The new SoundMagic E80D are budget in-ears with a nice touch. Namely, the wired earbuds feature a USB-C plug.
The demise of the time-honored minijack connector on smartphones and the like is still fresh in the minds of many audio enthusiasts. Manufacturers dumped the headphone jack to make their devices a fraction thinner again. Apparently, that’s what many consumers value. In reality, simple material savings will no doubt have played a big role as well. The fact is, if you want to listen to wired headphones on most cell phones, you need a DAC dongle. And those darn things always get lost. The SoundMagic E80D in-ears may be a godsend in that regard. You simply plug the earbuds into your phone’s USB-C connector via a cable.
24/96
The DAC incorporated in the in-ears supports a maximum resolution of 24 bit / 96 kHz. Big advantage is that you thereby skip the well-known (re)compression to a Bluetooth codec. The SoundMagic E80D costs only $46 / €48.95 and that includes built-in microphone and in-cable remote control.