Why Neither A DAP Nor An iPhone Wins, And How To Choose

Tired of the “one is better” noise around source gear for car audio? We take a clear, real‑world look at using a DAP versus an iPhone as your primary source, and why the right choice depends on how you drive, how you listen, and how simple you want your chain to be. From clean digital paths and cable choices to safety, convenience, and battery reality, we map the tradeoffs without the hype.

We start with the iPhone path many of us already use: a straightforward USB connection into an SMSL PO100 a compact digital transport feeding your DSP. It’s rugged, lives in your pocket, and unlocks CarPlay for safer calls, maps, and voice control. Then we pivot to the dedicated player route: direct coaxial or optical output via slim adapters, LDAC and aptX Bluetooth options, and microSD storage that makes multi‑terabyte libraries affordable. Along the way, we explain how to verify bit‑perfect, high‑resolution output from Apple Music and Qobuz, and why mastering quality usually matters more than file format bragging rights.

The heart of the conversation tackles a sacred cow: EQ. In a car’s chaotic acoustics, tiny, smart EQ moves in a 24‑ or 32‑bit chain can deliver more musical satisfaction than untouched streams that sound thin or harsh. We also share a clever hybrid: run wireless CarPlay for the interface while routing music output directly to your DSP for a focused, high‑quality path. No dogma—just practical setups, honest pros and cons, and a reminder that your favorite system is the one that makes you linger in the driveway to finish the track.

If this helped you rethink your source, tap follow, share with a friend who obsesses over “bit perfect,” and leave a quick review telling us your pick—DAP, iPhone, or both.

