4 ms·

The DAC will be hard wired into the headphones, there won't be a jack between the headphones and the DAC that you can plug into. At the start, you'd need to mo

The DAC will be hard wired into the headphones, there won't be a jack between the headphones and the DAC that you can plug into. At the start, you'd need to modify headphones to be able to record the signal, but I doubt this will work in the long term. At some point it's highly likely the DACs will come with DRM so that only approved headphones work with a device.

nine_k 10y ago
This very much depends on the design of the headphones. Look at bluetooth headphones: there are models with a transciever built into the headphones, and separate transcievers where you can plug whatever headphones you want. The same can be the case with type-C.
djrogers 10y ago
Nothing preventing someone from making a DAC with a 3.5mm jack instead of a set of headphones. In fact they already exist...
- pjc50 10y ago
  In a DRM scenario, there would be an audio equivalent to HDCP in place, so you'd need a piece of technology which it's illegal to clone and only available if you sign a restrictive licensing agreement. Mind you, you'd still be able to cannibalise an existing set for this.
  - Vexs 10y ago
    Given how "successful" HDCP has been, I'd give it a month or two of survivablity. And yeah, as you mentioned, anyone with basic electronics skills (or for that matter, could follow a youtube video) could simply mod their hardware to plug whatever they want in.
drdaeman 10y ago
Unless the DAC is very tightly integrated into the actual speaker (literally fused, so it's hard to connect to the coil), there always will be an analog loophole. DRM is not about preventing this, though. It's about making ordinary consumers surrender to whatever media dictates, not preventing absolutely everyone from ripping the content.
VLM 10y ago
From an EE perspective headphone elements are merely small very low performance speakers. The only "DRM" I can think of with USB-C is playing impedance games. So right now you could probably get away with soldering a 1K resistor and a RCA plug in place of the headphone element and you'll have a usable signal, but if they played weird impedance games you might need a simple opamp in there to adjust the levels to normal. Something that's annoying today is to get line level audio out of the bluetooth connection to my car stereo I need to bypass a nanny warning about blowing my ears out, but only on my phone. Apparently "line level" on my BT adapter that makes my BT volume about the same as, say, the radio or CD, would, if connected to a BT earpiece or headphones, blow someones ears out. You can safely assume the people who screwed up something so incredibly simple as setting levels, will successfully find a way to screw up usb-C headphone levels. So one brand will nanny-state and prevent anything louder than a church whisper, others will sound different levels based on what device they connect to, it'll be the predictable epic fail. Speaking of my nice bluetooth headphones with their couple hours of battery life, since buying them many years ago I haven't plugged headphones into my phone or tablet. They're nice enough headphones. I'm just surprised the marketing push is to keep shoving audio thru legacy wired cables instead of going full on bluetooth. I suppose there's a lot of money to be made in worn out headphone cables. When I'm not listening to music, but speech instead (audio books, podcasts, etc) I'll swap my bluetooth headphones for my bluetooth earpiece thingy.
- ZenoArrow 10y ago
  > "The only "DRM" I can think of with USB-C is playing impedance games." I didn't mean to imply DRM existed in USB-C today, what I was implying is that the move away from the 3.5mm jack to USB-C audio is at least partly driven by DRM (in the long run). It's like what happened with HDMI. HDMI is more or less DVI-D video + digital audio + DRM (HDCP). What was the point of adding in the DRM to HDMI? What risk was posed by unencrypted DVI video streams? In my opinion, similar arguments for adding DRM to HDMI will be given for adding DRM in future revisions of USB-C audio. Perhaps the phone manufacturers will also use the argument that dodgy USB-C cables can damage devices (due to the high power spec for USB-C). In any case, I'm fairly certain that those that seek to benefit from DRM will be looking to add it in.

nine_k 10y ago

This very much depends on the design of the headphones. Look at bluetooth headphones: there are models with a transciever built into the headphones, and separate transcievers where you can plug whatever headphones you want. The same can be the case with type-C.

djrogers 10y ago

Nothing preventing someone from making a DAC with a 3.5mm jack instead of a set of headphones. In fact they already exist...

pjc50 10y ago
In a DRM scenario, there would be an audio equivalent to HDCP in place, so you'd need a piece of technology which it's illegal to clone and only available if you sign a restrictive licensing agreement. Mind you, you'd still be able to cannibalise an existing set for this.
- Vexs 10y ago
  Given how "successful" HDCP has been, I'd give it a month or two of survivablity. And yeah, as you mentioned, anyone with basic electronics skills (or for that matter, could follow a youtube video) could simply mod their hardware to plug whatever they want in.

drdaeman 10y ago

Unless the DAC is very tightly integrated into the actual speaker (literally fused, so it's hard to connect to the coil), there always will be an analog loophole. DRM is not about preventing this, though. It's about making ordinary consumers surrender to whatever media dictates, not preventing absolutely everyone from ripping the content.

VLM 10y ago

From an EE perspective headphone elements are merely small very low performance speakers. The only "DRM" I can think of with USB-C is playing impedance games. So right now you could probably get away with soldering a 1K resistor and a RCA plug in place of the headphone element and you'll have a usable signal, but if they played weird impedance games you might need a simple opamp in there to adjust the levels to normal. Something that's annoying today is to get line level audio out of the bluetooth connection to my car stereo I need to bypass a nanny warning about blowing my ears out, but only on my phone. Apparently "line level" on my BT adapter that makes my BT volume about the same as, say, the radio or CD, would, if connected to a BT earpiece or headphones, blow someones ears out. You can safely assume the people who screwed up something so incredibly simple as setting levels, will successfully find a way to screw up usb-C headphone levels. So one brand will nanny-state and prevent anything louder than a church whisper, others will sound different levels based on what device they connect to, it'll be the predictable epic fail. Speaking of my nice bluetooth headphones with their couple hours of battery life, since buying them many years ago I haven't plugged headphones into my phone or tablet. They're nice enough headphones. I'm just surprised the marketing push is to keep shoving audio thru legacy wired cables instead of going full on bluetooth. I suppose there's a lot of money to be made in worn out headphone cables. When I'm not listening to music, but speech instead (audio books, podcasts, etc) I'll swap my bluetooth headphones for my bluetooth earpiece thingy.

ZenoArrow 10y ago
> "The only "DRM" I can think of with USB-C is playing impedance games." I didn't mean to imply DRM existed in USB-C today, what I was implying is that the move away from the 3.5mm jack to USB-C audio is at least partly driven by DRM (in the long run). It's like what happened with HDMI. HDMI is more or less DVI-D video + digital audio + DRM (HDCP). What was the point of adding in the DRM to HDMI? What risk was posed by unencrypted DVI video streams? In my opinion, similar arguments for adding DRM to HDMI will be given for adding DRM in future revisions of USB-C audio. Perhaps the phone manufacturers will also use the argument that dodgy USB-C cables can damage devices (due to the high power spec for USB-C). In any case, I'm fairly certain that those that seek to benefit from DRM will be looking to add it in.