Hi
I switched to Apple iPhones a while back after years of :
1) Blackberry (Remember those?)
2) Android (HTC when they counted among the best phones)
.. how the mighty have fallen)
and inherited that Apple dongle for free... it was in the iPhone 7+ box ...I quickly lost it thinking of it as a cheap piece of hardware .. Now thanks to Amir/ASR we know , it is inexpensive, true but a high performance DAC/Amp, overall a stellar piece of engineering ... a very good DAC .. not a TOTAL ... dac
...
A High End Audio company will take it, bathe in cryogenic goo, perform a Quantum purification , put it in a shiny Stainless Steel Box, add a Linear Power Supply and an external clock and sell the contraption for ... more perhaps $9000