USB Headsets & Speakers and audio codecs on motherboards

[Inyerbones]

Does a motherboard's audio codec and/or built in DAC matter at all if both my audio devices are USB speakers and a USB headset? Or does it only affect audio devices plugged in through 3.5mm or S/PDIF on the motherboard? 

 

My specific pair of headsets are the HyperX Cloud Revolver S, which from my understanding has something called a 'Dolby DSP Sound Card' in the Audio control box which is integrated into the USB cable for the headset. Does this mean the audio coming out of my headset actually being controlled by that sound card or something? The USB part of the cable still plugs into my motherboard anyway, I'd just like to understand how all this works better.

 

My USB speakers are the Razer Nommo 2.0 that just receives its audio signal from the PC via USB.

 

Thanks in advance.

[Roswell]

The only time motherboard audio comes into play is for 3.5mm input/outputs. Everything else is digital. 

[ShearMe]

USB is just a pathway for devices to connect to the CPU/ram/storage. You can think of it as an alternate to PCIe or ethernet - it's just 1's and 0's getting moved between the thinking chips of a computer and a peripheral device. If your audio control panel says "Dolby DSP sound card" then yes, there is in fact the equivalent of a soundcard between the USB port and drivers of your headphones. It's very small, and possibly more limited than traditional soundcards, but the microchips inside do the same jobs.

 

Digital to Analog Conversion (DAC) will take the binary from the USB and synthesize an analog signal (often represented as a sine wave) to put through a small amplifier chip (likely integrated into the same silicon as the DAC), which then goes through your headphone drivers. The drivers actually perform another conversion - this time from electrical energy to sound energy! Any device that performs energy conversion is called a transducer. Microphones are also transducers. Your microphone audio follows the same path as your headphone audio, but in reverse. Sound -> transducer -> analog electrical -> Analog to Digital Conversion (ADC) -> binary over USB.

 

USB speakers will work similarly too. That is to say, there is a DAC inside the speaker connected to your computer via USB, and the DAC feeds a small amplifier (also hidden inside the speaker) which in turn powers the drivers/woofers to produce sound waves.

 

 

Hope this wall of text was something along the lines of what you were looking for. 

[Inyerbones]

15 hours ago, ShearMe said:

USB is just a pathway for devices to connect to the CPU/ram/storage. You can think of it as an alternate to PCIe or ethernet - it's just 1's and 0's getting moved between the thinking chips of a computer and a peripheral device. If your audio control panel says "Dolby DSP sound card" then yes, there is in fact the equivalent of a soundcard between the USB port and drivers of your headphones. It's very small, and possibly more limited than traditional soundcards, but the microchips inside do the same jobs.

 

Digital to Analog Conversion (DAC) will take the binary from the USB and synthesize an analog signal (often represented as a sine wave) to put through a small amplifier chip (likely integrated into the same silicon as the DAC), which then goes through your headphone drivers. The drivers actually perform another conversion - this time from electrical energy to sound energy! Any device that performs energy conversion is called a transducer. Microphones are also transducers. Your microphone audio follows the same path as your headphone audio, but in reverse. Sound -> transducer -> analog electrical -> Analog to Digital Conversion (ADC) -> binary over USB.

 

USB speakers will work similarly too. That is to say, there is a DAC inside the speaker connected to your computer via USB, and the DAC feeds a small amplifier (also hidden inside the speaker) which in turn powers the drivers/woofers to produce sound waves.

 

 

Hope this wall of text was something along the lines of what you were looking for. 

This is very informative and easy to understand, thanks a lot for this explanation! It's more than what I was expecting to get from a reply.