Transcript

Setting The Stage: DAPs Vs iPhone

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey guys, welcome back to the SoundQ Garage Podcast with your host, Eddie. Today we are talking about dApps versus iPhones. And this is a topic that I've kind of wanted to address for a little while. I think just about every other week, or at least once a month, I see somebody posting in the uh uh sound quality forum or over on Dyma about one's better. I see a lot of arguments going both ways, and a lot of people saying uh the iPhone is better, some people say the DAP is better. So today we're gonna dive into this topic, shed a little bit of light. To me, I don't think either one is better than the other. I think basically it's kind of pick your poison type thing, or or what you prefer. I'm gonna go over both and we're gonna basically peel it back and open it up and see what the options are. And I think both have compelling arguments, but in my opinion, I don't think one is better than the other opinion. And remember, I'm not an expert. I'm not saying I am, I think both of them have a place in the car world. Let's get into it, we'll go over it. All right, first let's start. I got some tabs here set up. So, in order to run an iPhone in your car, as far uh as far as running it into your DSP, basically, you can use something like this the SML SMSL PO100, uh, the 2024 version. I don't know if the older version is even available anymore. I've had both, they both work great. Basically, this acts as a digital transport to your to your DSP. Basically, you don't have to use an iPhone. You can uh you can use uh an Android phone or whatever. I'm not gonna I'm you know I'm I'm not gonna talk about Android much. Um, I'm gonna talk about what I have experience with. So again, I'm not an expert. I'm just gonna go over on the type of devices that I've used and what what I've had good luck with. So basically with the with the iPhone, uh you run you run a USB cable from your iPhone to the SMSL, and then you can either run coaxle or optical to your DSP. Uh let's see what we got here next. So, in order to keep your phone charged, you need a device like this. This is the Aramie dual USB headphone adapter, and so you can run one wire to your SMSL and one wire to keep it charged. Uh, personally, I never used a device like this. I really didn't find it necessary because I have an iPhone 15 Pro and the battery, even after an hour, I drove the furthest I drove one time while playing music continuously with my iPhone using the SMSL was basically an hour, maybe an hour and a half. My phone only dropped 10%. Uh, your results may vary depending on on how worn out or how new your battery is, what kind of condition it is it's in. But like I said, I didn't find this necessary. I just used to plug my phone directly into the SMSL. So remember, keep in mind this isn't a DAC, this is just basically a digital transport. Uh, some people get confused on that. So, but if you want to keep your phone charged, this is a nice little device. There's other ways to do this, you can use a hub or you know, other means. There's there's more than one way to skin a cat. This is just one of them. So do your research and find out what works for you. So we'll we'll circle back on that. So here is the uh the DAP that I have. It's a hibi R6 Gen 3. With my hibi or high B, however you pronounce it. I don't use an S SML SMSL P0100 to uh transport uh or to give my DSP its signal. So basically, I bought this cable. It's it's an arc love uh USB C to coaxle cable. Believe it or not, you can actually use this cable uh instead of an SMSL, get the uh the output, the digital output to your DSP. I'm gonna show you another method here that I bought also, and this is pretty neat. Um, this is the hib this is the hibi UC10 USB-C2 coaxial digital out. So this little device here, you can use this uh send the uh digital output to your DSP. This is just another way to skin the cat. You're gonna need a little cable. Uh this is the hibi 3.5 millimeter to uh RCA coaxial cable. So with this, you can use this to trend to uh send the signal to your DSP. Uh the nice thing about this is this actually shows you, you know, how high or uh what type of um, you know, the the if it's showing high res or if it's showing the standard resolution. So with this you could kind of confirm whether or not your whatever device you're using is outputting that. I'll tell you right now up front, both devices transmit or uh send out the high res bit perfect signals. I use uh Apple Music and Kobaz, and yes, they are sending out whatever says it's sending out, it's sending out, so they're not pulling your leg on it. So let's see. So this is RSD. You can find RSD cables on Facebook, and I don't know the gentleman's name, but I've bought like three or four cables from him, and they're always great quality. I always, to me, in my opinion, it's always great to patronize people that are in our hobby. So I think it's always great to support people that are in the industry and give them your support because uh every little bit helps, you know, to keep this hobby going and get more people interested in it. And anybody, you know, that your fellow enthusiasts that have little shops and stuff like that, you might pay a little bit more versus buying a cable on Amazon, but supporting one of us. I don't know the guy's name. I'll try to find out his name and post it below um this video. But he makes great cables. I'm gonna show you right here. Some of you guys might know his name, but getting back to the pros and cons. So basically, when you have an iPhone, you have to run you know a USB cable to the input of the SMSL. So, in my opinion, like I said, this is just my two cents. I think that it's just more things in the in the chain, something that could go wrong. I have seen people post on Dyma and on the sound queue, on the sound quality forums on Facebook that they've had issues with the SMSL, depending on what type of phone they use, or sometimes they have issues with Kobas. In my experience, I haven't had any issues. Like I said, um, it's kind of far and few between. So not trying to discourage anybody from using the SMSL, but there have been reported issues with certain, I think when it's like 192k or something like that, some people have had issues. I've had zero issues. This little box works really good. It like I said, it's a digital transport, it's always done me, never did me wrong. I always had good luck with it. Um, that is one more thing that could go wrong. That's one more thing in the chain. And instead of having a direct uh shot to the uh to the DSP, like I do with the hibi, I have the hippie connected to this cable here. I don't have a uh you know the SML uh in the middle of it, something to charge your iPhone. You know, it's just more things that could go wrong. Um, that's just one of the cons. So we're gonna go over the pros and cons. So on the dap, I'm gonna go straight to the dap here. Okay, so with the dApp, the dApp is gonna have better. So once again, this is versus iPhone, not