So, Apple just posted this listing of their list of Mac Products that ship with High Impedence Headphone output including their lowest end M2 Mac Mini.
https://support.apple.com/en-in/HT212856
Anyone who have used these inbuilt dac/amps as well as dedicated high end dac/amps? If you have, what are the sonic differences for a dedicated dac/amp? is it worth it?
Have apple solved the Amplifier requirement for a regular consumer?
Sounds good. Let me know. Thanks so much! I’ll keep an eye on the Qudelix as well! It’s so hard to get it on discount here as well because it’s so popular because of the PEQ
The way i see it, good in build audio solution increases the ammount of money you need to spend to get better external solution.
That ammount of money depends on what headphones you have, how many and how expensive they are.
Regarding your title, it’s not high impedance output - no one wants high impedance output as output impedance should be as low as possible, close to zero ideally.
It’s just output that can increase the voltage to power less sensitive and high impedance headphones.
That’s all, it’s just more power basically, it doesn’t directly make it better, even though typically Apple’s audio outputs are good quality.
My Bad! My intention was to type output for high impedence headphones! That last line is fair enough. But if there is enough power and the measurement is clean enough, i’m curious to see if there serious benefits of an external dac/amp
The “amplifier requirement for a regular consumer” is dramatically overblown in general, but yes it’s a very solid headphone jack.
The main issue is that they output a lot less for low impedance headphones so if they aren’t sensitive enough they may not be driven correctly. In theory at least. That being said I don’t feel I’m missing much driving the Arya organic. I have a dac/amp coming still and I’ll report in case I see noticeable differences.
Let me know how it fares!