Audio Over USB-C Specification Published (Analog and Digital Possible)

[Sniperfox47]

1 minute ago, Dackzy said:

There is nothing better with USB C, the marked for 3.5mm is insanely huge

Less internal floor space that could be used for adding other things like say a barometer? That's one of several things the iPhone 7 added with the extra space. They also increased the battery size, and had more room for the bigger camera sensor.

 

Other data over the same port if you do take that floor space.

 

Rich controls and software interactions.

 

Other sideband devices like fitness trackers.

 

Supplying power for things like active noise cancelling.

 

And all of that works with both analog and digital audio over it.

[Sniperfox47]

2 minutes ago, Dackzy said:

The audio signal is not digital. AUDIO IS ANALOG. The whole point of this thread is to say that they put analog into USB C

UAC3 is digital audio with a DAC on the headphones that converts it. That's what this news article is about.

 

USB Audio Accessory Mode has existed since the original USB Type-C Spec and supports analog audio out with a DAC in the phone via the same electrical interface as TRS headphone jacks.

[abazigal]

1 hour ago, Misanthrope said:

You stick your phone in your pocket which already has probably 2 ports: micro usb and 3.5 inch jack. There's literally no difference to one with dual USB 3 type c ports. There's nothing stupid about it, there's nothing wrong about it, sorry to say it's mostly just you and I just disagree with you so I consider this matter exhausted.

Like you said, there is no difference. It would defeat the whole point of removing one port only to replace it with another. Why then even bother removing the headphone jack to begin with?

[Sniperfox47]

1 minute ago, abazigal said:

Like you said, there is no difference. It would defeat the whole point of removing one port only to replace it with another. Why then even bother removing the headphone jack to begin with?

Because a second USB-C port could do everything the headphone jack does, plus other stuff, and still take up less space inside the phone.

[cesrai]

10 minutes ago, jaggysnake57 said:

its digital that in its self is an improvement

 

Why is that ? Also, you will still have to convert to analog anyways.

[Sniperfox47]

38 minutes ago, cesrai said:

Why is that ? Also, you will still have to convert to analog anyways.

Because you can put a higher quality DAC (the chip that takes the digital audio and turns it into analog audio) externally than whatever crappy cheap one your phone maker decided to use, which tends to be a problem even in high end flagship phones unless they specifically targeted audiophiles. And externally there will be more space so even compared to a audiophile phone you can put a higher quality DAC and Amplifier, with better power isolation and filtering for less noise in the sound.

 

Examples: Something with an inline controller of this size can have a DAC about equal to a high end phone:

 

And an over/on ear set of full headphones, or a device with a bigger bulkier controller can have a substantially better setup simply because they have more room to work with.

 

 

P.S. for those talking about price being higher for digital headphones, you're right to a degree. But the Zorloo Aero headphones pictured above (available in Lightning, Micro-USB, and USB-C) are $80 US and they're a tiny indiegogo campaign with no economy of scale going for them, building a headset with custom designed parts. So even when you consider that these include a high end smartphone DAC and AMP, custom designed drivers, a USB microcontroller, and a bunch of extra hardware they're still almost half the price of a pair of $150 US Powerbeats.

[jaggysnake57]

2 hours ago, Dackzy said:

The audio signal is not digital. AUDIO IS ANALOG. The whole point of this thread is to say that they put analog into USB C

see below

2 hours ago, Sniperfox47 said:

UAC3 is digital audio with a DAC on the headphones that converts it. That's what this news article is about.

 

USB Audio Accessory Mode has existed since the original USB Type-C Spec and supports analog audio out with a DAC in the phone via the same electrical interface as TRS headphone jacks.

and again

2 hours ago, Sniperfox47 said:

Less internal floor space that could be used for adding other things like say a barometer? That's one of several things the iPhone 7 added with the extra space. They also increased the battery size, and had more room for the bigger camera sensor.

 

Other data over the same port if you do take that floor space.

 

Rich controls and software interactions.

