Wave Line USB-C Wired Earphones

Details

The same acoustics as the 3.5 mm Line, with a digital-to-analogue converter and a headphone amplifier built into the USB-C plug. There is still no battery, nothing to pair and nothing to update. It plugs in and it plays. Two cheats live in this exact product. The first is the passive adapter sold as an earphone: a plain wire from the USB-C pins to a driver, which relies on the phone implementing USB-C analogue audio accessory mode. Almost no phone made since 2020 implements it, so a passive pair is simply silent, and the box never says which kind it is. The second is a proprietary protocol instead of the standard one, which is how a USB-C earphone ends up working on the maker own phones and nothing else. And under both sits the converter itself, sold behind a sticker rather than a number: a 16-bit part with a Hi-Res logo on the bag is a common thing in this price band. This pair is active, it is USB Audio Class 2.0, and the converter has a specification.

• Converter and Class-AB headphone amplifier inside the USB-C plug, 32-bit, 44.1 kHz to 384 kHz PCM. Not a passive wire, and not a proprietary link
• USB Audio Class 2.0, so it is driverless on Android, Windows 10 and later, macOS, Linux and iPadOS. There is no handshake that recognises only our own phones
• 1.0 Vrms into 32 ohm, which is 31 mW per channel. Signal to noise 118 dB A-weighted, THD plus noise 0.0008 percent at 1 kHz, output impedance under 0.5 ohm so a 32 ohm driver response is not bent by the source
• Draws about 38 mA at 5 V, roughly 0.19 W, which is about 8 percent of a 5,000 mAh phone battery over an eight-hour listening day. That figure is on the page because the power has to come from somewhere
• 10 mm dynamic driver, titanium-coated PET diaphragm, 32 ohm, 103 dB SPL per mW. Response 20 Hz to 20 kHz on an IEC 60318-4 ear simulator, within plus or minus 3 dB from 20 Hz to 8 kHz
• Three-button remote and a MEMS microphone at minus 42 dBV per pascal, handled by an ADC in the same plug, so headsets keep their microphone
• 1.25 m braided nylon cable over four oxygen-free copper conductors at 0.08 sq mm each, moulded strain relief at plug and split
• Four silicone ear tip sizes and one memory foam pair in the box. Spare sets Rs 190
• The honest trade is that the converter is in the plug and the plug is the part that gets trodden on. A 3.5 mm pair has nothing electronic to break; this one does, which is why the warranty covers the plug electronics for the full two years
• There is no Shuunnya service-centre network. A warranty claim means posting the pair to us, with no turnaround time promised