Music producers are using an external interface regardless, and if they are on the go and just using headphone jack, it doesn't much matter because they know they arent getting a true monitor grade signal to judge the mix with.
This is just great for headphone nerds, audiophiles.
Fair-ish points. For on the go, they can still take their dedicated over-ear monitors though, thus reducing the compromises. Sure it's not the same but better than the alternative.
It depends if they want to test how things sound through a Mac and happen to have high impedance headphones lying around. Seriously though the DAC in the Mac is very good, you’re talking $300+ to get something better and for my money it sounds nearly as good as a Topping D90 for example.
The $9 iPhone headphone dongle is a better DAC than most audiophile products, and has a bigger R&D budget than the entire industry. Headphone amps are real for electrical reasons, headphone DACs are a scam by the gold plated cable people.
Don't think the same. I remember when they removed the jack I was using iPhone with a pair of wired CX 880i's. On old iPhone they sounded great (of course not a true audiophile setup, just a comparison). After I got my iPhone 7 which removed the jack and gave the dongle instead, they sounded absolutely terrible through that DAC. The change might not be noticeable for average EarPods user, but those Sennheisers which were great earbuds for its time was literally sounding worse than back-then-not-so-good Bluetooth headphones through that DAC. With all the world moving to Bluetooth/wireless (speaking of casual use, not pro setups), I doubt this will ever change.
You certainly shouldn't be able to hear DAC differences through earbuds, but they shouldn't have issues being driven either unless they're really exotic. If I had to guess, I'd say the plug wasn't seated properly, or there was an issue with the in-line microphone.
