up vote 2 down vote favorite
share [g+] share [fb]

I was going to buy a cheap USB Headset for skyping, and was suggested the Logitech H330 USB Headset.

Before buying the headset, I was checking the reviews, and on Amazon, someone has mentioned that your sound card should support usb headsets. Is this True? Or does the OS directly pass on the sound to the headset without a sound card in between?

I have win 7 Home premium, 32 bit, if it makes any difference.

link|improve this question
67% accept rate
feedback

2 Answers

up vote 2 down vote accepted

Short answer: Yes, it will work, but possibly with slightly lower quality than a dedicated sound card.

Long answer: Typically, USB speakers/headphones will use software acceleration, i.e. built-in Windows drivers. However, it is possible to have hardware acceleration, but I'm not sure if your sound card needs to explicitly allow it. In any case, since you're buying a cheap headset, sound quality isn't such a big problem, so software acceleration should be fine.

link|improve this answer
2  
Hardware accelerated sound is only good for offloading the CPU, which is only really relevant when playing games; it does not affect the sound quality. I don't play games, but it is my understanding that even EAX 5.0 is no longer hardware accelerated from Vista onwards. – paradroid Aug 14 '10 at 1:35
EAX. Blast from the past. +1 – Rafael Rivera Aug 15 '10 at 1:21
I have marked your Answer as Accepted, since you gave a better explanation. – Devdatta Tengshe Aug 17 '10 at 2:00
@jason, @Rafael: Well, I only have real experience with configuring audio on Windows XP with a very old (even for the time) sound card. – Hello71 Aug 17 '10 at 2:17
feedback
up vote 6 down vote

USB Headsets are soundcards. Only 1/8" jack type headsets go through the onboard soundcard.

Source: regularly configuring PulseAudio on Linux.

link|improve this answer
Yay for sources! – BloodPhilia Aug 14 '10 at 10:02
feedback

Your Answer

 
or
required, but never shown
discard

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.