Compare iPad mini (left) and iPhone 6 Plus (right)
This time, iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 Plus, which one should I buy? In advance information, I was told that "Plus is about the same size as a 10,000 yen bill", so I chose it. However, on the day of delivery at the au shop, I regretted seeing the actual product for the first time. It's bigger than I imagined. At first glance, I thought it looked like an iPad mini, and I feel embarrassed to make calls with it. One of these days, I feel that some people will make calls with the iPad, but I personally prefer smaller ones, so I'd like to expect the iPhone 7 mini to appear next time.
On the other hand, I think it would have been better to leave the iPhone 5s I have on hand with iOS 7 for comparison, but I couldn't wait for the iPhone 6 Plus, and in the morning of September 18th I had updated to iOS 8. Well, there is also an iPod touch with iOS 7, so I will compare it depending on the situation.
The iPhone 6 Plus seems to have various new features such as camera shake correction function, iCloud Drive newly added in iOS 8, family sharing function, video related functions such as time lapse. However, I will leave them to other articles on AV Watch, and here I will check the audio and DTM functions.
Screen capture of iPhone 6 Plus (link is original resolution)When I started the iPhone 6 Plus, it was just a big screen, and the resolution was increased to 1,080 x 1,920 dots full HD. The number of displayed icons has also increased to 4 horizontal × 6 vertical. However, there are no surprises like when iOS 6 changed to iOS 7, and the appearance is not much different from iOS 7, so it can be said that it is not fresh.
First, let's start with the simple part. It is about whether there is a difference in sound when the iPhone 5s and iPhone 6 Plus are viewed as audio devices. This time, I didn't check the frequency in detail, but when I played the same song on each and listened to it with headphones, it sounded pretty good. The volume when set to the maximum level is exactly the same in terms of hearing. After listening to it alternately many times, I felt that the iPhone 6 Plus might have a higher resolution, but it was probably just my imagination.
On the other hand, when I tried to output sound from the built-in speaker, I was able to confirm that the iPhone 6 Plus produced a lower sound, probably due to the difference in the size of the housing or the diameter of the speaker. . However, since it's a small bonus monaural speaker, I don't think I can say anything about the audio performance, but there was definitely a difference.
Headphone comparison speaker section
At first, I tried to see if I could transfer high-resolution sound sources from iTunes on my PC to the iOS standard music function. Previously, when I wrote an article titled "Can Apple Lossless high-resolution play back on iPhone/iTunes?" Don't you think it's changed?
We prepared 96kHz/24bit Apple Lossless (ALAC) data and 96kHz/24bit uncompressed WAV data. I tried to transfer this with iTunes, but it was useless after all. Whether I tried to transfer to iPhone 5s or iPhone 6 Plus, the result was the same.
I couldn't transfer the screen WAV when I tried to transfer Apple Lossless to iTunesSo, if you use a high-resolution compatible app, won't you be able to play high-resolution native playback on your iPhone alone? To confirm this, I prepared two apps that I've used before. One is Onkyo's HF Player and the other is FLAC Player. Let's take a look at HF Player first. As a matter of course, the standard function of HF Player, the iPod playback function (playback of songs transferred to iTunes that are not high resolution), could be played without any problems.
The HD function, which is an optional function that performs high-resolution playback, should be able to play FLAC and WAV 96kHz/24bit data, so I transferred this via iTunes. And when I play it with HF Player... I can't play it for some reason. The moment I hit the play button, it stops and I can't progress. I wondered if it was a problem with the iPhone 6 Plus, so I tried it with an iPhone 5s and an iPad mini with iOS 8 installed, and it was exactly the same. When I checked the iPhone again, when I restored it from the iCloud backup, only the song list was imported, and the song data itself was not restored. Therefore, when I transferred the song again, I was able to play the high-resolution song.
[Correction] When the article first appeared, it was said that "HF Player could not play high resolution HD function", but when the song was transferred again, it could be played, so I added and corrected the article (September 23) Sunday 23:12)
HF Player was able to play non-high-resolution files without problems.High-resolution playback screenNext, I tried it with FLAC Player. After all, I transferred 96kHz/24bit FLAC data and put it out from the iPhone's headphone output. It can also be played well. However, the problem is whether it can be played as high resolution. As many of you may know, FLAC Player automatically detects what kind of DAC is connected, converts the sampling rate to a format that matches it, and plays it back. And it is possible to show what is connected. Specifically, it's called Sample Rate in the Audio Hardware item, but when I checked it, it was "48000Hz", and unfortunately the built-in audio function didn't seem to be recognized as a high-resolution device by this app.
FLAC Player can also play 96kHz/24bit FLAC FLAC Player seems to recognize it as a 48000Hz DACSo what happens when you connect an external USB DAC or audio interface? , I was able to output not only 48kHz/24bit, but also 88.2kHz/24bit and 96kHz/24bit in the conventional iOS 7, but I checked if this is okay. For the time being, I tried Ratoc Systems RAL-DSDHA1 and PreSonus AudioBox 44VSL. I used the same Lightning-USB camera adapter as before and tried to connect it via USB. As a result, both were able to play high resolution without any problems, and it was confirmed that the lamp lit up at 96kHz with RAL-DSDHA1.
So far, there seems to be no difference between iOS 7 and iOS 8 in terms of audio features.