 

Other sideband devices like fitness trackers.

 

Supplying power for things like active noise cancelling.

 

And all of that works with both analog and digital audio over it.

 

2 hours ago, cesrai said:

Why is that ? Also, you will still have to convert to analog anyways.

see above

 

seriously this whole 3.5mm thing is getting old. usb/lightning audio might not work but unless you try it you will never know.

[SurvivorNVL]

Just rename it to the D.  USB type D.  The D.  USB-D.   Or since it now has audio functionality, proper analog - USB-C+A.

[Zodiark1593]

1 hour ago, jaggysnake57 said:

see below

and again

 

see above

 

seriously this whole 3.5mm thing is getting old. usb/lightning audio might not work but unless you try it you will never know.

Feel free to be the beta tester then. How fortunate that companies like Apple have people that pay them to beta test their products. 

 

For my uses, it's necessary to have two ports available, (one for charging and one for audio). If I can have two USB-C ports, I would jump on it in a heartbeat, but nothing less than the two ports if an OEM does not want the device to be useless on the charger. 

[tsk]

3 minutes ago, Zodiark1593 said:

Feel free to be the beta tester then. How fortunate that companies like Apple have people that pay them to beta test their products. 

 

For my uses, it's necessary to have two ports available, (one for charging and one for audio). If I can have two USB-C ports, I would jump on it in a heartbeat, but nothing less than the two ports if an OEM does not want the device to be useless on the charger. 

For your use a small dongle will be available. 

[Zodiark1593]

4 minutes ago, tsk said:

For your use a small dongle will be available. 

For my use, a small dongle is additional clutter in an already cluttered setup (unless they start building an additional port on the charging cable itself, included free of charge). Otherwise, I have no reason to go along with USB-C. 

[tsk]

1 minute ago, Zodiark1593 said:

For my use, a small dongle is additional clutter in an already cluttered setup (unless they start building an additional port on the charging cable itself, included free of charge). Otherwise, I have no reason to go along with USB-C. 

Just keep it attached to your headphone cable. To remove clutter go with Bluetooth audio. 

[Zodiark1593]

6 minutes ago, tsk said:

Just keep it attached to your headphone cable. To remove clutter go with Bluetooth audio. 

Even were I willing to replace a set of expensive headphones (my phone's tend to cost me less), the car does not have Bluetooth. The current setup with charger and Aux jack works plenty fine. 

[jaggysnake57]

24 minutes ago, Zodiark1593 said:

Even were I willing to replace a set of expensive headphones (my phone's tend to cost me less), the car does not have Bluetooth. The current setup with charger and Aux jack works plenty fine. 

so everything should be put on hold because people dont want to move into the 21st century......bt radios are dirt cheep. and really a small cable thats 3 inch long is clutter. people are making something out of nothing for the sake of an argument

[Sniperfox47]

51 minutes ago, Zodiark1593 said:

For my use, a small dongle is additional clutter in an already cluttered setup (unless they start building an additional port on the charging cable itself, included free of charge). Otherwise, I have no reason to go along with USB-C. 

Both USB Audio Class 1/2/3 (digital) and USB Audio Accessory Mode (analog) allow for your device to be charged via the headphones/adapter via the spec. UAAM explicitely in the spec, and UAC3 implicitely via the USB Power Delivery Spec.

 

USB Audio Accessory Mode can be used with passthrough for normal 5V500mA passive power, 5V1.5A via USB Battery Charging 1.2, 5V3A USB-C Charging, or even full 100W power delivery, although some headphone devices, like the example in the spec, may be limited to only 5V500mA.

 

USB Audio Class 1/2/3 is harder. It requires compliance with USB Power Delivery to announce it doesn't want to consume vbus and instead can supply it to a host. It doesn't need to supply 100W of power, but it does need to have basic support for at least the 5V line (0.5A-3A) which can provide up to 15W of power.

[Nineshadow]

Pretty neat.

