What is PC audio?
For super beginners
Does anyone say “I really don’t understand” or “I can’t hear you anymore” over the audio? This is a super introductory course on audio that started in response to so many unexpected voices, and this time I will explain very briefly about the “PC audio” that I often hear recently.
SHARE
● First of all, what is “PC audio”?
This time, let’s introduce PC audio.
Until a while ago, the only way to listen to music was with a CD, MD or radio player.
However, before I knew it, listening styles with digital music players, such as personal computers and iPods, became common.
And the idea of PC audio is “I want to listen to music with good sound when I listen to music using a personal computer.”
● The point is “DAC” which performs the digital to analog conversion.
For example, when you listen to music on your computer, you usually listen to it like this.
Headphones for PC.png
Connect headphones, etc. to the audio output terminal (LINE OUT) of your computer.
Or you can play it through your computer speakers.
So how do you make this sound good?
When playing music with digital data, the DAC (duck) circuit is important in terms of sound quality.
Since MP3 or WAV is digital data, but scanning for speakers or headphones to play, you need to convert the digital data to analog signal.
DAC (short for D / A converter) performs the “digital-to-analog conversion”.
The quality of the converted analog signal depends on the accuracy of the DAC.
In other words, if the DAC is not good, it will not sound good at all.
Originally the digital data is a list of numbers like “0101001 …”, but the figure is as follows. (* Image)
DA .png conversion
If you are using your computer’s audio output terminal, you are using the DAC circuit inside your computer as shown in the figure below.
However, since the personal computer was not originally made for music playback,
The performance of the DAC installed in the personal computer is often not that high due to the balance of costs with other parts.
Also, many electronic parts run at high speed inside the personal computer, so a lot of noise is generated.
In such an environment, you cannot expect “good sound” in the audio sense.
PC Headset (with DAC) .png
Therefore, instead of using the DAC inside the personal computer, I asked them to send the digital data as it is from the USB terminal.
It is converted to analog with a music DAC and converted to an audio quality music signal.
That’s the basic idea of PC audio.
