While they were happy with what the fairphone 4 brought to the table, they seem to like what was changed for the fairphone 5.
What are you guys’ opinions on this? A welcome change? would you get one if your phone died within the next year?
Yes, the 3.5mm jack is more durable than USB-C (since it is rotationally symmetric twisting doesn’t apply force to the connector), it maintains compatibility with billions of audio devices and doesn’t block your charging port if you use it.
If you wanted them just for charging it would be fine. Barrel jacks are still pretty ubiquitous.
If you want them to also be data they get less great. They make 3.5mm/etc jacks with 3 “pins” and I assume more. But every time you’re inserting/removing the cable it’s rubbing past the insulators separating the contacts. Their failure per plug/unplug is higher than something like USB-C where the 24 contacts are being pushed together instead of brushing past each other. It would suck if you put in your USB-barrel and one of the contacts broke/bent.
See, you just described a thing and made a statement, but I don’t buy that one bit. I’ve broken several 3.5mm plugs but never once a USB-C.
I’m on the side of 3.5mm in phones, but there’s a reason XLR and 1/4" are the industry standards for audio.
They could just make magnetic connectors with a shallow socket. But those would last longer and you wouldn’t need to keep buying new stuff.
CC: @Petter1@lemm.ee
too many bits of magnetic gunk collect on those for my liking. Not as much of an issue on laptops, but with a phone carried in a pocket all day it quickly became an issue for me
Idk of any phone that had them built in, I just used one of those magnetic usb adapters you find on amazon
I’m sorry what? The 3.5mm is better because it’s rotational symmetrical?
Thats a minor win. You rarely really need that rotation capability, and what little you need can be made up with thinner cables (which is easier with a digital signal and DACs in the headphone, which can’t be done compatibly with 3.5mm and people are dumb) The you also have to sacrifice connection friction to gain rotation, and that has tradeoffs, especially when that friction is caused by a spring-loaded conductor (which also means more friction likely means fewer insertion cycles before friction starts dropping off).
It also really sucks at strain relief without massive dookie springs or rubber butts…and the bigger the strain relief, the more subjective it is to perpendicular force, which is really easy to do on a 3.5mm diameter cylinder of gold-plated iron/tin alloy with the fulcrum also being at the base of the cylinder.
Other cool thing about what could be done with USB-C headphones. A lot of companies put lead weights full-sized headphones for balance or comfort (more weight makes it feel more secure). Good Modern drivers don’t need to be as heavy as they used to be. How bout instead of weights, they use lipos? Now your headphones can charge your phone (when in wired mode, hell, I’m talking about fictional mid/high-end cans, they could have Bluetooth and ANC while we’re at it since they have power), and your charger port point is essentially moot.
3.5 jack port is definitely not more durable than USB-C. If you have good headphones, the change that the 3.5 plug is gigantic in length and the cable thicc AF which causes a lot of stress in the plug due to very large leverage. Additionally, I prefer to use the DAC integrated in my headphones rather than using the low quality tiny DAC in my phone. And in digital, the cable thickness does not matter really.
Very few people are plugging their large headphones into their phones though. For a more reasonable pair of portable headphones or IEMs the size of the plug isn’t a problem.
But congratulations, you have hit on my biggest audio pet peeve! DACs matter very little these days. Anything talking about DACs and not the DAC/Amp stages is marketing BS. Even dirt cheap DAC chips will acoustically transparently convert the digital signal to analog in audio frequencies because it is so basic to do. DACs on their own are useless for audio anyway, what really matters in your audio signal is the amp circuitry after the DAC that applies gain to the signal to useful levels as the choices there do make an acoustic difference if the design is poor.
What makes you think the DAC/Amp in your headphones is going to be better than the one that is built into the SoC of your phone? I don’t think I’ve ever seen any measurements of headphone DAC/Amps.
I don’t get why you get so much downvotes, because it’s not as obvious as people make it out to be and there are plenty of adapters. So it’s a good question.
But yes. The 3.5mm jack had the thing companies say they are striving for: simplicity.
DACs are nice and everything but the phone can just decide to not connect properly. The DAC can decide it had enough of your phone. In either case you’d need to reconnect them. And that means unlocking your phone, because a secure phone will block streaming to ‘unknown’ USB-C devices, unless it’s unlocked during the negotiation phase. And if your connectors have become wonky for whatever reason: Well, no music for you.
And then there’s the issue where you have to have them at hand when you need them. In your car, on your person, while at work.
3.5mm is great because it actually “just works”. One of the few things that can claim such thing.
I recently bought a phone that lacked a 3.5mm jack, so I bought a splitter with a USBC charging port and a headphone jack. The problem I encountered was that the splitter reported to the phone that headphones were connected even if they were not. I was used to unplugging the headphones and have playback automatically pause, and resume when the headphones were put back in. With the splitter I was no longer able to do that. I don’t know if I bought a cheap ass splitter or if that’s the normal behavior for these things.
This is not the normal behavior, but I’d consider the adapter part of you headphone cable and just leave it on there. If you want to unplug, just unplug the headphones (including adapter) from the phone?
Negotiation is a thing for sure. It is possible, though I haven’t ever seen it implemented, that digital audio over USB-C or bluetooth can be blocked by DRM. It would seem business suicide to do something like limiting audio output to certain audio products but I wouldn’t put it past any short term minded profit seeking enterprise.
Yes, I should be able to play music, AND charge the phone without a 9 wire adapter like those universal charger plugs from 10 years ago. Wild concept. I wonder when phone tech will be able to support such a thing
Yes, it’s fucking ridiculous! My cans are now either useless or cumbersome and everything else sounds awful! It’s like you people who just want some noise have never even heard decent audio!
I’ve got the Bose QC 45 headphones which can do both Bluetooth and 3.5 mm. The audio quality is the same between the two delivery methods. The only difference I’ve noticed is an occasional video/audio synching issue with Bluetooth which quickly corrects itself and is usually only an issue with older devices. It’s my understanding that this and the audio lag issue have been solved recently in newer devices.
I personally think Bluetooth is a shit standard that has slowly been fixed over the years, but it’s pretty much 100% there at this point
The real question I have is: is a decent DAC that hard to find? I bought a shit one because it’s only a back-up option for me, but I can’t imagine the good ones are scarce.
Tell it to the phone companies. A DAC and amp should be part of my phone.
Bose is shit.
my issue right now is that i use one of those charging + 3.5mm splitters in the car, but when they’re both connected there’s a loud ass buzz. a 3.5mm ground loop isolator works but made bass sound terrible. i’m probably gonna get an old phone just for music in the car 🤦🏽♂️
Just get a new car pleb.
Honestly Bluetooth in a car has been a must for me for like 10 years now. And having experienced CarPlay, that’s def next (especially for cars that support wireless and have a Qi spot. Thats practically magic)
i like my car :( and i’m paranoid about features in new cars. i can hear a noticeable difference in quality with bluetooth vs wired too. never been a fan
regardless, cars that people primarily use 3.5mm for aren’t going away too soon!
