LandscapeChemical622 OP t1_j6mn0er wrote on January 31, 2023 at 12:22 PM

Reply to comment by Framed-Photo in I get it. I understand now. by LandscapeChemical622

I never ended up checking the onboard audio settings when I was doing the back and forth. I did look at them when I was using the Q4 and spacial sound and all enhancements were off. And the sample rate was I think 24bit 48000hz. I could be mistaken on those numbers though. I'll have to took into that today after work. Seeing a few of you saying I should notice any difference has me thinking I had something wrong in the first place with the factory windows settings. Granted I never changed them. Or even looked at them for that matter. But definitely curious on if it's something I can show my friends to help them get better audio with their current headsets too. But that brings up another question, would this kind of thing make a difference for a usb headset?

Framed-Photo t1_j6mtyt5 wrote on January 31, 2023 at 1:27 PM

If it's a USB headphone then that means the headphone has it's own DAC and amp built into it. That would also mean that you can't plug it into the amp you bought though so I'm assuming that's not what you have haha.

Regardless, for any of these devices you're gonna want to make sure any audio enhancements or spatial audio things are off. You can do that even on a USB headset.

LandscapeChemical622 OP t1_j6mu919 wrote on January 31, 2023 at 1:29 PM

Thats good to know. I'll have to have my roommate look into it with his USB headset to see if he can get any sort of changes. But I would also assume that a USB headset still won't have the "power" of an external DAC right?

Framed-Photo t1_j6n2hc8 wrote on January 31, 2023 at 2:33 PM

Any headphone that uses a headphone jack is analog in nature, and needs a separate digital to analog converter and an amp. That's what you bought as an external amp and DAC, and it's also what's built into your computer past the headphone jack. They're functionally both the same thing. If you were using just a vinyl player for example, you don't need a DAC at all as there's no digital signal to convert to analog. You'd just need the amplifier.

A headphone that uses USB as the interface has an internal amp and DAC. It's doing the work of your external amp and DAC, just inside the headphone, which allows you to plug it in with USB. It's still having to convert the digital signal to an analog one and amplify it, but it happens inside the headphone.