Why is an iPhone such a good streamer?

Without prejudice to the merits of an iPhone as your streaming source, may I suggest that you toddle down to your local high-end bricks and mortar audio store and do a bake-off against a high-end audio streamer.

Think LUMIN, MOON and a bevy of other many quality-build options. 

iPhones... and MacBooks are great streamers considering the nature of what they are. I have spent decades using portable devices. However, it only holds up until you compare to a better source with appropriate amplification. I have used all sorts of devices from the iPhone to my Aurrender W20SE ($22K) streamer and each step up makes a big difference and is worth it on a system of equivalent quality.

Because actually iPhone CPU is way, way more powerful than those puny ARM chippies in streamers. And remember - iPhone does not have AC power supply, it is battery powered and does not need any 'linear' power supplies.

My Sony Xperia 1 V Android phone is an amazing streamer...It has a very good dac implementation too... for a phone, that is.

@ghdprentice You are the biggest advocate of high end streamers I know. I recently had the chance to listen to the new Taiko XDMI streamer output into the Lampizator Horizon designed to use it. For those who don’t know, the XDMI signal comes directly from the BIOS of the streamer motherboard, thus avoiding interface with any operating system. Lukas Fikus was there to demonstrate it for 2 days and it was spectacular. I’d say this is the next big step in sound, but it comes at a 6 digit price.

Jerry

I would say from my experience using my iPhone as a steamer that it is adequate but not as good as a dedicated streamer. iPhones are multiple use devices and my opinion is that they work well as remote control or I should say using the app of a dedicated streamer works better than using the iPhone hardware. In the early days I used an iPhone streaming dock many years ago (Pure I20) that worked ok, but was not HiFi. If a company makes an IPhone interface today that works as well as a dedicated streamer (maybe like one with the latest DAC chips and dual mono design) I would be interested in the design/engineering. One problem with both Apple and Android phones is that they are quickly obsolete 6 months after they are brought to market. 

I’m listening to Pandora right now off my iPhone and it sounds dandy.

Use a lightning to camera adapter and it bypasses the internal dac. Have it plugged into my Mytek dac. I wouldn’t say comparable to a good streamer, but still sounds darned good. Get the adapter then plug your iPhone into your t+a  dac and have a listen.

I use my iPhone to stream Tidal into my headphone setup. Sounds damn good.

before my house burned, when working in the garage, which i did a lot, I used my phone via bluetooth to drive a dayton audio class d dac/amplifier which in turn drove a pair of old 2-way bookshelf speakers and and dayton audio sub. Full range sound in my garage was a treat. Wouldn’t be called hi-fi by most people on this forum, but it was better than many home systems I have been exposed to. Pandora was the streaming service of choice, I much prefer their algorithm for playing music that is similar to what your primary artist choice might be than any other implementation I have heard by other services. I hope one day to have as good again