I bought my DFB with Jitterbug in a value combo, so I hardly use it without. I don’t have a media player, just an iPhone6. I think I hear a difference with camera adapter 3 when charging, improved with jitterbug, but I have not done testing. @Torq was going to post something about a year ago regarding jitterbug, but if he did, I missed it.
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With one exception, which involved perhaps the worst computer I’ve ever had the misfortune to be saddled with (a loaded Dell 7600-series workstation, fortunately not something I had to use outside “work”), I’ve not found any audible benefit to the Jitterbug.
The testing I did showed effects if I measured the actual USB lines directly … but these were so small as to be essentially meaningless. And none of my measurements showed any differences at the analog output of the DAC being fed.
Which is pretty much the same story for every USB cleaner/filter/re-clocker I’ve ever tested (DDCs are a different matter). Even chains of them. And in some cases, they’d either make things worse or even stop the USB device working entirely.
Only other exceptions were units that were essentially powered hubs, with maybe a single output port, and then that was really about addressing unreliable USB operation in the first place with some borderline laptops.
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Placebo effect. Back in the early days of car radar detectors, one could by a miracle plastic box with lights on the outside. The device had no functional value, but not all buyers returned them. So, the seller made a net profit after the returns. This is the evil version of capitalism, and one reason I’m leery of ifi, AudioQuest and a legion of other audio vendors.
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LOL I had a string of Dells for work and that’s just what I was thinking of, the audio was terrible, whining noise in my headphones every time the hard drive spun up.
Bumping with an update - I picked up the EarStudio ES100 in April. It’s a huge improvement over the dongle. The app has an equalizer that’s great, much more stable than other EQ apps I’ve used in the past. A side benefit I hadn’t considered, I can use it to connect to my Apple TV so I can watch action movies at night as loud as I want with my cans.
Still not as good as my iPhone 6. I’m looking at the FiiO Q5S, but that’s so big I might as well start looking at DAPs. I do have a 7th Generation iPod that I was thinking about giving a new battery and solid state drive, not sure if I’m ready to begin that voyage…
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congrats on the ES 100, John! it´s a great little device and the app is the best thing I know of.
good you can watch your action movies now, late at night while all others sleep. That´s what we guys do, for no reason 
if you start with the voyage - there is no coming back! Be officially warned!
Love the idea of repair first and if it does not work out buying later. So I would go for the iPod.
The Fiio Q5s is a beast, as allrounder. All new codecs and nice to handle. It also should have enough juice to drive most headphones.
please report back, if the new battery worked out or what you ended up with!
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Once you go Dap you won’t go back!
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I finally solved this. I had tested a bunch of dongles and then started to wonder if it was my phone. My wife has an iPhone 8 and I was surprised that hers sounded better than mine too.
After some more Googling I was sent digging into my settings: At Settings | Accessibility | Audio/Visual there’s a switch to force Mono
And there’s why I was bitching about a narrow soundstage #dumbass
I never would have turned that on so I’m not sure what the deal with that is.
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ok, so cool you were able to figure it out!
how the heck a mono setting can be applied? maybe via an update or so?
When I was reading about it, many people flip this on because they like to use AirPods with only one ear in. By going mono they don’t miss anything.
I got my phone pre-owned so my theory is that it was only wiped, not factory reset so maybe the previous owner turned it on?
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makes sense and yes, the previous owner may have switched it on for that reason.
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So back when I thought the problem was the DAC I tried a couple of dongles:
First was the Ikko Zerda, a $99 dongle with a 3.5 jack that doubles as optical out.
Second was the Tera Grand, a $19 dongle that seems sturdier than the Apple one.
My lovely assistant (wife) administered the blind testing… and I couldn’t tell the difference from the $9 Apple dongle, so back they went.
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