Arch Linux

Caliburn

Member

Registered: 2008-02-21

Posts: 41

M-Audio 2496 / Sound Pops w/ ALSA

Greetings.

I'm using a M-Audio 2496 sound card with headphones, notably through a headphone amp. Through my favorite music player, Audacious, I typically listen to music at any time I'm in front of the computer. Unfortunately, since I've came to Arch (a month now or so), I've been dealing with a slight problem while setting the player to use ALSA, and I'm very unsure of how exactly to go about fixing it.

Upon allowing ALSA to determine it's own asound.state for the card, things work well soundwise with the exception of a slight pop every now and then. It's usually very subtle, but it can be very annoying after awhile as my attention tends to turn more towards it than the song playing. The pops only occur in the left speaker of the headphones, and it's usually directed with odd notes; high or low, but predominantly the higher of the two.

If I allow Audacious to play using OSS (choosing OSS in it's config), the sound works perfectly. If I allow sound to play in Windows, the sound works perfectly. As a result of these two trials, it's obvious the card nor the headphones w/ amp accessory are at fault.

I've attempted turning down the volume in alsamixer (on both ADC 0 and 1 as well as DAC 0 and 1) and following it up with alsactl store to no avail. I've turned down the bitrate from 96000 to 48000, but alas, nothing there either.

Suggestions? It's not an overbearing problem by any means, but it's worth throwing out there.

Echo

Member

From: Ohio, United States

Registered: 2006-05-16

Posts: 239

Re: M-Audio 2496 / Sound Pops w/ ALSA

You're music is playing at a bitrate of 44100 and you are resampling the sound to 48000 or 96000. I don't know if this would or could effect things, but, you might try a bitrate of 44100 for your music.

brebs

Member

Registered: 2007-04-03

Posts: 3,742

Re: M-Audio 2496 / Sound Pops w/ ALSA

Also try playing with audacious' "buffer time" value in the "advanced settings" of audacious' audio preferences.

Also see thread for advanced configuration of ~/.asoundrc

Caliburn

Member

Registered: 2008-02-21

Posts: 41

Re: M-Audio 2496 / Sound Pops w/ ALSA

With a mix of the two suggestions, the popping seems to have stopped. Thanks for the quick replies!

brebs

Member

Registered: 2007-04-03

Posts: 3,742

Re: M-Audio 2496 / Sound Pops w/ ALSA

So, show what you think fixed it, to help the next person with the same problem.

Caliburn

Member

Registered: 2008-02-21

Posts: 41

Re: M-Audio 2496 / Sound Pops w/ ALSA

As already posted, it was a mix of the two suggestions provided - buffer time and bitrate.