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Through a series of events and a carefree financial decision, I fell in love with a gadget I hadn’t used in several years. And it all started the day Apple decided to ditch the old Lightning connection in favor of USB-C. iPhone 15 series instead.
But to tell this story, we first need to go back even further in time. Let me explain.
Gadgets I loved but forgot about
The story doesn’t start with the iPhone, but with the digital-to-analog converter (DAC). At the beginning of 2022, I reviewed the Chord Mojo 2 DAC. It’s a gadget that fits between your music player and your headphones, enhancing your sound and also offering a huge amount of customization. My iPhone 13 Pro now sounds great, but for that I have to connect a Lightning-to-USB camera adapter dongle to another dongle (this time his USB-A-to-Micro-USB) There was a need. There were a lot of cables and connectors to deal with, and that was before adding cables to the headphones. There are some special Mojo-compatible Lightning-to-USB-C cables, but it seemed pointless to buy another cable to replace an existing one I already own.
I primarily used Focal Stellia headphones and Chord Mojo 2, which were loaned to me by Focal. This $3,000 headphone of his was great and probably the best I’ve ever used. Aside from the even more expensive Focal Utopias, which I had previously demoed, they were quite sublime. It was great to be able to use Stellia in combination with her Chord Mojo 2 at home for an extended period of time. In fact, I set aside time to sit and listen to music. I forgot how to use Bluetooth headphones, but this seems to facilitate activity.
When it came time to return the Focal Stellia to the company, I was very sad to see them go. Looking back, it marked the end of my days of putting on my headphones, relaxing, and exploring music both new and familiar. Experience what it sounds like. I still use the Mojo 2 and its silly collection of cables and dongles with my own Sennheiser HD660 headphones, but I’ve never really loved them as much as I did the Focal Stellia. As time passed, the Cabletastic Mojo 2 became less and less used.
USB-C comes to iPhone 15
Apple announced the iPhone 15 series in September 2023, and I chose the iPhone 15 Pro Max as the model to use for the next year or so, but the addition of USB-C didn’t appeal to me at first. Fast charging. But after a few weeks of ownership, I remembered the Chord Mojo 2 and its cable tangle. Would it work without all this mess? I tried it out using the nifty braided USB-C-to-USB-C cable that comes with the iPhone 15 Pro Max.
In fact, all you need to connect the awesome Mojo 2 to your iPhone 15 is a USB-C cable, whichever it is. The dongle nightmare is over, not only is it much easier, it’s also much cleaner. It encouraged me to find wired headphones and see how it sounds, but it also reminded me that Focal Stellia is long gone. Like many people, my headphone life has been wireless for a while, and the new headphones I’ve recently purchased or reviewed don’t have cables.
This all happened around Black Friday, which is never a good time to consider new luxury items you don’t really need. Perhaps thankfully, Focal Stellia rarely offers deep discounts, at least not at a level that I can justify. However, I came across another of his Focal headphones, the Focal Elegia, at an attractive deep discount. I like closed-back headphones, and comments online about the sound indicated that they responded well to tuning on devices like the Mojo 2. heard Buying Elegia is a risky purchase, but I wasn’t going to let that stop me.
None of this would have happened without USB-C
I found a new set from Focal Elegias for just £320. It costs about $400, less than half the original price. I knew they weren’t going to give Steria a try, but it would still have been money well spent even if it had even a tenth of the emotional punch. Sure, it has the same great presentation and packaging as the Stellia, but it didn’t sound that great out of the box. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but… lifeless.
Connecting one USB cable to my iPhone and Mojo 2, like connecting the Elegia’s oversized 3.5mm jack to the other end, felt oddly special since I hadn’t done so in almost a year at this point. It felt like. This is where I fell in love with Mojo 2 again. This is because tweaking the equalizer to slightly alter the sound made a big difference in the sound of the headphones. I found the extra sub-bass I was missing, and adjusting the crossfeed helped widen the soundstage, complementing the great midrange and vocal performance that was already present.
Did Mojo 2 make Elegia sound like Stellia? No, of course not, but its versatility helped it overcome the slightly disappointing off-the-shelf sound. This allowed me to exorcise the ghost of those amazing Steria headphones I knew I might never hear again, and rediscover the joy of just sitting and listening to music. I’ve mostly written about the Mojo 2 and Focal Elegia sounds, but I wouldn’t have found them. Any If Apple hadn’t discontinued the Lightning cable for USB-C, this problem would be gone.
USB-C may not offer fast charging, but it offers just as many useful features. It’s convenience. Fewer cables and dongles make the Mojo 2 especially easy to own and use. This is probably the same for various other accessories that once relied on additional parts to work. It took a while, but we finally found a reason to rejoice over the arrival of his USB-C to the Apple iPhone.
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