Just a question from someone who is genuinely interested to know.
If you use a converter to make the digital signal acceptable for a PC (and presumably degrading it somewhat in the process) what is the advantage gained over feeding the line outs themselves directly to the PC? Are the lineouts not doing the same (ie. taking the digital and converting/ degrading it, this time all internally within Genos itself) ?
John
Hi John,
the advantage of using the Genos
digital output is that the Audio data generated by the Genos is sent directly to the PC in
digital form. It makes no difference here whether the PC has an onboard S/PDIF (Sony/Philips Digital Interface) compatible digital input or whether the data has to be converted into digital
USB Audio data beforehand (e.g. with an external USB Audio Interface which, in addition to the usual
analog inputs (jack sockets / XLR sockets), also has an S/PDIF input). This type of conversion is completely lossless, as it's completely on the
digital level.
Normally, the digital Audio data generated by the Genos are converted into an
analog Audio signal using the built-in
DA converters (Digital/Analog converters, DAC) in order to make them audible to the human ear. The DA converters of the headphone output, SUB/AUX outputs and the outputs for the Genos loudspeaker system have a resolution of
24-bit, the DA converters of the Genos LINE OUTs even have a
32-bit resolution and thus an even
better dynamic range. (CD quality "only" has a resolution of
16-bit.)
If the analog Genos LINE OUTs are connected to a USB Audio Interface, the analog Audio signal (which was previously converted in the Genos from digital to analog via the 32-bit DA converters) is converted back to a digital Audio signal via the
AD converters (Analog/Digital converter, ADC) of the Audio Interface (mostly "only" with 24-bit resolution) and then sent to the computer via USB. Compared to the use of the Genos
digital output, this additional DA>AD conversion (theoretically) worsens the signal a little. (The better the Audio Interface and its AD converters, the less the difference you will notice compared to using the Genos
digital output.)
The "worst" option would be to connect the Genos analog LINE OUTs directly to the analog LINE IN on the PC's motherboard. The AD converters of these onboard sound chips are nowhere near the quality of a "decent" external Audio Interface.
Hope this helps!
Best regards,
Chris
