The first thing that we have to describe is the difference between an analog signal and a digital signal, and that is that while the former can store several different values and, therefore, can store a larger amount of information, they are nonetheless vulnerable to changes in the issuance environment and a small change can distort the quality of the information. In contrast, a digital signal only has 2 values, so the signal is harder to distort, however, instead we need much higher bandwidth to store all the information in it, because the amount of information transmitted per pulse is much less.
Many of you have heard about digitizing an analog signal and that if it is not good enough the signal quality is lost. This can be seen when we use analog video inputs on a digital LCD screen or when we convert analog audio signal to digital without sufficient resolution.
The present case is the reverse and consists in converting a digital signal into a signal of analog type, for this we must keep in mind that if, for example, we have a signal of 8 bits so we have 28 distinct values, i.e. 256 different voltage values if we were talking about an analog circuit. How is the conversion done? Simple, with a circuit like the one you see above, which is made up of several resistors that will divide the voltage. On the one hand, we have the 8 pins where the 8 bits of information are transmitted digitally and on the other hand the analog signal which will be unique and will be transmitted in our case via the audio mini-jack.
Your headphones’ surround sound DAC
For decades the mini-jack has been the audio input and output system in many devices, it is an interface designed for analog signals and therefore it is necessary to generate such a signal for transmit sound. From now on, many of you will surely have an audio output for headphones and / or microphone in part of your PC and it is redundant to have an additional connector of this type on the PC, therefore the small box that your gaming speakers contain. does a lot It converts the digital signal coming from the USB port into an analog signal.
And this is where we get into the accumulation of lies, the first being that the sound is 7.1, which is impossible if we take into account that a mini-jack has at most two pins of output for stereo and one for input. version for microphone and loudspeakers. For example an audio system 7 requires 8 audio tracks to transmit at the same time and we can only transmit 2. Where is the catch? Well, the fact that the surround audio DAC that your gaming headphones bring not only converts the analog signal to a digital signal, but it is also a digital signal processor that processes the information.
The signal transmitted via USB is intended for a standard 7.1 speaker system and the application you are using sends the sound according to the parameters and specifications of a surround audio standard such as Thank you
Virtual surround
When using conventional headphones you might have noticed that the sound seems to come out of our head, on the other hand if you go to a movie theater you might find that it is coming from all over the place. Well, the goal with a virtual surround system is to have the feeling that the sound is not coming from inside you, but from the environment using just conventional headphones.
The key lies in a concept called Virtual Surround, which is based on creating the auditory illusion for the listener that there is a series of audio sources placed in different places in the room where there is physically nothing, where in the case of more advanced models these use a USB connection and therefore have sufficient bandwidth to power the various speakers they contain. On the other hand, if we are talking about the low-end models, we have to take into account that the audio mini-jack is designed to transmit sound to only two speakers, so the requirements of the DAC processor will be different.
Taking into account the positioning and distance information, the DAC processor takes care of mixing the different audio channels coming from the USB into a stereo signal that combines them all to create the illusion of positional sound. The result is much better than using the mini-jack supplied with your computer and if the surround audio DAC is good enough you will be able to enjoy minimum sound quality, although it will not be the same as a real system. surround.
True surround sound with DAC
Moreover, there is another supposed case that occurs in a few models but is gaining strength and is the fact that surround audio DACs can have more than one within the same device. That is, there are headphones that have multiple DACs internally and no longer just outside of what the headphones are physically.
Some models integrate up to 4 DACs to process positioning in the atria with just two pilots. As if that weren’t enough, there are other headphones that incorporate multiple speakers within each atrium, in some models 5 different sized speakers per atrium, which means the positioning can be real and not emulated. .
In these cases the DACs to be used are very powerful and normally two USB 2.0 or one USB 3.2 Gen 1 or Gen 2 are required for the necessary bandwidth when transmitting the number of different audio tracks. Logically, these models are much more expensive than those which only integrate two drivers per atrium, but they offer a 3D positional experience in real 5.1 or semi-real 7.1.
Here, the software has a lot to say since it is totally dependent on its management, so an optimal configuration of it makes all the difference depending on whether or not it sounds good in music, movies and especially in games.