On Sat, Nov 22, 2003 at 02:38:05PM -0500, Thor Lancelot Simon wrote:
> > > Another option you can try is USB speakers or headphones.  That way the
> > > audio is sent digitally and is less susceptible to electrical noise from
> > > the bus.  I have a pair of hand-me-down USB speakers that work very well
> > > from NetBSD.  The only problem I encountered is that while playing audio
> > > there seems to be latency for the controls.  So if I turned the volume
> > > down in xmms it would not be immediate, and the delay was psychologically
> > > distracting.  I don't know if this is specific to my model of speakers, or
> > > a problem in general.
> > 
> > I'm not sure if that would allow me to play dvds.  If the audio delay
> > were too long (and unpredictable) it would be hard for mplayer
> > et. al. to synchronize the audio and video.
> 
> Read what he said more carefully: latency for the _controls_, which are
> actually separate USB features from the audio device itself.  I use a
> Griffin iMic as an audio output device to play MPEG and Windows Media
> files all the time -- no problems to report as yet, and the iMic has
> really great output quality.
> 
> I also have a JVC surround receiver that has direct USB input using a
> Burr-Brown DAC that appears as a standard uaudio device.  I don't usually
> use it for AV playback but again the output quality's quite nice and the
> amp was cheap, well under $300.  It's a JVC 7010; I think the equivalent
> current model would be a 7030 or 8030.

Hey Thor,

You're right, the audio is fine, it's the controls that have latency, and
that's only when USB audio is playing.  This speaker set also has an
analogue input, and I can control the volume in real time when there's no
USB audio data being sent to the speakers.

Do you notice poor latency for the controls on your USB audio devices?  I
am suspecting not, and that my speakers are an early model.

Currently I just use the analogue input on the speakers with the analogue
output from my motherboard, and don't use USB audio.

Ben