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Comment by Jackson__ | Hacker News Reader

I just bought a Samsung Galaxy Tab recently. Of course I was well aware of the death of the 3.5mm headphone port, but as I plugged in my 3.5mm to usb-c adapter I was greeted with a new message: "Analog USB C Audio Unsupported.". I tried a pair of regular off-brand usb-c headphones too, which too resulted in the same, with no audio output.

How this is not behavior deserving of some kind of EU fine is a complete mystery to me.

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I believe this just means your dongle doesn’t contain a usb audio device, and implements the standard that requires the host device to contain the DAC and expose it over some of the usb c pins. Getting one with a dac shouldn’t be that difficult or expensive though.

The Unintuitive Serial Bus strikes again.

Heh, usb-c the connector is used for many protocols only a few of which are actually USB (pci-e /thunderbolt, DisplayPort, i2c, etc). The analog dongle is one of these. There is no usb involved, just using the pins of the connector for analog audio. Dongles with a DAC are actually a usb sound card, and are usable even on desktop computers or using usb-c to usb A converters.

The message you’re describing sounds like it (and most devices) telling you nicely it doesn’t support the legacy, now removed from the spec, function to do direct analog audio over USB-C. I.e., the DAC is built into the phone instead of being built into the dongle.

Most devices do not support analog USB-C audio, and frankly I understand why given how affordable DAC based dongles are these days.

All of my cheaper chinese devices without 3.5mm do support it though. It is only this premium tablet that I paid triple what I'd normally spend on which does not work.

And your point? Samsung is likely more adherent to the USB-C spec than cheap Chinese devices. Audio Accessory Mode (the technical term for the analog audio mode in USB-C) was removed as an optionally supported mode from the specification last year. Adoption among flagship phones was basically nil for years. It's basically the worst of all worlds in terms of complexity: you still need a DAC/ADC in the phone AND you need a muxing switch to switch between data pins and analog audio.

For context on why it was removed: it was replaced with a moisture detection functionality, which can be used to monitor and protect the USB-C port against shorts from moisture ingress into the charging port.

Just buy the $9 Apple adapter and you will have a better setup than those old Chinese cheap tablets.

That's really strange. I have recent Samsung devices and regularly use 3.5mm audio with an adapter, and yet need to run into any issues. Have you tried a different any other adapter? Alternatively, does the adapter/headphone work on an Apple device?

P.S. I have been using official Apple/Samsung dongles and they work fine.

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