Arch Linux

manu_moreno

Member

Registered: 2025-02-17

Posts: 2

Horrible audio experience - earphones work only at a certain angle

Hi there, in the name of disclosure,  I've been researching this issue online for several days but haven't run into the right fix.

SOME BACKGROUND

I've always had a very pleasant experience with my laptop audio on Arch. However, I've been having an extremely poor experience these days. I cannot pinpoint the moment when this issue became unbearable. In a nutshell, I cannot use my earphones at all. I have both, Apple Earbuds Pro v3 and JBL Wave Flex. They work great with other devices. So, it's not an issue with my earphones. Plus, a previous install of Arch on this same laptop used to work great.

THE PROBLEM

My earphones connect but the connection is extremely spotty, even when I'm right next to my computer. The earphones constantly connect/disconnect. Also, and this is the bigger problem -- audio kinda works only at a certain angle. Audio will NOT work when I'm working on my laptop in a natural position. I have to place either the laptop or my head at a certain angle (+/- 5-10 degrees) in order to get audio to work but it will fail at the slightest move.

WHAT I'VE DONE THUS FAR

I've followed several potential fixes proposed by people out there with similar problems to mine to no avail. I've also tried uninstalling/reinstalling pulseaudio, piperwire, alsa, etc.

WHAT I ASK OF YOU

I'd like to find a reliable procedure to make my audio work as I was starting afresh with my Arch install. I'd appreciate any pointers. Pulseaudio has always worked for me in the past (I tried the Pulseaudio-only idea a couple of days ago) but I understand that pipewire is a newer audio library. I have no preferences as to which library I should use. I just want to make my audio work really.

At this point, I'd like to remove all the audio software and start afresh. I think this will take me to the finish line much more quickly than to continue troubleshooting. That said, what steps, in your view, would get me where I need to be?

H/W: Lenovo Slim 7 Pro X
OS: Arch Linux 6.13.1-arch2-1

Installed audio software:

$ pacman -Qs | grep -iE '(blue|pulse|alsa|wire)' | grep '^local' | grep -vE '(gnome|budgie|wireguard|wireless)'
local/alsa-card-profiles 1:1.2.7-1
local/alsa-lib 1.2.13-1
local/alsa-topology-conf 1.2.5.1-4
local/alsa-ucm-conf 1.2.13-2
local/blueberry 1.4.8-2
local/blueman 2.4.4-1
local/blueprint-compiler 0.14.0-3
local/bluetooth-headset-battery-level-git r122.68c0862-1
local/bluez 5.79-1
local/bluez-deprecated-tools 5.79-1
local/bluez-libs 5.79-1
local/bluez-tools 0.2.0-6
local/bluez-utils 5.79-1
local/libpipewire 1:1.2.7-1
local/libpulse 17.0+r43+g3e2bb8a1e-1
local/libwireplumber 0.5.7-1
local/pipewire 1:1.2.7-1
local/pipewire-audio 1:1.2.7-1
local/pipewire-session-manager 1:1.2.7-1
local/pulseaudio 17.0+r43+g3e2bb8a1e-1
local/pulseaudio-bluetooth 17.0+r43+g3e2bb8a1e-1
local/python-bluetooth-battery 1.3.2-4
local/python-pybluez 0.23.r58.g4d46ce1-4
local/wireplumber 0.5.7-1

Audio adapters:

$ lspci | grep -iE '(audio|multimedia)'
04:00.1 Audio device: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Rembrandt Radeon High Definition Audio Controller
04:00.5 Multimedia controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] ACP/ACP3X/ACP6x Audio Coprocessor (rev 60)
04:00.6 Audio device: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 17h/19h/1ah HD Audio Controller

AMD Rembrandt: has never worked
AMD Family 17h/19h/1ah: this works with built-in speakers
AMD ACP/ACP3X/ACP6x: don't think this is an adapter/controller

$ cat /proc/asound/modules

0 snd_hda_intel
1 snd_hda_intel
2 snd_soc_acp6x_mach

I'm not including any other logs because, as I said, I'd like to start afresh and not spend more time troubleshooting. Thank you!

manu_moreno

Member

Registered: 2025-02-17

Posts: 2

Re: Horrible audio experience - earphones work only at a certain angle

Dunno how to close this thread. I have a solution.

Practically 30 minutes after posting this my audio problems have apparently been resolved. I'm still running some tests.
What I've done -- removed all pipewire packages and reinstalled only pulseaudio and pulseaudio-alsa. I also rebooted my latop. This action broke waybar (error while loading shared libraries: libpipewire-0.3.so.0: cannot open shared object file). But this is definite progress.

seth

Member

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 64,028

Re: Horrible audio experience - earphones work only at a certain angle

What you wanted to have done instead was to replace pulseaudio w/ pipewire-pulse.
Bottom line is that you cannot use two audio daemons at the same time - regardless which you eventually choose.

This does hoever not fit with your gymnastics symptoms that would rather indicate radio interference issues.

Mark resolved threads by editing your initial posts subject - so others will know that there's no task left, but maybe a solution to find.
Thanks.

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