Audio out to wireless headphones? by bypassing final d/a converter?

ApocalypticKatana

ApocalypticKatana

Experienced
Pardon my ignorance if I overlooked something obvious but...

My aim was to somehow bypass the AX3's final D/A conversion and replace that with the D/A in the wireless headphones system using RF technology to minimize latency as much as possible.

For context the wireless headphones I'm using claims <1ms latency from transmitter to headphones.


Things that I've tried....

I've tried using the Voicemeeter Program to send AX3's audio to the wireless headphones but this adds ~32 ms which is no good. (I think this solves my question but adds way too much latency)

I've also tried attaching the wireless headphones' transmitter to the back of the AX3's USB, but found out it is a USB peripheral and does not provide power to the usb dongle AKA transmitter.

Anyone got any ideas? or is this even possible? again pardon if I'm overlooking something obvious.

I'm new to these wireless things...


TL:DR

Just curious if we can bypass the AX3's last D/A converter and use a D/A from the wireless headphone system instead ? in the interest of minimizing latency.

Of course I know I can just get an expensive wireless iem system and take the analog out of the AX3 to the wireless system!
 
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The only way to eliminate the AD/DA conversion with this setup would be to introduce a USB host for the headphone dongle which will add more latency than AX3's DA conversion itself which is <1ms, and you'll still have the Corsair DA conversion in the chain anyway. Set up a track in your DAW with the input set to the AX3 output channels, input monitoring enabled, and the DAW's output device set to the headphone dongle. Turn down the USB buffer setting in your DAW to as low as you can get it without pops in the audio. Like I said, this will add latency, but still not enough to be perceptible.

Just FYI, AX3's total latency is ~1ms i.e. less than if your head were 1ft from the speaker in an all-analog rig. So it's not even worth considering its latency. Also, consumer wireless headphones just aren't going to compete with good headphones powered by AX3's headphone amp. For home playing with AX3 & headphones the typical "desk + computer + wired headphones" setup is ideal. I just put the headphones on from the back so the cable goes down my back and is out of the way. Use good headphones (I use Ollo S5X), 2 amps in stereo, stereo wet effects, and the Enhancer block in classic mode and it's quite enjoyable.
 
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GlennO said:
The only modeler that I know of that has a hosted USB-A audio output and would work with that is a Mod Dwarf.
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finally someone gets it!

interesting , You think a future AXE FX would benefit from having a USB Host ?

I couldn’t communicate it properly but I guess what I’m looking for is Digital Out from AX3 To a USB Host to plug my 2.4GHz USB dongle to transmit to my wireless headphones, all while keeping system latency sub <5-10 ms
 
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strabes said:
The only way to eliminate the AD/DA conversion with this setup would be to introduce a USB host for the headphone dongle which will add more latency than AX3's DA conversion itself which is <1ms, and you'll still have the Corsair DA conversion in the chain anyway. Set up a track in your DAW with the input set to the AX3 output channels, input monitoring enabled, and the DAW's output device set to the headphone dongle. Turn down the USB buffer setting in your DAW to as low as you can get it without pops in the audio. Like I said, this will add latency, but still not enough to be perceptible.

Just FYI, AX3's total latency is ~1ms i.e. less than if your head were 1ft from the speaker in an all-analog rig. So it's not even worth considering its latency. Also, consumer wireless headphones just aren't going to compete with good headphones powered by AX3's headphone amp. For home playing with AX3 & headphones the typical "desk + computer + wired headphones" setup is ideal. I just put the headphones on from the back so the cable goes down my back and is out of the way.
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Thanks! will have to try this signal path out!

Hopefully be better than my voicemeeter setup latency wise

Any other creative way you can think of instead of using a DAW?

I Just reread up on this

Post in thread 'Latency of amp modelers'
https://forum.fractalaudio.com/threads/latency-of-amp-modelers.184918/post-2280220

And yeah from what I understand total converter latency is sub 0.5 ms so I’m assuming half of that is the final D/A I’m talking about.

