That sucks... I broke a 2.5mm balanced plug as well but in my case the cable was only about $20 so I didn't feel too bad about it. You are right in that the small plug is going to be more susceptible to breakage with sideways pressure if your DAP is in a pocket or a belt mounted holder under my big belly. If I recall I had mine plugged into my ES100 Bluetooth receiver attached to my belt when it happened.
ES100 is best $100 ive ever spent on audio. I use the s10 w/ ldap as my source, Balanced cable w/ shure headphones. An amazon review suggested the cable clips for earphone wire, it worked ok but i swapped it out for a nite ize gear tie and used a headphone band from amazon. This keeps the ES100 out of my pocket and works great.
I recommend 2.5mm with a 4.4mm right angled adapter. That way you get the newest standard (4.4), stronger jack on the DAP and strongest connector on the cable (4.4), and no large plug sticking out straight from the DAP (right angled adapter). This also has the benefit of using the much more common 2.5mm cables everyone already has.
so my set-up is: s10+ - ES100 - Shure SE846 . I use neutron audio player and the ARMv8 NEON codec pack is a big help. Samsung developer settings enabled, samsung sound assistant installed.
Sammy Developer options:
AVCRP 1.6
Bluetooth Audio Code LDAC
32 bits per sample [may not be necessary]
sample rate: 96 khz [most definitely overkill]
Bluetooth Audio Bits per sample: 32
Stereo
Optimized for audio quality
Turn off A2DP hardware off load [is turned off]
Neutron Settings:
I have yet to find one that comes close to this one. Its like having an audio rack in the phone. For an app its pricey but worth every penny. Im open to suggestions so if you have another audio player thats awesome, hook me up. My favorites in the past include sonique, winamp, mx poweramp, foobar and aimp,
Audio hardware: UNCHECK generic driver
I have DSP effect for device enabled for dolby atmos
EQ is controlled by both the ES100 and Neutron, somehow it adds fullness
Dither on
Hardware gain on
Audio Focus On
Oversampling on
Follow source freq. on
Service running in background - off
Sidenotes: PC i now use ADB with PEACE, finally youtube and spotify sound amazing.
For the ES 100 I replaced the gear ties with a lanyard from a mazon that has a disk to attach to phones, secured the ES100 with the balanced plug down and can use the clip on the es100 to hold headphones when not in use. Looks like i need to add That 4.4mm adapter which sounds awesome.
Let me know if any questions.