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People sticking with audio jack phones, why is USB-C earphones not a solution? (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

227 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Don't get me wrong. Apple removing audio jack was the biggest facepalm in smartphone history. And you can thank it for not being able to make an upgrade without sacrificing audio jack (and SD card too :/). But USB-C is getting standardized everywhere now (laptops, smartphones, etc.). What makes USB-C earphones not worth the switch?

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[–] [email protected] 50 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

USB headphones require new drivers constantly.
USB headphones are likely to use proprietary apps for basic features like noise cancellation.
Audio jacks use significantly less power/processing compared to USB.
Audio jacks do not hog usb bus lanes, which may or may not be an issue for mobile, but on PC it is.
USB headphones are in general significantly lower quality, because studio equipment uses 3.5mm or other standard jacks (XLR for microphones for example) as they cause the lowest interference.
USB introduces overhead latency which is a no-go for production use.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (3 children)

because studio equipment uses 3.5mm or other standard jacks (XLR for microphones for example) as they cause the lowest interference.

Digital signaling is not susceptible to interference like analog signaling. Comparing three analog connectors to a digital signal is a false comparison. With a digital signal unless the interference is large enough to sway the voltage to the wrong side of the threshold it doesn't matter as it will still register a one or a zero. Analog signaling on the other hand is very susceptible to interference unless you use balanced connections which uses wave interference to remove the added noise.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

This a good argument for any form of digital audio transmission, except headphones. Headphones exist to covert some signal into sound waves for the ears. This a a intrinsically analog process. At some point the digital must become audio for the ears.

The issues people have throwing away the classic transducer standard to sell rechargable airpods is valid. If phones had two USBC ports (top and bottom) it would help a bit, but it's clear the real intention of dropping the headphone port was to sell airpods.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Love this comment! I remember reading about CD players when they were cutting edge. As kids, we were constantly frustrated with and fighting noise and hiss. I instantly understood the advantages of digital, game changing.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

In the world of USB Headphones and Microphones, this is unfortunately false. 3.5mm jacks in general don't get any interference from nearby cables/electronics, but USB cables do. This causes a bunch of noise and other issues that are annoying to fix, mostly requiring gear that allows taking the bad USB cable out, and replacing it with one that has shielding. (edit: this came out way too confident, take it with huge grain of salt)

https://www.yoctopuce.com/EN/article/usb-cables-shielding-matters-as-well

IF YOU DO actually work in professional studio environments and know what you're talking about (it's different to just knowing the physics of it), I'm obliged to listen more, because that's the one field where shit goes wank.