Digital audio cable to headphone jack

Your computer can make a great music player for headphones, but it can seem a bit of a daunting task given all the choices you must make. HeadRoom would like to lend a hand and give you some basic advice.

Digital USB Music is Easy and Can Sound Surprisingly Good!

Your audio is a chain that starts in the studio when the music was initially recorded, and ends up in your ears through a pair of headphones or speakers. You will want to rip in your music using a high-quality format (more on that below); use a DAC with your computer to get the highest quality audio out of those digital files, and finally add a quality pair of headphones and possibly a headphone amp or speakers for listening. This audio chain in nearly the same in any listening situation- it the DAC that makes a computer turn into a fabulous high-end audio music source.

You can learn more about what a DAC is how it works by reading What is a DAC? Simply put, a DAC is a digital to analog convertor that turns all those 1's and 0's into an analog signal that we can listen to. Every computer has a DAC behind the headphone jack, but they are typically tiny, inexpensively made, and do not provide high quality audio. An outboard DAC features much higher quality parts and is specifically designed for extracting audio as accurately as possible. DACs and headphone amps are often combines into one unit, but not always. They can be connected via USB or optical, USB is by far the most common but many Apple computers do have optical connections as well (some Macs have a combo headphone jack and mini optical all in one).

How to Use a DAC

The easiest way to get great-sounding digital audio from your MAC, Linux or Microsoft computer to a digital-to-analog converter (DAC) is to simply hook it up via USB connection and start playing a CD, iTunes or media player, or streaming music such as Pandora or Spotify. You’ll find many comments about using USB for audio output on the web; some true, some not. The simplest fact is that as long as ALL the volume controls on your computer are at max volume, then digital audio signal transmission over USB connection is quite good and virtually "bit-perfect." It is also true that USB digital audio can be surprisingly free of 'jitter' when properly implemented via a DAC. Hooking up your computer for USB music playback is accomplished by simply hooking up the computer to any DAC device with a USB cable. Caution: this connection should be made before launching the music player application or the DAC may not be recognized. Simply close and re-open the application if needed. Every once in a while, a computer doesn’t automatically recognize the DAC via USB and you must manually configure the computer hard-drive to use “USB Codec.” Here's how:

On Windows machine:Goto Start Menu>My Computer>Control Panel>Sounds and Audio Devices>Audio(tab)>Sound Playback. Look for Audio Default Device, pull the drop-down menu and select “USB Audio CODEC", then OK and Apply!

On Apple Computers: You may have to select the USB Codec the first time you hook up your MAC computer to any USB DAC; after that, the computer will automatically select the USB Codec whenever it's plugged in unless you manually de-select it. To select the USB Codec, go to System Preferences/Sound then choose USB Codec. If you're using the optical connection, select 'optical' in the list of choices. Remember, the USB DAC or optical connection must be plugged into the computer for this selection to appear.

Apple iPad: By using the Apple 'Camera Kit' which is essentially a USB output adapter that Apple sells separately from the iPad, audiophiles can make the iPad or iPad 2 a true digital-output portable player ready for serious sound quality improvements via USB feed into any HeadRoom DAC + headphone amp!

Should You Use USB or Optical Digital Computer Connection Into a DAC?

Apple computers - along with a growing number of other manufacturers - also normally feature digital Optical audio output in addition to the ubiquitous USB audio feed. For Apple owners, some MACs will have the Optical-out imbedded within the 'mini plug' headphone jack. In this case, simply connect an appropiately-sized 'mini' Optical cable to the computer's headphone jack and a true digital Optical signal [aka S/PDiF] becomes available for output into a DAC. You'll need to check with your particular Apple computer, but some MACs will have the Optical-out port separate from the headphone jack as its own connection. In this case, any standard optical cable with normal 'TosLink' terminations will likely do the job. We recommend trying both USB and Optical methods to determine which MAC digital feed sounds best to your ears!

The typical internal soundcard topology varies from Apple computer to computer so, again, check with your particular MAC OS system, but in general the USB feed method eliminates any soundcard or hard-drive audio settings, which technically makes USB the "purest" feed of digital 0s and 1s into an outboard DAC. The Optical digital feed is often 'post-soundcard' on most MACs, which would allow listeners to maintain any soundcard EQ settings or tone-shaping programs in place when feeding out to a DAC. Some audiophiles claim digital jitter is better or worse via either USB or Optical; once more, the proof is in the (audio) pudding, so again we suggest trying both methods to determine which is the one for you. By the way, reference up-sampling DACs have the benefit of re-interpolating and re-clocking the incoming digital signal stream, thereby nearly eliminating jitter regardless of source.

Digital File Formats

There are numerous file formats for computer audio. However, there are just two that we can recommend without reservation as they are universally compatible now and for the foreseeable future with digital music players. They also do not have any digital rights management (DRM) features that may make them difficult or impossible to copy and play.

. wav – Wav files are typically uncompressed (bit-for-bit) copies of the music data on a CD, and will sound just as good from your computer as they do from your CD player when using the USB out to one of our HeadRoom products with a digital- to- analog converter [DAC] in it. The size of these files are typically 10MB per minute of music, so each CD will consume about 700MB on your hard drive.