The Future of PC-Audio: Interview With Keith Kowal

red_ed writes "The Noise Report have an interview with Keith Kowal from VIA technologies' Audio division about the future of PC audio. Here's a snippet: 'I think the next big thing will be the widespread adoption of wireless speakers and headphones--cause none of us like a tangle of wires. From a PC infrastructure point of view I can easily see support for these devices being integrated right into the PC.'"

wireless? Why?

[Tanktalus]

Ok, I have a tangle of wires. A huge tangle (2 monitors, keyboards, mice, 5 computers, one printer, two KVMs, ...). But why would I get wireless speakers? Either a) they'll all waste a ton of batteries, or b) they'll all need to be plugged in to the wall. The former is way too expensive, the latter is still another wire - and outlets are at a premium here!

I was hoping this would be a story about mainstream going to surround sound support, for a more realistic audio experience (whether that's playing Doom 4, or listening to a concert-hall performance of Bach or Beethoven).

Battery?

[Lord_Dweomer]

Wireless speakers would be fine, but they would need to address some VERY important issues first.

First, I'm assuming that the speakers would still have a power cord, and thus still technically be "wired", but if they didn't have a power cord, batteries would be a big issue.

Second, and most importantly for any audiophiles out there, what happens to the sound quality? God knows how much money is spent on expensive speaker cables, so what happens when it goes wireless?

The real future

[DogDude]

The REAL future of PC audio is what smart people have been doing for years... getting a $3 rradio Shack cable, and plugging the computer into a real stereo amp. I don't understand the obsession with getting tiny, overpriced, shitty sounding computer speakers when even a basic stereo from Wal-Mart is going to sound better than even the best "computer speakers". I know, I know, everybody has their favorite computer speakers, but there is simply no replacement for displacement. Meaning, bigger speakers being driven by a real amp will almost ALWAYS sound better than any computer speakers.

I don't know about everyone else

[Prince Vegeta SSJ4]

I think the next big thing will be the widespread adoption of wireless speakers and headphones--cause none of us like a tangle of wires

But speaker wires are about the least likely cause of wire tangles in my setup. Considering power ables, mouse cables, monitor cables, ethernet cables, USB cables, Firewire Cables, MIDI cables. Even if I eliminate Mouse and Ethernet AND speaker, it still won't help much

Probably not the first post...

[Chrontius]

... but worth replying anyway.

I think this guy's right on the money. I mean, we've had AirTunes for a while now, and now we've got bluetooth stereo headsets. [sonorix.com]

If you count Macs with onboard bluetooth, and most laptops too, then his prediction is already true.

I could definitely see widespread adoption if the price came down a bit -- that bluetooth headset is $240 USD, just a bit on the steep side.

Bluetooth

[exhilaration]

I really *hope* they use Bluetooth [slashdot.org] instead of coming up with anothe random standard. There are already several Bluetooth headphones [engadget.com] available, HP [engadget.com] has some excellent ones.

How would wireless speakers reduce cable clutter?

[John_Booty]

"I think the next big thing will be the widespread adoption of wireless and speakers headphones--cause none of us like a tangle of wires"

I can see the benefit of wireless headphones, but how do wireless speakers even make sense?

I suppose you could eliminate the cable running from the PC to the amplifier if the amplifier was wireless enabled, but you still have to have some sort of wire running to each speaker to provide power. Unless you're planning on running your speakers off of batteries... in which case they'd need frequent recharging and would not be capable of putting out enough juice for decent sound.

Battery Not Included

[hubs99]

I like that everything is becoming wireless but as that happens more and more batteries are needed and to make matters worse those damn batteries die. Whats the point if you have to charge those items or replace the batteries every now and again. This kind of defeats the purpose of the simplicity of a wireless device. Why cant the industry standardize on a common induction system so I can just place all my wireless devices on a pad and have them charge automatically.

Bah,

Wires.

[arose]

Am I the only one that likes wired peripherals better than the overhead added by wireless?

Per application volume level

[shine-shine]

Give me the ability to set the volume level per application. I mean really, did you ever had a system message go off when you were watching a movie that required you to turn up the speaker to maximum volume?

Question

[Anonymous Coward]

What do they really mean by integration? Have the antenna built into the motherboard? This would cause some major EMI issues combined with your box's ability, by design, to block signals. I'd imagine the antenna would have to be external. In this case, I still don't trust the sound quality unless they're using DSS and sending a relatively high powered signal to your headphones. In which case, more issues arise because you'd basically have to have a sound card built into the headphones, how much power drain, how bulky, and how costly would that be?

Just some thoughts, I wonder how far along or practical this idea really is. Would be cool to see though.

Re:The real future

[CtrlPhreak]

The thing is, if you're sitting at your computer, the 'computer speakers' are designed for the listener to be much closer to the actual speakers. For music when you're farther away, yeah the standard stereo will sound better in a room for music when you're around in the room, when you're at your computer playing a game, or whatever, the close field of the computer speakers can sound better, and the huge stereos can be overkill.

