Technology

When the 3.5-less trend started setting in, I still had a phone with a headphone jack but started looking into wireless Bluetooth digital audio convertors just to prepare myself for the reality that it'll eventually be hard to find a phone that's both....good...and that I could plug my IEMs into.

One I settled on was the Radsone ES100. Besides allowing me to continue to use my headphones, one feature I really liked was its ability to store equalizer settings that could be used with any source, whether it be a Bluetooth device or one I plug the DAC into via USB. I found that there were equalizer apps for Android, but they kept getting killed because of memory limitations I guess. This device externalized the EQ.

Anyways some of the folks who made that branched off and made an even better version, the Qudelix 5K. It has the same features but does a better job of simultaneously connecting to multiple devices (but sadly it doesn't mix the sources...it just has a priority 😔😔😔😔). So I grabbed that upgrade and now the headphone side of my audio is locked in.

I found that getting a Bluetooth DAC helped me feel better about the trend of removing a standard audio connector from devices (which I gotta say, still makes no sense). It still frustrates me that I need to walk around with another device and the limitations of Bluetooth are annoying, but the cool thing is that when my last 3.5mm jack equip device (OnePlus 5) just stopped turning on, I just grabbed a random replacement phone (Pixel 5) and kept the same audio chain.

tl;dr - Consider just accepting that this is the trend for phones these days and try a portable Bluetooth (or even USB) DAC. When you find one you like, moving to any source will be less stressful. It won't matter if it has a headphone jack: you'll be able to focus on other features or even just get a less costly device that'll sound identical to what u know.