Upgrades, Accessories, and Supplying Enough Power to the Lightning to USB 3 Camera Adapter

Lightning to USB 3 Camera Adapter for DAC / Amp Connection

Picked up a “used – like new” Apple Lightning to USB3 Camera Adapter, which is specifically recommended by, e.g., DragonFly (“[i]n our tests, Apple's Lightning-to-USB 3 Camera Adapter (with charging port) sounds better and is more reliable than Apple’s less expensive Lightning-to-USB Camera Adapter, while also providing the ability to charge during playback”) and Schiit. Photos show, e.g., the DragonFly being used without external power, but mine won’t. In fact, basically nothing worked:

• Cannot Use Accessory AudioQuest DragonFly: This accessory requires too much power.
• Cannot Use Accessory SanDisk 3.2Gen1: This accessory requires too much power.
• The Schiit Fulla E, even when connected to a beefy USB-C power supply, just clicked in the headphones repeatedly, or every second would play a tone for a fraction of a second, click softly, go silent, and then repeat.

Hooking up an external USB A to Lightning cable to provide power to the adapter solved the issue, but it’s cumbersome. Of course, I plan to use this only at a listening station (repurposing an old iPhone 12 Pro), but still. Weird. Got it working at least.

Edit: Apparently, my DragonFly is too old to run on an iPhone without additional power: “While the original DragonFly created a new category of portable DAC, its USB power draw made it compatible with computers only. Black and Red answered the call of music lovers everywhere for DragonFlys that could be used with Apple iOS mobile devices and Android smartphones and tablets.” Sigh.

iPhone 14 Pro (iOS 17.3.1) connected to a Schiit Fulla E and Philips SPH9600

Accessories

In a further bid to increase focus and productivity, I added this small illuminated note board (BroadLab Clear Acrylic Desk Organizer Dry Erase Manifestation Board with Light Up Wooden Stand for Notes) to my home desk setup. The cord is a bit short, and white, and fixed to the unit, the wood base is very light weight, but it’s the perfect size, it’s easy to read, and I need the “what you’re working on next” reminder staring me in the face. For $20, win.

BroadLab Acrylic Dry Erase Board with Light Up Stand

The grommet wireless charger was a bit too slow and out of the way (perfect for guests to use from the sofa, though), and I needed a good watch charger (I’m wearing it overnight now to track my sleep quality and quantity; trying to make sure I’m well in excess of 6 hours...), so I gambled on this no-name piece of kit (Eden Grove 3-in-1 Natural Wood Wireless MagSafe Compatible Magnetic Charger Stand Station). (I liked the wood base. I’m a simple person.) So far, like it a lot, it works well. Comes with a USB 3.0 A-port charger that it needs.

Eden Grove 3-in-1 Natural Wood Wireless Charger Stand

Next up, I got an inexpensive bottle cutter, so I can maybe turn some of my “fallen soldiers” (empty wine bottles) into succulent planters. (Maybe with Krylon or Modge Podge or ...? to preserve the labels?)

Finally I’ve lived with them long enough to weigh in - for $23 these kick ass: Linsoul TANGZU Wan’er S.G HiFi 10mm Dynamic Driver PET Diaphragm in-Ear Earphone with Ergonomic Shape, Detachable 2Pin OFC Braided Cable for Audiophile Musician DJ Stage (White, Wan’er S.G) I’ve been using them with my modded iPod Mini and they sound great.

Upgrades

I’ve been running a HP ProLiant MicroServer Gen8 in more or less stock configuration for ... A decade or more, maybe? A long time. But eventually, 2GB RAM and an Intel® Celeron® G1610T @ 2.30GHz just isn’t enough. Nice thing, like with the Mac Pro I bumped up, the parts are just old enough to be cheap while not so vintage as to be collectable. For like $20 each transaction I picked up:

• 2 x Crucial 8GB DDR3 1600MHz PC3-12800 ECC Unbuffered Dual Rank DIMM OEM Server Memory CT102472BA160B (compatibility list); and
• Intel Xeon E3-1220L V2 2.30GHz Dual Core (SR0R6) (compatibility list) (watch for TDP)
  

Bottom of Xeon E3-1220L V2

Now I just need to carve out some time when I can take the system down to install the components. Side note: Wondering when CPUs moved away from pins-into-sockets. (Edit: Intel. AMD apparently still uses pins.) This way makes so much more sense (no more CPU pins getting bent in shipping, while handling, etc), and seems in retrospect so obvious... Google tells me: “Intel Processor uses LPA (Land Grid Array) socket in all of the CPUs since 2004.” And that makes sense. I got my first iBook G3 around fall of 2002, by 2004 I was more or less completely out of the Wintel/Lintel game and not building systems anymore. (Though I want to say the Core i5 Hackintosh I built in 2012 or so had an LGA 1155 socket for the Intel Core i5-3570K I used ... I guess I’d just forgotten?). (And, it occurs to me, I had a “pinless” 80286 chip from the 1980s; digging in a bit, this was a CLCC (Ceramic Leadless Chip Carrier) chip, and a design common with the 80186 and MC68000, so not a new concept necessarily...)