[Question] Quality of external USB audio device (DAC)

[iamroot]

Hello everyone

short version:
Can anyone tell me, if there are any limitation of the USB audio quality in QubesOS (Win10 VM)?

long version:
My situation: I have an Apple USB-C to 3.5mm DAC that I want to use with iTunes on a Windows 10 VM.
On a Linux VM I could just use an app called ‘Cider’ (speaks to Apple Music API), however it only supports a bitrate of 256kb/s…iTunes for Windows however, could play lossless audio (>= 1411kb/s).
Before testing it out, I’d like to ask if anyone else ever tried this, OR if you are aware of any technical limitations due to virtualization?
(playing FLAC / WAV files could be another way to test the usb audio quality)

One person in this forum had an issue with his built-in DAC and recommended to use an external device:

Gigabyte x570 Gaming X motherboard

Remarks UEFI mode doesn’t work on default settings, Installation workaround needed (Do not create sys-usb on first config, do it manually attaching one of usb-controllers in permissive mode, described in Qubes Docs). Integrated Graphics and TPM not tested (but present). Attachments Qubes-HCL-Gigabyte_Technology_Co___Ltd_-X570_GAMING_X-20201112-210824.yml (1.2 KB)

When I find time, I’ll definitely try it out myself. Until then I’d be more than happy if someone could share their thoughts/experience on this

[enmus]

@iamroot

My situation: I have an Apple USB-C to 3.5mm DAC that I want to use with iTunes on a Windows 10 VM.

There are known issues with audio in Windows qubes regardless of the device or accessories. Simple forum search would give you hints on this.

[iamroot]

Thanks, I did search in the forum, but didn’t use the right keywords.

Found this thread and your post: Using sys-audio for Windows audio - #10 by enmus

Have you experienced differences/limitations with audio from linux VMs using external audio devices?

[enmus]

@iamroot

Found this thread

Yes, there are other topics and post pointing to issues.

@iamroot

Have you experienced differences/limitations with audio from linux VMs using external audio devices?

No, and yes. Because if I attach USB audio device (from the correspondent sys-usb) to the qube in which I want to hear audio, then everything is OK with Linux qubes, while in Windows qube it is the same as in the post you found.

But, if I use external USB audio device as general audio device for all qubes, then recently, probably starting from Qubes 4.1.1 latency became horrific - about 50 sec (yes, not ms), while under Qubes 4.1 it was zero.

[iamroot]

That’s interesting…50 seconds is horribly long!
On my system, the Apple dongle gets recognized as standard audio output, instead of a USB device (couldn’t assign it to a specific VM, since it doesn’t show up in the usb device list).
So far the quality sounds great with no delays or anything. I have it plugged into a usb-c to usb-a adapter.

I don’t know which audio device you’re using, but to me it sounds like it could be a driver issue (?)

Haven’t setup a Windows VM yet…that’s the next todo on my list
(Marked this as solved, since it works fine for me)