Arch Linux

leons

Member

Registered: 2016-01-03

Posts: 2

Arch on MacBook Pro 9,2 (Mid 2012) - Sound Problems

Hi @all,

Yesterday I installed Arch on my Macbook Pro 9,2 and I'm very happy. Except for one thing: Audio.

In comparison to OS X, the audio sounds rather flat, doesn't have much bass, nor highs. Almost like through an old telephone.
alsamixer can't compensate for that.

Sound through headphones works just fine.

The technical details:

I am using Alsa. Simply installing PulseAudio makes no difference.
I've tried to use OSS. It recognized my hardware successfully, but didn't give me sound-output at all.

Here are my available Options in alsamixer (Sorry for German labels):

----------

I tried a bunch of model-options in /etc/modprobe.d/50-sound.conf - but none of the options seem to make a difference.
For me, the most logical thing would be to choose "mbp55", as that's exactly my codec. (See here: Intel HDA Audio Models, search for CS4206)

I tried these: (Updating List)

options snd-hda-intel model=mbp55
options snd-hda-intel model=mbp3 position_fix=2
options snd-hda-intel model=mba6
options snd-hda-intel model=imac27

None of these options make a difference.
Of course, I rebooted after every change.

I even tried "model=gpio1". I don't think it's supposed to work anymore with this setting, but of course: no change at all.
I think I'm doing something wrong here with the modprobe-stuff. Do I have to set special permissions on these files?

----------

# head -n 1 /proc/asound/card0/codec*
 ==> /proc/asound/card0/codec#0 <==
Codec: Cirrus Logic CS4206

==> /proc/asound/card0/codec#3 <==
Codec: Intel PantherPoint HDMI

# lspci | grep Audio
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family High Definition Audio Controller (rev 04

----------

Also note, that in the alsamixer-Application, the device-selector is stuck to HDA Intel PCH, which seems to be ok, as there's only one card installed, but also the Chip-selector can't be changed to the CS4206-codec and is always set to Intel PatherPoint HDMI. Could this be the error, and if, how do I force alsa to use this codec over the other?

----------

Does anyone have a possible solution to this problem?
I really wan't to keep using Linux, but this sound-quality makes want to switch back to OS X ASAP.

Thanks for your help!

leons

Last edited by leons (2016-01-04 09:34:33)

leons

Member

Registered: 2016-01-03

Posts: 2

Re: Arch on MacBook Pro 9,2 (Mid 2012) - Sound Problems

So, I've had no success whatsoever with sound on my Macbook.

You will get used to it after a while, but hold any other phone against to it, it will sound like pro-audio stuff.

So now, after xorg has written 166GB of Alsa-Errors due to a misconfiguration to my home-partition, to be honest, I'm not in the best mood. Especially when it comes to thinking of running Linux (which I rellay like; next Laptop is going to be one with less issues) on my Macbook (which I also really like regarding the durability and build-quality).

After all that, I think that now, I will have to switch back to OS X just for sound-reasons.

Maybe I can clone my drive to have a working Arch-Install on my Macbook.
If anybody has the same problems - or a solution - you can let me know! Just post it into this thread, I will keep looking.

Thanks everyone on the Arch-community for the rest of the awesome experience!

Leons

plech.d

Member

Registered: 2017-09-27

Posts: 5

Re: Arch on MacBook Pro 9,2 (Mid 2012) - Sound Problems

Hi,

I have a Macbook Pro 11,3 (Late 2013) with a newer Cirrus Logic CS4208. My alsamixer looks the same, and I have the same problem, the sound from the speakers is really washed out compared to that from mac os, which is actually pretty awesome.

I identified that the main problem is too much heights, or too little bass. I managed to get a pretty good sound using pulseaudio + https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/puls … zer-ladspa and the following preset for the
equalizer:

mbeq_1197
mbeq
Multiband EQ
1.0
thirdtrysync
15
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
-5.0
-5.0
-5.0
-5.0
-5.0
-10.0
-10.0
-10.0
-10.0
-10.0
50
100
156
220
311
440
622
880
1250
1750
2500
3500
5000
10000
20000

It looks like this:

The sound is really quite comparable, the only problem is that it's a bit quieter. But if I move all the sliders higher, I get distortion in some music, so I guess I'm not allowed to pass the 0 dB mark.

I suppose the reason for the problem is that mac os sends a very specific equalizer setting to the internal speakers. I've considered using a sound spectrum analyzer to create the perfect equalizer setting that would sound the same as on mac os, but I haven't been able to do that with just an iphone app reliably.

I've also created some additional stuff to help out. I use i3 as my desktop manager. I created a toggle for turning the equalizer on/off, because I want it off with a jack plugged in: (I haven't been able to have this done automatically reliably, so I toggle manually.)

bindsym Shift+F10 exec "pulseaudio-equalizer toggle; killall volumeicon; volumeicon; killall -s USR1 py3status"

The command also restarts my volumeicon, because it sometimes fails to update its master volume slider, and signals my status bar manager, py3status, to update itself.

This is because I also created my own py3status widget to show the status of the equalizer (on/off only). You can place it in ~/.i3/py3status/eqstatus.py for py3status to pick it up, then add it into your i3status config file:

from subprocess import check_output
import re

class Py3status:

    enabled = 'On'
    disabled = 'Off'
    format = 'Eq: {status}'

    def eqstatus(self):
        status = check_output(["pulseaudio-equalizer", "status"]).decode('utf-8')
        enabled = re.search('Equalizer status: \[(.*)\]', status).group(1)
        return {
            'full_text': self.py3.safe_format(self.format, {'status': self.enabled if enabled == 'enabled' else self.disabled}),
            'color': self.py3.COLOR_GOOD if enabled == 'enabled' else self.py3.COLOR_BAD,
            'cached_until': self.py3.CACHE_FOREVER
        }

Hope this helps you or anyone else. I couldn't find much about this problem on the internets.

Have a blast!

So, I've had no success whatsoever with sound on my Macbook.

You will get used to it after a while, but hold any other phone against to it, it will sound like pro-audio stuff.

So now, after xorg has written 166GB of Alsa-Errors due to a misconfiguration to my home-partition, to be honest, I'm not in the best mood. Especially when it comes to thinking of running Linux (which I rellay like; next Laptop is going to be one with less issues) on my Macbook (which I also really like regarding the durability and build-quality).

After all that, I think that now, I will have to switch back to OS X just for sound-reasons.

Maybe I can clone my drive to have a working Arch-Install on my Macbook.
If anybody has the same problems - or a solution - you can let me know! Just post it into this thread, I will keep looking.

Thanks everyone on the Arch-community for the rest of the awesome experience!

Leons