Having USB Type C means can it provide Hi-res audio?

[Android Central Question]

I'm having MI A2 which has USB type C as an audio output for the headphones. They included a dongle. But I'm having some thought for Hi-Res audio. As USB C directly provides the digital output without converting to analog anywhere. Can we buy a dongle with a Hi-Res DAC output and using a Hi-Res pair of headphones? Of course, I need to load up some Hi-Res music to the phone. Will it be really Hi-Res or not.

 

[Rukbat]

Considering the price of the dongle (Gearbest has them for about $3), there's analog audio on the connector - which means a DAC inside the phone. (In other words, the same audio you had on earlier models, but just moved to a different connector.) All audio in a phone is digital, so it has to be converted to analog somewhere, in the phone or in the dongle.

Phones that need dongles with DACs in them - in the $15 and up range - probably have pretty crappy DACs in the phone. (I can't tell - at 77, with 100db hearing loss above 4KHz, even a live orchestra sounds crappy to me, compared to what I used to hear when I had good [it was actually great - I could hear to 22KHz] hearing.)

 

[Mike Dee]

Considering the price of the dongle (Gearbest has them for about $3), there's analog audio on the connector - which means a DAC inside the phone. (In other words, the same audio you had on earlier models, but just moved to a different connector.) All audio in a phone is digital, so it has to be converted to analog somewhere, in the phone or in the dongle.

Phones that need dongles with DACs in them - in the $15 and up range - probably have pretty crappy DACs in the phone. (I can't tell - at 77, with 100db hearing loss above 4KHz, even a live orchestra sounds crappy to me, compared to what I used to hear when I had good [it was actually great - I could hear to 22KHz] hearing.)

The dongles I own (Googke, HTC, Razer) run from 10 to 20 dollars and beat the pants off of most of the devices with the DAC built in. Devices that have a separate DAC built in like LG are a whole different story.

 

[Rukbat]

According to the specs I can find, the MI A2 dongle is only a converter from Type C to a 3.5mm jack, so the DAC is internal. (They saved a whole 10 cents by not putting a jack on top of the phone.)

Besides, all phones have to have some kind of DAC in the phone - you can't just feed digital audio into a speaker.