against Android. If you have an Android, a lot of this stuff might actually apply, and the cons might actually go right out the door. So versus an iPhone, so uh looking at my notes here, with the DAP, you're gonna have better Bluetooth codecs. With the with the Bluetooth codex, you got LDAC, App Dex, App Dex Lossless. Um, that's something that the iPhone cannot do. The iPhone does standard Bluetooth and it does AAC. So depending on the Bluetooth receiver that you have, that might not even matter, to be honest with you. A lot of people are gonna go, hey, yeah, hey, whoa, whoa, hold the phone. Uh, we're talking about sound quality here. Well, you know, the Bluetooth codecs that I'm talking about are high-res. And some people might actually, that's just one more tool in the toolbox that you have. I don't use Bluetooth a lot when I'm when I'm doing demos or when I want to do critical listening. I'm wired up. I got the umbilical cord wired up. But yeah, that is one pro for the DAP. Also, with the DAP, another pro is that you could do up to a two terabyte memory card, two terabyte expandable memory. Memory these days is cheap. You can buy a little memory card from Samsung, uh SD disk, uh SANDSC, pick your poison. But you know, look up what an iPhone with two terabyte or one terabyte costs, you're looking at well over a thousand dollars. So that's a pro, in my opinion, for the DAP. So another thing that I think for me, music is is cathartic, it's it's it's relaxing, it's how I get you know unwind at the end of the day, it's how I you know relaxes me before I get to work. You know, you got no distractions. Um, somebody texts you on your phone, it's hooked up to your stereo. You know, you're gonna be looking down at your phone or checking your phone or whatever. I don't know. That that might not be something that bugs people or whatever, but to me, I think when I'm listening to music, it's sort of like like meditation to me. You you don't want to be disturbed when you're praying or when you're meditating, do you? I I can't tell you how many times I get annoyed or I used to get annoyed when I'm driving and the GPS comes on at the best part of a drum or a drop on the song, and it's like like I said, music is cathartic to me, so it's no distractions. So let's see. So no adapters needed. Uh I know a lot of people are gonna break my balls about this, but on the uh on the DAP, you have full parametric EQ, global EQ. I know it's not bit perfect, don't come at me, you know, but to me that's not that's not a big deal. I I don't I I don't think that you bumping up the bass half a decibel or one dB for a song that has thin bass, you know, every song is recorded differently. Even some songs that are the same are recorded differently across different platforms or across different streaming platforms. They they might sound different, one one might sound thinner, more bright, whatever. And you want to turn down the bass or or turn up the bass, turn down the treble. I have a mini DSP, so I don't have a Helix DSP where I can control the mid-high. I can I can turn up the bass on my control knob and that's it. Turn it, turn it up and down, whatever. You know, once you set your your your your DSP, you know, that doesn't mean that it's gonna be a good uh setting for every single song. I listen to a lot of type of music, you know. I just don't listen to one type of genre. So once in a while I do it's not like I'm fiddling with the EQ, you know, all day long, but yeah, there are little things that you wanna you wanna you know make up for. So anyway, um I think one of the pros also on the DAP is you can use it at home for headphones, you can use it as a source unit, as a desktop. If you're a true music enthusiast, if you're an auto audiophile, I'm sure you listen to music at home. Uh it's a good you can do that with the phone too. But like I said, we're going back to uh getting disturbed and listening to music undisturbed versus looking at your device and checking out TikTok videos or checking out Instagram videos, you know. It's just it's there in your hand, and you're just gonna be tempted to uh oh one of the cons. When let's go into the cons with the dAP is so you got two devices versus one. Um, no car play. You know, most modern cars these days have CarPlay. Safety-minded, you know what I mean? With one device with the iPhone, you know, if you want to do a message, you could just go through CarPlay. You can answer phone calls through CarPlay, you can answer text, you can look at your GPS uh to one-stop shop. So so let's go on to the iPhone Pros. So you got one device always on hand. The CarPlay route, they both do bit perfect, so that that's a wash there. Safety, safety is always a concern, you know. You want to be paying attention to the road. Um, you know, and the iPhone Pro or even the regular iPhone, it's got some heavy punches. You don't have to worry about uh dropping it at least from a reasonable distance. Uh, I never drop my my uh DAP player, but I'm assuming that it's not as rugged as a phone. They don't really sell rugged cases like they do. You know, they kind of just sell cases so it doesn't get scratched or um dinged up, really. That's it's not really for protection. But you could buy a freaking otter box for your iPhone and drop it from 20 feet and and it won't even damage it. So but yeah, it's always in your hand, you know. You got one device to worry about, you don't have to worry about two devices. I will say with the DAP, even after an hour of playtime, because I usually drive 35 minutes to work, 35 minutes back home, you know, plus or minus, depending on traffic. So let's just call it an hour, it drops like five percent. It literally takes me like two weeks for to run through the battery, and that's another thing, too, with the iPhone. If you're using the iPhone as your source, that's gonna, you know, it's gonna deplete your battery little by little. And I don't know about you, but these devices, at least mine was over a thousand dollars. You want it to last at least three years. That's you know what I've been using my phone for pretty much, you know, three year cycles. Some people might not be concerned about that, you know, they're like, ah, battery, whatever, it's just kind of comes with the territory, it does degrade no matter what. But if you're using it as a source unit, it's gonna degrade quicker. And if you use your phone a lot, depending on if you use it for work, construction, whatever, yeah, the phone's gonna wear out a lot uh you know a little quicker. So so yeah, you know, you're gonna need the SMSL if you're using that. You don't really need to use the SMSL because you can either go with the with the hippie uh converter, like I said, or you can go, you know, with the uh with the arc love cable that I talked about. So yeah, uh, let's see. So cons, you got the internal memory, wear of battery, two terabytes is expensive. No EQ, adapter needed, A V adapter, more stuff to break, and the Bluetooth codex. So the way I look at it is I think both of these devices are excellent. Um, it's