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by dagw 2646 days ago
Do you know if these converters are device specific or can I plug them into any USB-C port on any computer and have sound come out of my headphones.
3 comments

Some phones support audio accessory mode, which is a way to reserve some pins for analog audio signals. In this case, you only need a passive adapter. There's no reason why desktop or laptops computers couldn't support it, too, but if they do, it's rare. So such an adapter is unlikely to work with a computer, and may not work with all phones.

The alternative is an active device, with its own DAC and amplifier. This is more likely to work with all your devices; I'm pretty sure I could connect my desktop computer's external USB headphone amp to my android phone and it'd just work.

Details: https://www.soundguys.com/usb-audio-explained-18563/ https://www.androidcentral.com/usb-c-audio

It varies from adapter to adapter. The one that came with my Pixel works on my 2018 MBP.
On iPhones at least, the Lightning-to-jack dongle is actually a whole DAC. Also a DAC that works on Android wouldn't necessarily work on iPhones.