I want to improve my gaming audio set-up for 2024 but I have a few questions that you guys should be able to help with.
Firstly, does it matter if you use USB or Optical to connect a source (be it PC, or console) to your DAC? I know bits are bits, but there's something nagging at the back of my mind that one is preferable over the other.
If USB is preferable for example, can you use a USB switching device to change sources without introducing any sound issues?
Basically I want to connect a gaming PC, PS5, and maybe my Switch to the one device (or stack maybe) at my home office desk (I work there sometimes too, I swear) and be able to use both headphones and speakers with it.
What would you all suggest?
USB and Optical are both digital so in terms of 'quality' it shouldn't matter although there will be different limits for bit-rates etc. For basic stereo or stereo encoded with Virtual Surround Sound (VSS) or 3D this won't matter. The biggest difference is likely to be that USB is more prone to electrical interference (something I went through recently with my S.M.S.L. C200 purchase in this thread). Also with consoles the older Dolby Digital standard used to have to be sent over Optical for it to be decoded down from 5.1 to 2.0 VSS (i.e. SoundblasterX G6, X7, Astro mixamps all work in this way) but should be less of an issue now.
Recently I've been running two separate PCs (Windows 11 gaming desktop + Linux Fedora mini PC) and tried a cheap USB switcher on the aforementioned S.M.S.L., which did not work, i.e. lots of interference. However that might have been have been a faulty DAC/AMP in general given that unit was picking up interference from anything. Your biggest issue for connecting a Heaphone DAC/AMP will be limited number of inputs; most offer USB + Optical/Coaxial so it's going to be a struggle to directly connect two consoles and a PC at once to one device. Secondly consoles don't have optical ports anymore and USB support on PS5 and Switch is limited to USB Audio Class 1.0 and not the newer, superior UAC 2.0 standard. Also in addition the PS4/5 both suffer from a 50% drop-off in power (I'm not sure technically this is the best term) which reduce the output by c.15.75db -
Youtube video that explains some side effects). And Sony's 3D audio is only usable over USB or Dualsense. Not HDMI. So issues that need to be considered. The Switch doesn't have this UAC 1.0 issue and therefore audio output over USB is cleaner.
So in this sense it's probably more practical to have two separate solutions; a DAC/AMP for PC and one for the consoles. However another solution might be to consider a DAC/AMP which uses USB for your PC and then Optical from your TV which will work for any input; PS5, Switch etc. This will mean no messing with switchers, the best quality audio from each console plus not worrying about whether the DAC/AMP has UAC 1.0 support. However you will have to sacrifice Sony's 3D audio in those games that support it or use the Dualsense for those games.
One further caveat could be if you need microphone input too. That adds another complication when it comes to consoles.