USB Kidding Me?!? - The long and confusing history of USB.
- Graham Collins
- May 30
- 3 min read
Updated: Jun 6
When USB first arrived almost 30 years ago, it was meant to simplify connecting certain things to a computer. Universal Serial Bus replaced the older Serial Bus connector, and was meant to streamline the installation of peripherals. At first USB was primarily meant for keyboards and mice, but other peripherals soon followed.. USB 1.0 was quite slow though at a transfer rate of 1.5Mbit/s or 12Mbit/s depending on the device. Adoption by manufacturers was rather slow until the introduction of USB 2.0 which increased max speed to 480 Mbit/s. This was now fast enough not only for many peripherals but also the introduction of Audio Interfaces.
Early USB interfaces were not ideal, limited to usually just a few channels/tracks at a time without getting the dreaded 'popping and clicking' sounds that usually requred .you to drastically increase your sample rate buffer size. Interestingly this phenomenon had less to do with the interfaces or even the drivers that were written for them, and more to do with the USB controller chips that were present on motherboards at the time. Later generations of these controller chips made USB 2.0 significantly more stable and able to operate at higher sample rates and lower buffers. Today, USB 2.0 interfaces can theoretically handle around 40 tracks at 24-bit/96kHz, or 80 tracks at 24-bit/48kHz.
USB 3.0 (also known as SuperSpeed) came with an entirely new architecture that allowed speeds up to 5 Gbit/s, while retaining backwards compatibility.
The USB 3.1 specification introduced an Enhanced SuperSpeed System doubling the bandwidth to 10 Gbit/s.
USB 3.2 came with Gen 1×2, Gen 2×1, and Gen 2×2 (20Gbit/s) operation modes. However the higher speeds possible are only possible with a full-featured USB-C cable.
Here's where we must pause to discuss something about USB-C and USB in general.
USB-A, USB-B, and USB-C denote the formfactor or shape of the connector cable, whereas USB 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 3.1 and 3.2 denote the transfer rates possible. A few years back now, the industry decided that the USB-C cable was the wave of the future and as a result, started using this as a means to distribute/connect multiple types of USB types/speeds. It's important to note that just because a cable has USB-C it doesn't inherently make it any faster than the typical USB-A to USB-B cable. Many interfaces that are USB 2.0 today may come with a USB-C cable as the format increases in popularity on computers.
Switching gears for a moment, it's worth noting that Thunderbolt versions 3 and 4 now also use the USB-C connector, BUT to connect Thunderbolt devices you MUST make sure you're using a proper Thunderbolt cable and not just a regular USB-C cable. Thunderbolt cables have a small lightningbolt logo on each end of the cable. If they don't, your Thunderbolt device won't be seen at all. Also, don't make the mistake of thinking that just because your computer has USB-C ports, that it has Thunderbolt. While increasing in popularity on some PC motherboards, not all PCs have it. Macs all have Thunderbolt ports, but only SOME of the USB-C ports on a Mac may actually be Thunderbolt, with others still being just USB.
Finally, it's a good best practices rule of thumb to connect like devices with like ports. A USB 2.0 interface will probably run just fine connected to a USB-3 port, but some backwards compatibility issues have been noted.
A more detailed description of the USB specs can be found here:
Also, an explanation of the various types of USB connectors, including micro and mini versions often used for bluetooth speakers and others, can be found here.
Comments