Lightning Headphone Amplifier?

bought a 400 dollars headphones memes whose only gimmick is the lightning cable which you can get for cheap and attach to any better sounding existing headphones

buy a Fiio Q1 with a lightning camera kit and some velcro so you can attach it to your phone and use with regular 3,5mm headphones and control the volume with the Fiio.

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These headphones sound nice though and the digital signal is integrated. I just want them to be a tad louder and I wonder whether degrading the signal by using the included analog cable + a portable headphone amplifier would be a bit louder or if this is as loud as it can go. The signal is very CLEAR I just like it a bit louder.

I'm a n00b obviously but I take it there's no way to amplify this without compromising the all-digital signal.

The other gimmick these have is the 100mm planar magnetic drives which I kind of assume might benefit from the higher power of a battery powered portable headphone amplifier, but I could be wrong.

These headphones come with a separate regular 3.5 mm cord, I just wonder if there's any way to make them a tad louder without degrading the all digital audio that I paid for. It sounds GREAT with lossless tracks played through VLC and I just downloaded the app "vox" which can handle multiple formats of high quality audio, but apart from Tidal, which has a shitty catalog, there's not a lot of ways in the U.S. to stream 1411 kbps audio that I am aware of. I would settle for just 5% more loud if I could get it, but I appreciate the clarity these cans offer.

You didn't pay for an "all digital" audio, that's literally impossible.
You paid to move the DAC/amp a bit further closer to your ears, in this case from the phone to the headphones cable.
The cable has a DAC/amp integrated into it, probably super discreet which is why you need more volume.
Digital only audio is impossible since your ears perceive audio as waves, not digital.
You need to educate yourself before dropping 400 bucks on memes.

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That the signal isn't degraded into analog for processing by the internal phone's circuitry is what I mean. Sorry I'm not an expert obviously. Why WOULDNT you want headphones that plug into digital?

You don't have to be a dick, bro, I'm just wondering if I can get this a bit louder. The quality itself is great.

If you buy a portable DAC/amp like the Fiio Q1 and a camera kit just like I told you the signal isn't processed by the phone at all but by real dedicated hardware inside the Fiio instead of some shitty miniaturized bastardization inside the cable.
Have you tried taping some audiophile rocks to the headphones to increase the volume? they don't degrade digital signals at all

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Man, come on, we have a headphone general.
There are options. No there is nothing that will go before that included lightning cable to increase volume as that lightning cable is a dac and amp.
It should also be able to drive them to suitable volumes, you should pick up a db meter to make sure you're not damaging your hearing.
Another option is to buy a simple lightning portable dac amp, I only know android ones because I dont use iphone, but check out fiio and topping. You would plug them in with a lightning OTG cable, then plug the el-8 in with it's 3.5mm
Also the el-8 is shit you should just sell them and get good headphones.

Why is it shit?

Camera kit to plus a usb into? I'm confused. What do I need the camera kit for?

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But then what does the usb end plug into? I take it this would require using the headphone jack cord for my headphones, which would degrade the sound. I GET that I can get a headphone amplifier with a lightning OUTPUT, but I guess there's no way to do a digital input.

>What do I need the camera kit for
Because you're a homosexual applefag.
If you had an android you only need an OTG USB cable and it will works fine, but because you like cock you need to buy extra apple branded gizmos to get the same functionality

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I'm not getting how your setup would work.

Wouldn't it perhaps work better (assuming third party cables work) to use something that takes a male lightning, and turns it into a female micro usb like:

amazon.com/Lightning-Roopower-Connector-Smartphone-Cable-Gray/

and then plug it into a portable amp like:

amazon.com/Q1-Mark-II-Native-Amplifier/

that I assume can handle male lightning output with a cable and can handle female micro usb input. Like why the fuck are there no devices that have a female lightning jack on them to amplify them that way?

>Wouldn't it perhaps work better (assuming third party cables work)
> third party shit
> apple

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Audeze is third party and works fine...

I just haven't had the best of luck getting audio to play through Chinese adapters. I'm not sure if audio would carry through a lightning to micro usb adapter. Again are there NO headphone amps that take a lightning input?

>But then what does the usb end plug into?
A DAC

Which you then plug your headphones into

Human ears perceive sound waves which are inherently analog, at some stage you have to convert your digital signal to analog

But wouldn't that degrade the sound vs using the lightning cable? I don't get why there are so many headphone amps that can take a micro usb input but NONE that take a lightning input.

Closed ecosystem, this is how apple designed it. Don't like it, buy a crapdroid, there's your solution

But it would be physically possible to route a headphone amp that has a lightning input into lightning cabled headphones?

>giving up iMessage

Usually Apple only has a few solutions for stuff like this where you pay through the schnoz (like Audeze) but they work well. This sound quality is great I just want it a tiddly bit louder.

>lightning cabled headphones
have an integrated DAC like the ones in op's image to convert the audio signal from digital to analog

I h-had no idea :^)

my question is basically whether the shittier sound quality from the headphone jack cable + headphone amplifier would sound better than lightning cable + no amplifier since amplifying lightning cable is impossible I take it.

You can't amplify ones and zeros

I dunno couldn't you throw some extra power on the signal to make it louder? I mean these probably sound pretty loud to normies but I listen to a fair bit of techno and like my music pretty loud.

I can't hear a damn thing in the outside world with these set to max volume, I was just wondering if there were any way to improve them even yet a bit more.

That said, I have no fucking idea why people would still use headphone jack powered headphones, especially fancy ones.

theverge.com/2016/6/7/11874706/iphone-7-lightning-headphones-reasons

This review claims you get 30% more power using the lightning cable than the 3.5mm jack cable.

Just going back to your previous post
>shittier sound quality from the headphone jack cable + headphone amplifier
This would depend on your hardware
>lightning cable + no amplifier since amplifying lightning cable is impossible I take it.
This again depends on your hardware, the lighting port can only send a digital signal, you're still going to have a DAC and possibly an amp down the line somewhere, except now instead of being in the phone it's in the cable between the phone and your headphones now.

Simply put, the headphones you bought are one unit. You can't just decide now that you want to increase the power. As I said you can't amplify a digital signal cause it's just a bunch of 0's and 1's. Only once it's converted to an analog signal can you manipulate further with an amplifier.

I doubt the amp is going to make it more than 30% louder without some distortion. I could be wrong tho...

That is EXTREMELY niche. Lightning headphones never caught on to begin with and an accessory for them is just too little profit for too much initial investment.

Ok, so is there any way to know if it would actually be worth the effort trying to buy a lightning to usb adapter and a separate usb-based dac?

Millions of people use iPhones, I'm surprised this isn't a more common thing.

I guess to clarify how much of a crapshoot would this be, and if so, how much would it matter using a small stick-type usb dac with no power source of its own vs a larger one that you charge separately?

just so you know, the cipher cable from audeze (like the one in your pic) does some EQing to the headphone they're sold with, so if you use another amp/dac your EL-8 WILL sound different/worse unless you use an app to do the same EQing