Apple Lightning Headphones On The Horizon

Certainly a coincidence with the recent acquisition of Beats Music and Beats Electronics, Apple has this week revealed a new MFi specification for Lightning Headphones. The Made for iPhone program allows businesses to release their electronics with a fancy stamp that also potentially allows them to have said products in Apple Stores. In this case, Lightning Cable MFi specifications connect with headphones for high-quality audio.

Supposing you've ever connected your iPhone 4 with a Made for iPhone stereo system, you can attest to the possibility that connecting through that 30-pin port can result in higher-quality audio than through the standard headphone slot. Now imagine Apple has made their Lightning port available through the iPhone 5 and iPhone 5s for audio.

This next-generation solution – coming to the public soon – will allow lossless stereo 48 kHz digital audio output. This means it'll sound very, very nice – even compared to Apple EarPods which have a frequency range of 5 Hz to 21 kHz.

According to 9to5Mac, Apple has specified two different kinds of Lightning Heaphone configurations.

1. Standard Lightning Headphones – digital/analog converter supported by Lightning Headphone Module

2. Advanced Lightning Headphones – active noise cancellation, digital signal processor, digital/analog converter (Wolfson WM8533 required).

Lightning headphones will also allow mono 48 kHz digital audio input for microphone interaction. Headphones using Lightning will be able to be powered by the iPhone or power an iPhone – power is able to move either way.

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