Surround Sound

Enfield

Enfield

Enfield

Soldato
Joined
8 Nov 2003
Posts
7,409
Location
UK
Hi guys,

I am using Archlinux and I've noticed that only my front speakers are working. I've tried every switch and volume control in alsamixer to no avail.

I use a SoundBlaster Live 5.1 card, but have 4.1 speakers. I swear all used to work quite recently..

Any help, much appreciated
 
Hmm, if it used to work, but doesn't now something must have changed. Did you change or update a driver? Are you using ALSA only, or are you using Pulseaudio as well?
 
I'm having issues with sound, too. Took me forever to learn that the mute / unmute toggle in alsamixer is the key, m.

I got 6 channels working ( almost ) correctly with
Code: 
speaker-test -c 6 -t wav
Lots of stuttering and "Write error" "Broken pipe" messages, though.

Sadly, mplayer keeps freaking out when playing anything that has a 6 channel audio stream. "Broken pipe" again.

Is there a good source of documentation on the whole procedure? I briefly read about .asoundrc, but it's all greek to me.

I might play with OSS4 and see if that is any better. Linux is great when stuff just works but if it doesn't... prepare for tears.



EDIT: I installed Debian on a scratch partition with just alsa, Xorg and Mplayer. I tested it with an H.264+AC3 video and..... It works flawlessly now. :D

I guess all that Alsa / OSS4 compiling hosed my system beyond repair. I tried to purge all trace of it, but something obviously remained.

The default install of Mplayer is awesome. It seems to play anything thrown at it, without having to configure anything / find additional codecs. Great packaging from the devs.
 
Last edited:
got 5.1 working flawlessly here on ubuntu (alsa and pulseaudio - not sure how Arch Linux does it)

handy tips..

in daemon.conf
disable-remixing = yes
default-sample-channels = 6

The channels are often muted by default in alsamixer.

If you cant see the surround channels at all in alsamixer then it may just be a matter of passing a model parameter in alsa-base eg. (options snd-hda-intel model=something) to make linux realise that there are multiple outputs.
 
Last edited:
OK, it works fine on Ubuntu.

I have tried lowering and turning everything on / off and still only the rear ones work (i said front ones in OP i meant the rear).

At the moment I have only wave surround up to full volume, if that is down to lowest setting then I won't hear anything. PCM and master make no difference what so ever.

Never mind. It works now. I ran alsaconf and it seems A-OK.
 
Last edited:
i got a new av amp which takes a spdif input. It took a bit of setting up, but ive got ubuntu mixing 5.1 into a Dolby Digital stream and outputting it over the digital link to the av amp. Works lovely. Similar to what AC3 filter does on windows. Works for all my movies nomatter what the audio encoding. Even outputs the prologic pseudo-surround from 2 channel audio in upmixed to 5.1 dolby digital :-)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom