Andy Rubin’s smartphone startup that launched its first phone in the shape of PH-1 didn’t perform quite well in the fiercely competitive smartphone industry where Chinese smartphone manufacturers are giving tough time to the already established tech giants like Samsung and Apple. Just recently, Essential begin laying off 30 percent of its staff which came as a bad news to the company. Though that didn’t demotivate the founder Andy Rubins that continues to work upon its startup, adding more value to the first product i.e smartphone PH-1.

Just recently, PH-1 was getting Android Pie update while the phone’s inbuilt camera app got an upgrade as well. Essential has promised its customers 2 years of software update while three years of security update which is quite a decent offering. In the latest development, Essential brings another mod to the PH-1 smartphone and this time its Audio Adapter HD that offers “high-resolution ESS Sabre DAC (Digital-to-Analog Converter) with hardware MQA (Master Quality Authenticated) rendering for high-res audio on the PH-1“.

This means that not only this adapter solves the issue of the absence of the audio jack in PH-1, it means that audio would now sound exactly how it was recorded without any loss in the quality, which the company believes is the first DAC to get such a feature.

Having IP55 rating, the audio adapter brings ‘24-bit, 96kHz and MQA rendering up to 32-bit, 384kHZ’ support. Weighing in 15.5 grams, the adapter is 29 x 30 x 11.5 mm in dimensions. The adapter gets connected to the phone while keeping the USB Type-C port free allowing the phone to be charged simultaneously. The hardware would only work with an Essential smartphone running on Android Pie build number PPR1.181005.076 or above.

It’s priced in at $149 which is available to be shipped to US or Canada and could be ordered through the Essential website.