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Fairbuds are Fairphone’s proof that we really could make better tiny gadgets (arstechnica.com)

submitted 7 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

206 comments fedilink hide all child comments

But of course we all know that the big manufacturers don't do this not because they can't but because they don't want to. Planned obsolescence is still very much the name of the game, despite all the bullshit they spout about sustainability.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Okay, but my phone has a jack and absolutely dog water sound quality. Because it has a jack it does not support the USB DAC which I use on my desktop.

Worst part is, the whole USB DAC is $12 including shipping and it has USB connector and 3.5mm, and an amp. They cheaped out on this part not only on the phone, but also on the motherboard. On my computer the amp is way too weak to drive my around ear headphones.

So if it's a crap one maybe they shouldn't even include it, since I'll have to use a USB DAC to get perfectly transparent sound. The only good one I own is on my budget Acer Aspire laptop.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago (2 children)

LG phones used to come with a DAC. I still use mine as an MP3 player even though it's not my main phone.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago

All phones with a 3.5mm audio jack have a DAC. You can't play digital audio without one somewhere along the chain and all audio going through a phone or PC is digital unless you're picking up a radio signal or some other analog signal that's being fed directly to the audio jack.

You probably mean it comes with a good DAC, since they aren't all created equal.

A bit of a tangent, but I believe that's why people considered Macs better for audio stuff, they probably used a better DAC than most motherboards come with or might have just added that pathway in general back when it wasn't standard on most PC motherboards and your had to use a sound card if you wanted better audio than the PC speaker which was more of a synthesizer. They'd take a pitch and generate an analog wave at that frequency while a DAC uses a sample rate and series of amplitudes at that frequency to generate rich sound.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago

My current phone is an LG G8 and I have no idea what I'm going to replace it with when it finally dies. I'm half considering seeing if one of the local repair shops can replace the battery on it because that's what's starting to go.

Honestly, I blame LG's marketing team on the failure of their phone department. Hardly anyone knew about the built in DAC, and they should have been pushing that hard to the audiophiles.