It’s a replacement, but not a good one. If you want good sound quality and the ability to charge at the same time then it’s quite a bulky dongle. The audio quality varies massively too, so if you mix / master on one and then it breaks, you have to replace it with the exact same one otherwise your next mix / master isn’t going to match the last one. And if they’ve stopped making that one, you’re screwed. All of these are problems Apple have created for pro users of the iPad Pro by removing the jack.