Post by KeithL on Jul 28, 2021 10:34:07 GMT -5
You CAN connect a Big Ego Plus or Little Ego Plus to an iPhone !
We've had several people ask whether our Ego Plus DACs will work with an Apple iPhone... and the answer is YES.
However it will only work if you hook things up properly.
The iPhone will normally only output digital audio to an external USB DAC if you use one of the Lightning to USB Camera Adapters.
The adapter provides the Apple handshake chip that you need in order to convince the iPhone to output digital audio.
The iPhone also has some limitations in terms of how much power it is willing to provide to power an external USB-powered device like our Ego Plus DACs.
(The Ego Plus DACs require between 130 mA and 170 mA to power them. This is far less than the maximum available from a computer's UBS port - but more than some phones can deliver.)
The solution is to use the Lightning to USB Camera Adapter to provide the Apple handshake...
And a POWERED USB HUB to provide the power necessary to run the Ego Plus DAC...
A powered USB hub is a USB hub that includes its own AC adapter which powers both the hub and any USB devices you have attached to it.
(Many USB hubs either require a separate AC adapter or offer the OPTION of using one.)
We tried this with a recent iPhone 12 and a low cost powered USB 3.0 hub and it worked fine.
It will probably work with most or all powered USB hubs... (probably including those that only support USB 2).
Although we didn't try it, this should also work if you were to power the hub using a battery, for portable operation..
The picture shows the specific version of the Lightning to USB Camera Adapter and USB hub we tried this with.
(The AC adapter for the USB hub - not shown - came with it.)
(In order for this to work you must power the hub using its AC adapter.)