So maybe I’m chasing a less than optimal route compared to just getting an analog wireless system for the AX3’s analog out

Anyway thanks again for your time
 
Andrew Male said:
The Axe literally has digital outs....
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Ok yeah, but Digital I/O is an entirely different beast than analog I/O. For the most part, you can't just hook these things up and head off to the races. Both devices' digital clocks need to be synchronized. And that's assuming the headphones have direct AES/SPDIF connections.

Throw USB connections on there, and you've got an entire new layer of digital data transmission, encoding, and decoding that both devices need to properly support and negotiate, before the digital audio data itself can be transmitted. Some processor somewhere (usually on a computer) needs to manage that USB protocol. All of which add to the overall latency.
 
ApocalypticKatana said:
Team windows here but everyday I'm seeing more and more reason why musicians go the apple route

yeah it's Voicemeeter but I mentioned that it added 32ms of latency unfortunately
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This is most likely due to your audio interface's buffer size, and probably some internal Win32 audio code. If you have Windows set to a different sample rate than 48k then you're probably running into internal re-sampling as well.
 
rossipedia said:
This is most likely due to your audio interface's buffer size, and probably some internal Win32 audio code. If you have Windows set to a different sample rate than 48k then you're probably running into internal re-sampling as well.
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I’ll have to check about windows settings

In the voicemeter program in it’s system settings, the hardware in (axe fx ) has buffer size limited to 512 samples and Hardware out (wireless headphones, lowest is 1024 ) ,sample rate at 48khz

Voicemeeter doesn’t require an interface but regardless it adds way too much for my specific use case of monitoring.
 
rossipedia said:
Ok yeah, but Digital I/O is an entirely different beast than analog I/O. For the most part, you can't just hook these things up and head off to the races. Both devices' digital clocks need to be synchronized. And that's assuming the headphones have direct AES/SPDIF connections.

Throw USB connections on there, and you've got an entire new layer of digital data transmission, encoding, and decoding that both devices need to properly support and negotiate, before the digital audio data itself can be transmitted. Some processor somewhere (usually on a computer) needs to manage that USB protocol. All of which add to the overall latency.
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This guy gets it 🙏🏻

TBF I could’ve communicated what I want better.

But to sum it up I think I’m looking for SPDIF Out (Digital Out) to a USB Host to transmit audio from a 2.4Ghz Usb dongle to wireless headphones.

A google search yields some maybe promising results but haven’t tried any and so asked here if anyone’s done such a thing.

My question is if it’s possible to do what I just said, without adding too much latency




Though seeing as the converters in the AX3 have a total sub <0.5 ms latency it might be better to just get an analog wireless system from the analog out of the AX3.
Nothing questioned,nothing answered ….

and It seems what I’m trying to do will have more latency compared to an analog wireless system out hooked to the analog out of the AX3.

Can’t say without measurement tools though.
 
toneseeker911 said:
Yes, once you introduce USB there’s much more latency to contend with.
Pro IEM systems like shure/sennheiser are the best way to get audio wirelessly without noticeable latency.
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That’s unfortunate , can’t get away from spending the big bucks on a wireless system it seems

This was out of curiosity and glad people chimed
 
In
rjones5766 said:
YH-WL500 Wireless Musical Instrument Headphones

Different solution, but I've been using these recently to get low latency audio from my FM9.

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this is in the right general direction.

Probably as good as I’m going to get without spending over 1k on Pro IEM systems

Sub 4 ms is impressive! adding that to AX3 latency of 2.3 assuming a generic guitar signal path (drives,amp, cab etc)

Thanks for sharing !
 
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Not sure if this is solution to my question,

it’s by MUTEC MC3+USB or it’s older models

It takes digital audio signal formats and converts it into each other in this use case from spdif to USB…..BUT!

Whether it’s USB out is powered or not I’m not sure…

Also if it’s USB out can act as a host or it’s just a peripheral/slave like the AX3 which defeats the pupose of getting it …
 
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