Black Box Explains... Comparing analog and digital headset technology.
Comparing analog and digital headset technology.
Even the best analog headsets are limited by the quality of the sound card they’re connected to. Sound cards reside inside a CPU case close to components like CD-ROM drives, graphics cards, memory chips, and hard drives, which contribute to high EMI noise that adversely affects the majority of sound cards.
If you think it’s noisy inside your desktop CPU, wait until you get inside a laptop computer where electronic components are even closer together! Because all this noise affects computer sound cards, you’ll probably want to avoid the traditional analog sound card inputs. That’s where USB comes in.
When you connect a headset to a PC’s USB port, you bypass the sound card entirely, and this connection results in a cleaner and stronger signal. But if you want to optimize your audio communications, don’t settle for an analog headset. Instead, opt for a digital model.
The key to high-quality PC sound is keeping the audio data in digital form as long as possible and processing it to analog sound outside the noisy confines of the computer. Audio data sent digitally from the PC travels via the USB to a digital headset, where the data is converted by a DSP (digital signal processor) into analog waveforms that you hear through the headset speakers.
The result is clear, clean sound. If you’re serious about communication, a digital headset is well worth the investment.
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