The main problem is that most computer speakers are made on the cheap, and no matter what will sound like crap. This doesn't mean that good speakers designed to be placed at your computer at close range can't be better. Basically, you buy a stereo to listen to music in a room. You buy computer speakers to listen to sound specifically right at your computer. People trying to replace one thing with another is where problems come in.

Re:wireless? Why?

[Tanktalus]

Actually, this gives me an excellent opportunity to rebut my own post (see how long it stays mod'd so high). First, however, I'll address Tibor's point: you're comparing apples to oranges, my friend. With phones, the wireless part is the part you carry around with you. With speakers, generally speaking (no pun intended!), you place the speakers once, and you're done. They're very, very static. Completely unlike anything that can be held in your hand (such as a phone, a laptop, camera, etc. - a camera that doesn't need a wire to hook up to your PC, now that would be useful!).

The advantage of wireless speakers really is that you can have a centrally-located PC-based home-theatre system (and I mean the entire home - a set of speakers in the den, another in the kitchen, another in the front room, another in ...). I suspect that this technology is merely for a single output - all rooms get the same sound. What would make this really useful, IMO, is to first get surround-sound output working, and then to be able to have a single wireless soundcard able to handle multiple outputs independantly.

Wireless...

[hipbase]

Wireless Power! Now thats the future!

Yes, for VOIP

[wombatmobile]

Wireless headphones are a natural for Skype. You can walk around the room talking on the phone.

There's one small problem..

[leathered]

.. and that's a company called Creative Labs and their patent portfolio.

Aureal, Nvidia and most recently id software are all firms that have fallen foul of Creative's desire to stifle innovation. Until someone challenges these patents, we will see few developments in PC audio which has stood still for many years.

Perpetuates myth...

[Sai Babu]

Keith says... any audio engineer will tell you a lot of audio design is "black magic" Well maybe not so much a myth if taken to mean that a lot of audio design is done by folks who don't know what the hell they are doing...

Re:not all it's cracked up to be

[dead sun]

I think the original post meant actual per application support for varying sound levels. So you can say Winamp plays at 75%, GAIM plays at 15%, System Messages at 20%, etc. Then when you're playing Winamp all is good, you shuffle over to GAIM and Winamp doesn't change volume. You message somebody via GAIM and the GAIM created noise is reduced to 15% of max base volume, blended seamlessly with Winamp so that the GAIM noise sounds 1/5 as loud (15/75) as Winamp and you aren't hideously annoyed.

It sounds like your driver has a whole system volume per active application support.

I want the full deal. Drivers should be able to tell which application is passing them a sound event and adjust the volume on the fly while blending the sound streams together. Any half decent sound card should be able to blend at least a few audio streams, so why not do it?

Re:The real future

[ImpTech]

> even a basic stereo from Wal-Mart is going to sound better than even the best "computer speakers"

Such a profoundly untrue statement... I don't know where to begin.

Last time I went to Wal-Mart, they had *nothing* for speaker systems. Oh, they had speakers, but nothing anyone should ever pay money for. If you're comparing Wal-Mart stereo systems to Wal-mart PC speaker systems then maybe you have a point. Otherwise... just about anything Altec-Lansing will beat everything in Wal-mart. Nevermind the PC speakers put out by an actual speaker company, i.e. the Cambridge Soundworks systems from before Creative bought them, or the old Boston Acoustics sets, or hell even Klipsch.

> bigger speakers being driven by a real amp will almost ALWAYS sound better than any computer speakers

Gross oversimplification. "Bigger" speakers? There are plenty of very very large speakers that sound absolutely like crap. For examples, look at any of the floorstanding speakers you'll find in a place like Sears. I'm not sure what you'd call a "real" amp versus a "fake" amp, but there are plenty of computer speaker sets with builtin amplifiers that have very nice signal characteristics.

I'll agree with you that a nice stereo system with a nice separate amplifier will beat any pair of computer speakers you can buy. I guess my point is there are plenty of bad stereo systems and bad amplifiers out there that won't, and to imply otherwise is disingenuous.

Re:Let's revitalize audio synthesizers!

[Post]

Synthesizers dont die, they just move to software ...

There is no need to "revitalize" the music synthesizer scene, as you suggest - it is alive and kicking. As we speak, literally hundreds of synths with all kinds of engines (additive, substractive, sampling, FM, granular etc.) are being developed, sold and given away for free. Go to KVR [kvr-vst.com] to learn more.

Admittedly, not too much open-source in that field. But if you simply want tools for music production, you can be up and running with a cheap off-the-shelf PC and some free software (sequencer, synths, effects) in an hour.

I wish I would have had this twenty years ago, when MIDI came up.

Re:The real future

[ibpooks]

In reality, they probably called the police because you were a jackass playing obscenely load video game sounds while others were trying to sleep or study. I doubt it had anything to do with thinking there was actual gunfire.