Old phones as streaming sources

I repurposed an older iPad that had a short battery life into a dedicated streamer next to my desk. Since it had to be connected to the DAC anyway, the charging cord wasn't an issue. For my ears, the sound is terrific in this near field desk setup and the display is awesome with the iPad propped up in a stand. 

I vote a yes to extending the usefulness of this kind of electronics. With the money I save, someday I will able to afford the kinds of electronics that will help me discern higher quality music reproduction. 

iPhone into chord mojo is a good streaming setup with headphones on the go. That is essentially the purpose of Mojo. If you’re using it as your primary dac that’s fine as well. But let’s just not build any illusions about that setup’s capabilities. 

@bruce19 

I still have a 6s as well and while it’s a Swiss Army knife as far as phones go, it’s like a Swiss Army knife, it does everything, it just doesn’t do it well. I have a Sony boombox that has the big Apple plug on it and that’s what my garage system is.  But for anything more, the 6s wasn’t designed for it.  Neither is the 13 that I  currently have.

My central point is that by stripping away as many of the non-essential functions of the phone as possible I perceive it to improve as a digital source and I wonder if others have similar experiences. The persuasive explanation for this would be the reduction of electrical noise improves clarity and coherence of the digital signal. After all, it  is generally accepted that one of the best and quietest power supplies possible is a battery. I believe that Audirvana claimed to do something similar for users of computers as digital sources. This is just doing the same but manually.

If anyone has measurement capabilities for this sort of thing it would be fascinating to know what you find.

@soix 

So, did you compare running the iPhone direct into the DAC8 versus going through your Aries?  If you don’t hear a significant improvement through the Aries, well, let’s  just say we greatly differ in our experiences.

The Auralic Aries is a source with no dac so no to that. I don't have the adapters to connect the phone to the Okto, but it is worth noting that the streaming source inside the Okto Dac8 is a Raspberry Pi 4 connected to the rest of the dac and preamp circuits though an I squared S connection. So a modest streaming source (cost about $100, maybe less now) can garner an  A+ rating from Stereophile when associated with the right electronic surroundings. Point being some devices not created for the audiophile world can still deliver world class performances and don't have to cost an arm and a leg.