ddHiFi TC25i Lightning to 2.5mm Headphone Adapter And TC28i Lightning to USB-C Adapter Review – Connect Your iPhone
Pros — Work well and remove clutter around your iPhone; great designs, build quality, and haptic.
Cons — None.
INTRODUCTION
I love adapters. Yes, you are reading correctly. I have boxes of them…see photo at the bottom. But when I recently received a couple of German premium earphone review loaners with a combined worth exceeding $5000, they came with an adapter. And guess wh
at, it was a ddHifi branded one. A Chinese adapter on a German premium earphone cable? Must be of good quality. And it was. In fact it worked so well that I purchased three versions of it way before I received the actual two units for this review.
One of them, the ddHifi TC25i let’s one connect a 2.5 mm mm balanced cable to an iPhone’s lightning port. The other one, ddHifi TCI28i, turns the iPhone’s lightning adapter into a USB-C port. I will explain the practicality of these devices in the following – also get some idea from the images throughout and at the bottom of this article.
SPECIFICATIONS TC25i
- ddHiFi
- Apple Lightning to 2.5 mm headphone jack adapter
- Material: CNC-machined 316 stainless steel unibody shell
- Supports in-line control on CTIA standard earphones
- Supports full functionality for Apple earphones
- Supports iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch models running iOS 10.0 or later
- THD+N: < -92 db
- DNR: > 110 db
- SNR: > 120 db
- Dimensions: 0.74 x 0.44 x 0.4 in (18.8 x 11.2 x 10.2 mm)
- Weight: 0.2 oz (6 g)
- Tested at: $40
- Product page: ddHifi
SPECIFICATIONS TC28i
- Input: Lighting
- Output: USB-C
- Material: Aluminum alloy
- Dimensions: 0.7 x 0.4 x 0.5 in (18.5 x 9.5 x 13.5 mm)
- Tested at: $30
- Product page: ddHifi
PHYSICAL THINGS AND USABILITY/FEATURES
The TC25i and TC28i are robust, sturdy, small, and light – and made of metal. Build and haptic are excellent.
What do these adapter do? I’ll discuss this as follows. Note: the reviewed versions will only work with iPhones and iPads, even if these devices are mantled with the thickest possible cases. And – in order to give you some idea what these adapters can be used for, I appended a set of images of my own applications below.
TC25i Lightning to 2.5mm Headphone Adapter: is essentially the equivalent to the Apple lightning audio adapter (which I reviewed in great detail), but with a 2.5 mm output. Although all 2.5 mm cables are “balanced”, the TCi25 is not. Its sister adapter TC35i features a 3.5 mm adapter and serves the same purpose as the Apple lightning adapter.
The TCi25i/TC35i have a lot of technology packed into that small enclosure: a microscopic stereo digital-to-analog converter (DAC), a stereo headphone amplifier, a microphone preamplifier, and monophonic analog-to-digital converter (ADC) – and power converters to run this all.
Considering that any connector is a sonic bottleneck and that the wire in the Apple Audio adapter is the limiting factor for any premium cable, cable aficionados are better off with the TCi25.
TC28i Lightning to USB Type C Adapter: is simply a connector for dongles. It essentially serves the purpose of the Apple lightning camera adapter. When connecting your iPhone to a dongle via the Apple adapter, you create a rather long chain. The TC28i shortens this “snake” and makes it more portable.
There is a big difference, however, between Apple and ddHifi in that the former has the traditional USB-A connector whereas the ddHifi TC28i features the smaller USB-C connector.
This is no problem as most dongles come with either connectivity. And if everything fails, there are cheap USB-C to USB-A connectors.
TONALITY AND TECHNICALITIES OF THE TCI25i
First test of the ddHifi TC25i lightning to 2.5 mm adapter against the iPhone 5S’s internal dac/amp (which is essentially identical to the Apple audio adapter for later iPhones).
The iPhone 5S is a formidable audio player: https://www.kenrockwell.com/…/iphone-5s-audio-quality.htm. Result: no noticeable difference found in terms of sound quality and amplification power.
So what does the TC25i sound like? I agree with the Headphone Collector also analyzed the Apple audio adapter [here]…as said, the ddHifi TC25i sounds essentially identical . He writes: “…Neutral, clear, clean and very precise. Basically as audibly transparent, good-sounding and clean-sounding to my ears as it gets. Precise and tight bass reproduction with sensitive multi-BA in-ears.
VALUE
TC25i Lightning to 2.5mm Headphone Adapter, although identical sounding as the Apple Lightning Adapter, may appear expensive at four times the price.
But: Apple does not offer a 2.5 mm adapter and their dongle is plastic/rubber with a cable that is prone to fray. The TC25i is made of metal (and has therefore the much better haptic and durability), is much less conspicuous because of its smaller size, and is extremely practical as you don’t have to earphone change cables when switching between devices.
It is also classy compared to the Apple. And it is particularly useful when deploying cables with the unreliable MMCX connectors. It may save you money in the long run by not ripping your MMCX connectors apart.
The TC28i Lightning to Type C Adapter costs about the same as the Apple camera adapter. Again, the ddHifi product is smaller, more rugged, and has the better haptic. The difference between the two – that is USB-A for the Apples and USB-C for the ddHifi – is somewhat unimportant as most peripherals come with both-type cables – and if not, there are cheap quality adapters, the best from UGREEN.
CONCLUDING REMARKS
I love adapters and the ddHifi adapters are on top of my list. They are high-quality and therefore good enough to be used with the most premium equipment, they look and feel good, they are priced right, and they are extremely practical.
While these two units had been provided by dHifi, I purchased other ddHifi adapters for my pleasure so impressed was I. You will see ddHifi adapters all over this blog. Check it out for yourself:
https://www.audioreviews.org/?s=ddHifi
Until next time…keep on listening!
DISCLAIMER
These ddHifi adapters were provided by ddHifi – and I thank them for that.
Our generic standard disclaimer.
EXAMPLES OF APPLICATIONS…