not one or the other, I think it's more or less what you prefer. One thing that's cool though, that's I think um, you know, some of the newer, newer cars have the wireless CarPlay. My car didn't come with wireless car play, so I bought this little adapter, it's a cheap little adapter, it's like 10 or 15. I tried like three different ones. This one here in particular was actually one of the best ones. Believe it or not, I found this in another car, so it was free for me. It's a$15 device. So, what's neat about this is you might not even need this if you already have wireless carPlay. Um, what's cool about this is that you can run wireless carPlay and control everything on your screen. Um, you still have the best of both worlds, but you can output, you know, you can choose on your phone to output the the audio to your DSP. So this is kind of like a nice little walk workaround that you can do and kind of have your cake and eat it too. You're not gonna hear the uh the car prompts. Um, my car in particular, like if I don't put on my seatbelt, it tells me please put on your seatbelt. Little female voice comes out, the left side of the speaker. So that gets bypassed because the iPhone is only outputting music. Basically, but this is like I said, this is a nice way to have your cake and eat it too. You can have this hooked up, and like I said, you don't need this if you already have wireless car play already from the factory. Um, this is for you guys out there that uh your car only does wired car play. This little doohickey right here, like I said, when you do that, you run you run this and you run your car play like normal, but you go into the output tab on your phone, click on that, and route your out your music out to the DSP. Now you got the best of both worlds. So it's pretty cool little workaround. I kind of gotta give credit to uh Apple for that one or CarPlay. Let's see. So what else we got here? So yeah, that about does it. I just wanted to make a a short, you know, quick and dirty video on the pros and cons. And I see this every week on one versus the other. I really don't think that the one is better than the other. I think it's kind of what's better for you. Um, for those people out there that are like, oh, that's exactly you know the opposite of what uh what a uh with regards to um bit perfect, um adjusting the EQ. A lot a lot of you guys who uh are in this hobby, you you really gotta stop with the having music as pure as snow. It's not really that big of a deal, guys. You you you're really gonna find a bigger difference between well-recorded songs versus getting a high-res song or a song that's bit perfect and and untouched. You you really what matters is how well song was mastered and how well the song was recorded. You know, don't be surprised if a lot of your favorite songs sound like shit. I'm sure all the SoundQ guys, all the SQ guys know this that a lot of the songs that you know you grew up with or that you might have liked in your childhood, or songs that you like, once you play them through a system that's gonna reveal a song's imperfections, you're gonna be like, these songs sound like shit. That's why a lot of the sound cue playlists have songs or curate, you know, a lot of people have curated lists that they have their their songs that are well recorded. You you it's kind of like I don't know if you guys remember those mirrors that had the magnify glass in it and you point it towards your face and you see all the little imperfections in your pores and your face. That's what a sound quality system does. It reveals all these imperfections in a song that was recorded like shit. So if you adjust the EQ in a you know on your DAP or your phone, you could do it on your phone too, with an Android, and and then Apple has like 10 or 12 different EQs that you can choose from, but they're not adjustable. It's it's no longer bit perfect. Yeah, I'll admit, it's no longer bit perfect. You you but should you care? It's not big perfect, it's not big perfect, but sometimes it's necessary to compensate for the car's interior, the acoustics, or the speaker limitations. If if the song needs a little bit more bass, or maybe the song needs a treble turn down, or the the mid turned down a little bit because the mid is hot. You know, I'm not gonna whip out the laptop and go change my house curve to suit one song that I'm listening to on my playlist. I'm not gonna do that, or I'm not gonna go into my laptop to change the the mid-bass for a particular song because the mid-bass isn't snappy enough or punchy enough. That's why I got the EQ on my dap. I could just boop bump it up one notch. That's not the end of the world. My song's not gonna sound like crap because I did that. Okay, so we're talking about quality versus perfection. A non-bit perfect signal that has been EQ'd to sound better in your car is usually superior to a bit perfect signal that sounds thin or boomy. Modern processing, 24-bit or 32-bit digital systems have enough headroom to apply EQ without causing audible degradation, even if the result is not technically bit perfect. So, what I'm trying to say with this is enjoy your music. Get out there, listen to your music, don't stop worrying about this bit perfect crap and about you know having absolute perfection. If you like it, that's all that matters at the end of the day. You're not gonna sit there and put in a$5,000,$10,000,$20,000 system, whatever,$70,000 system, and be like, no, this has to be bit perfect. And you know in your heart of hearts that you wish you had a little bit more mid-base or that you wish you could tone down the treble on that. I don't care if you have the world's best house curve. There's always imperfections in music. There's always you, you a lot of people out there are like, oh, well, that's not how the artist intended it. How do you know what the artist intended? Did you talk to the artist? Did you talk to the guy that mastered the song? You know what the artist intended? For you to enjoy the fucking music. That's what the artist intended. Intended. Okay. I know artists. I've worked, I've DJ'd for 30 years. I know music producers. I know artists in my line of work. And guess what? The artist doesn't care if you're listening to it in Bluetooth headphones. The artist doesn't care if you're listening to it on a single mono speaker, one of those little JBL pills, Bluetooth pills or whatever they're called, the beats pill. They don't care. They want you to enjoy their music. Okay. So they don't care if you're listening to it in a$20,000 home stereo or a hundred thousand dollars home stereo, or if you're listening to it on a$30 Bluetooth speaker. They want you to enjoy the music. At the end of the day, this is about enjoyment of music. So get out there, listen to your music, enjoy it. Like I said, to me, it's cathartic, it relaxes me. That's my zen. All right. I've said that before. So, but that's all I got to say about it. And like I said, this is just my two cents. Don't come at me. You know what? If you want, come at me. I don't care. But that's all for