

Interesting, guess I did learn new stuff today, I was assuming the conversion part would be handled by the phone rather than the adapter itself. I've always been the type to do local 320kbps MP3s with relatively cheap headphones so I wonder how big a difference I would notice myself (already got a Samsung adapter that came free with my phone), maybe I should grab one of the cheap ones with a future order and compare.

[mariushm]

10 minutes ago, CrisR82 said:

Interesting, guess I did learn new stuff today, I was assuming the conversion part would be handled by the phone rather than the adapter itself. I've always been the type to do local 320kbps MP3s with relatively cheap headphones so I wonder how big a difference I would notice myself (already got a Samsung adapter that came free with my phone), maybe I should grab one of the cheap ones with a future order and compare.

It doesn't matter, even if the phone sends uncompressed audio in digital form, for example let's say you play a FLAC file and the phone sends a series of 1s and 0s through the USB to the chip inside the dongle, the chip has to convert that digital signal to an analogue signal, then amplify it using an audio amplifier, and then send the analogue signal to headphones. The quality of the audio amplifier part can vary depending on the chip, and further the components the components between the chip and the headphone jack can affect the quality of the amplified sound. 

 

Didn't mention it in previous post, but there can also be issues of electromagnetic interference coming from the phone, from the radios inside the phone, which could affect the analogue audio section if the designer doesn't shield that section properly.

 

The headphones you use will also matter ... with cheap phones you may not notice differences, while with more quality headphones you may notice humming or more noise in low volume sections of a song and so on... 

 

[DrMacintosh]

All of these adapters have a DAC and amp in them. It's just a matter of which ones. The $9.00 Apple USB-C to 3.5mm adapter is well documented and sounds pretty good.

[cmndr]

Going to +1 the Apple USB-C DAC. It's cheap. It works. 

If you need more, you probably already know you need more and you're rocking $1000+ headphones that are hard to drive even on non-portable set ups. And even then in that case the answer might be to get easier to drive headphones - THEY EXIST AND MANY ARE GOOD - that won't suck phone battery power insanely quickly. 

[Blue4130]

4 hours ago, CrisR82 said:

Interesting, guess I did learn new stuff today, I was assuming the conversion part would be handled by the phone rather than the adapter itself. I've always been the type to do local 320kbps MP3s with relatively cheap headphones so I wonder how big a difference I would notice myself (already got a Samsung adapter that came free with my phone), maybe I should grab one of the cheap ones with a future order and compare.

Check what DAC chip each dongle is using. There are differences. Can you hear them? That is up to your ears. Can you measure them? Absolutely. So while many people on the interenet will argue until they are blue in the face that "the dongle matters", it is really up to you and your ears if that is the case for you.

 

I use a Chinese CX31993. It does 384/32. Are there better options? Sure. Will I notice? Likely not, at least not enough to be worth spending more than the $9 that this cost me.

[emothxughts]

With a Chinesium trash DAC (ie Remax, Moxom, Southeast Asians may know, avoid their crap), I get noticeable cut offs at the beginning of songs, most noticeably with metal songs that start with drums or distorted guitar riffs.

 

Step up and buy from an actually good China brand like Ugreen, and the cut-off goes away. It should also be non-existent with an Apple dongle, as well as more expensive audiophile stuff, but now you're blowing money.

[Doobeedoo]

For sure you want a good one with decent DAC included. Some phones themselves have good DAC for type-c for example, but depends from device to device.

[CrisR82]

So I decided to grab a cheap one off of Temu and compare it with my Samsung one, found some very interesting stuff - apparently, the Samsung one is quieter, but overall the audio quality seems to be pretty much the same.

 

One kind'a concerning thing however - when I plugged in the Temu adapter, a prompt shows up to pick which virtual assistant (Bixby or Google apparently?) should complete an action - something that does not happen with the Samsung official one.

Should I be super-sketched out by this?

[Psittac]

14 hours ago, CrisR82 said:

So I decided to grab a cheap one off of Temu and compare it with my Samsung one, found some very interesting stuff - apparently, the Samsung one is quieter, but overall the audio quality seems to be pretty much the same.

 

One kind'a concerning thing however - when I plugged in the Temu adapter, a prompt shows up to pick which virtual assistant (Bixby or Google apparently?) should complete an action - something that does not happen with the Samsung official one.

Should I be super-sketched out by this?

Good call on trying both, I don't know if you should worry about that or not.  Shadyness could be happening.  Maybe post in another section so you get more eyes with knowledge of security issues on it.

[otfkyfyrjdej]

On 4/24/2025 at 10:14 PM, DrMacintosh said:

All of these adapters have a DAC and amp in them. It's just a matter of which ones. The $9.00 Apple USB-C to 3.5mm adapter is well documented and sounds pretty good.

It is good but specifically Samsung does not give full volume through the Apple adapter.

[Psittac]

14 hours ago, otfkyfyrjdej said:

It is good but specifically Samsung does not give full volume through the Apple adapter.

Is this just a petty android vs apple thing?

[Thaldor]

17 hours ago, Psittac said:

Is this just a petty android vs apple thing?

Not fully. There's that Android and the Apple dongle do use different ways to communicate the volume level which means you need to have some specific audio players on Android phone to change the volume of Apple dongle, but then again the Apple dongle works well on PCs so it's probably just Android thing.

 

Second thing is the Apple dongle itself. Apple has 2 different USB-C to 3.5mm dongles out and they are both sold as the same thing. US and EU versions and the EU version is garbage. Apparently Apple blames EU as there's some standardization thing that prevents Apple from doing the same output voltages as they do with the US version of the dongle... But then at least Chinese and Samsung don't give a fuck about such EU directive and their dongles even made for EU market work great for what they are. This might be a Apple thing, or it's just that no one else gives two fucks about it.

 

Generally I would say:

- For PC and Apple use: Get the Apple dongle.

- For Android use or in EU: Get Samsung or CX31993 dongle or something else.