Sound Card Interference

[hoppingpulse]

I want to buy the oem version of the sound blaster z sound card, to solely use with headphones through an optical connection. The card would be seated between two gpu's. Would the oem version that doesn't have the shroud for emi shielding be okay, or do you think there would be interference? Is interference even possible through an optical connection and headphones?

 

[cilliers]

The electromagnetic field that causes "interference" is generated by hardware in the proximity of the soundcard. The whining or buzzing sound of capacitors or the VRM on the GPUs could very well be picked up and transmitted to the headset, but only if the resulting electromagenetic field is oscilating at an amplitude and frequency that matches the natural resonance of your soundcard hardware. To safeguard against this, they put shielded components on the sound card board, which drowns and absorbs the EMF. It doesn't matter if the signal is optical, it will be transmitted as part of the audio waveform.

Having said that, I've had various add-in sound cards in my life, which I've installed next to GPUs, TV cards and the odd network adapter and I've never encountered interference as a result.

 

[jsmithepa]

I want to buy the oem version of the sound blaster z sound card, to solely use with headphones through an optical connection. The card would be seated between two gpu's. Would the oem version that doesn't have the shroud for emi shielding be okay, or do you think there would be interference? Is interference even possible through an optical connection and headphones?

If I read your post correctly, you are saying there is an optical cable from the soundcard to your headphones (never seen a headphones directly connected via optical but OK taking your word for it) then your concern doesn't matter.

Em interference only affects analog signal, if the signal comes out of the soundcard on an optical cable, it means the signal is still in its digital format and it's not affected by em noise.

 

[hoppingpulse]

I want to buy the oem version of the sound blaster z sound card, to solely use with headphones through an optical connection. The card would be seated between two gpu's. Would the oem version that doesn't have the shroud for emi shielding be okay, or do you think there would be interference? Is interference even possible through an optical connection and headphones?

If I read your post correctly, you are saying there is an optical cable from the soundcard to your headphones (never seen a headphones directly connected via optical but OK taking your word for it) then your concern doesn't matter.

Em interference only affects analog signal, if the signal comes out of the soundcard on an optical cable, it means the signal is still in its digital format and it's not affected by em noise.

The optical connection is from the soundcard too a usb dongle that the headphones connect to wirelessly, sorry I didn't make that more clear.

 

[hoppingpulse]

Thanks for the info, based off your responses i'm gonna go with the oem version.