I bought my gf a Meze 99 Neo as her upcoming Christmas gift. She’s not an audiophile nor am I, but she definitely listens to a lot more music than I do.
The headphones are intended as an upgrade to her AirPods Pro for listening to music at the office.
I’m debating whether she would really benefit from a Schiit stack (Modi2+Magni2) that I could buy second hand, mainly because I’ve read the DAC in the latest generation MacBooks and iPhones are actually not bad at all and a 100 USD DAC won’t beat it… How true is that? I would simply get her the 9 USD USB-C to 3.5mm adapter (https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/review-apple-vs-google-usb-c-headphone-adapters.5541/)
Again, she’s not an audiphile and I would believe that (1) on a pair of 99 Neo, (2) coming from AirPods, and (3) listening to lossless (24-bit/48kHz) a Schiit stack is overkill. Yes?
Appreciate everyone’s thoughts.
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Dongle or qudelix 5k
Iirc Meze Ceo said that the Meze 99 was created for the sake of portability and the functionality to bring it around anywhere, so an Apple Dongle should works just fine.
if you’re using it on a phone, I 100% recommend a Bluetooth dongle like Qudelix 5k instead. Doesn’t eat up Battery life of phone, and Bluetooth is just more convenient.
On Macbooks, you can probably just use it directly.
Checkout the Khadas Tea. I’ve had mine for about 10 days and it’s an absolute beast for the money.
iPhone 15s do not have integrated DACs, the dongle itself is a single chip dacamp (and, fwiw, is the same chip in the USB-C version).
I have it, and people have measured it. It is one of the better measuring cheap dongles, and one of the few good ones that offer TRRS (helpful for dedicated voice call/remote working wired headsets), yet somehow costs $8. You have to spend $30+ to meaningfully beat it, and will lose the TRRS part doing it.
I also own one of the predecessors of the Schiit Yggy, built when Mike Moffat still worked at Theta, and have my Stax gear plugged into it.
A Meze 99 plugged into an Apple dongle, vs Meze 99 and a Schiit Modi/Magni stack, vs my Theta DAC + Stax 207s is sorta like, an 8.0 vs an 8.5 vs a 10/10.
The difference is there, but for someone that isn’t an audiophile and isn’t going to be driving difficult cans (HD6xx, etc)… just grab the Apple dongle. Maybe in the future she will be interested in higher end stuff, and THEN the Modi+Magni will be appreciated. Let her enjoy the hobby at her speed.
Unless you’re going to be doing some crazy equalizing then the iPhone will be plenty.
I use the Neo’s on my ancient OnePlus 6 and would never go over half it’s volume unless it’s a really old non remastered song. They really are that easy to drive.
However, a physical volume knob and peace of mind if you ever want to upgrade to harder to drive headphones would be a nice thing to have with a seperate dac amp.