[dragosudeki]

22 hours ago, jaggysnake57 said:

so everything should be put on hold because people dont want to move into the 21st century......bt radios are dirt cheep. and really a small cable thats 3 inch long is clutter. people are making something out of nothing for the sake of an argument

How is the idea of supporting an old standard putting anything on hold? Did the PS/2 port on motherboards stop people from switching over to using an USB keyboard? There are still motherboards being made that include that god damn port, because it does have benefits over the average USB keyboard. Did the USB 2.0 ports on motherboards/cases stop people from getting USB 3.0 devices? There are still scenarios where USB 2.0 devices may not properly work when plugged into USB 3.0 (among other reasons such as clogging the lane).

 

I don't really care about the removal of the headphone jack, because I will always buy products that support my current devices (EX: I wouldn't want to buy a PS4 game if I had an Xbox One). However, I just can't stand this argument. The future might be USB C and/or BT, but people are not there yet.

[jaggysnake57]

2 hours ago, dragosudeki said:

How is the idea of supporting an old standard putting anything on hold? Did the PS/2 port on motherboards stop people from switching over to using an USB keyboard? There are still motherboards being made that include that god damn port, because it does have benefits over the average USB keyboard. Did the USB 2.0 ports on motherboards/cases stop people from getting USB 3.0 devices? There are still scenarios where USB 2.0 devices may not properly work when plugged into USB 3.0 (among other reasons such as clogging the lane).

 

I don't really care about the removal of the headphone jack, because I will always buy products that support my current devices (EX: I wouldn't want to buy a PS4 game if I had an Xbox One). However, I just can't stand this argument. The future might be USB C and/or BT, but people are not there yet.

what are you on about? who gives a shit about ps/2?

[dragosudeki]

11 minutes ago, jaggysnake57 said:

what are you on about? who gives a shit about ps/2?

That is exactly my point, but it seems that it flew over your head. You said that that the existence of a headphone jack on devices was putting everything on hold. (Quote below)

On 10/2/2016 at 1:01 PM, jaggysnake57 said:

so everything should be put on hold because people dont want to move into the 21st century

A PS/2 port can still exist on modern motherboards alongside USB ports and it did not cause problems for the adoption of USB ports (Analogy in case you didn't know). Why does a headphone jack alongside USB C ports and BT cause problems for the adoption of USB C or BT headphones?

[Sniperfox47]

7 hours ago, dragosudeki said:

There are still motherboards being made that include that god damn port, because it does have benefits over the average USB keyboard. 

And the headphone jack with stick around for a long time, at least on desktops because it does have benefits to it too. USB-C Audio Accessory Mode does everything a TRS headphone jack does, but it can't do what a TRRS headphone jack can do (analog mic). Same applies to TRS Mic jacks, since the Audio Accessory Mode doesn't even cover them.

 

While for phone earbuds and traditional headsets this can be fixed by putting a tiny and simple ADC in the mic to transmit it as USB data, there are some situations where you need to capture and preprocess the analog audio to use with your own ADC. A great example is in the recording world.

 

It *should* catch on for smartphones, tablets, and mainstream laptops and even as a secondary option in desktops, because it has some clear benefits over the previous options. This is a great change and I hope developers jump on the bandwagon quickly, but it's not completely replacing the 3.5 jack by any means. it's merely supplementing it with an alternative that can allow for slimmer, more power efficient devices with more internal room for useful features.

[jaggysnake57]

13 hours ago, dragosudeki said:

That is exactly my point, but it seems that it flew over your head. You said that that the existence of a headphone jack on devices was putting everything on hold. (Quote below)

A PS/2 port can still exist on modern motherboards alongside USB ports and it did not cause problems for the adoption of USB ports (Analogy in case you didn't know). Why does a headphone jack alongside USB C ports and BT cause problems for the adoption of USB C or BT headphones?

1 i was refering to his car not having bluetooth

2 why have multiple ports on a phone when 1 will do the trick?  phones != desktops