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#1 2008-11-30 21:12:41

Mr. X
Member
From: belgrade, serbia
Registered: 2007-02-28
Posts: 67

sound quality issue (not so good as in windows)

I have Dell Vostro 1510 laptop with integrated Realtek HD Audio Codec (ALC268) sound card and Altec Lansing MX5021 speakers connected through the headphone jack.

I noticed that music I play on Arch lacks in quality then music I play on Windows XP. I mean, the sound is ok, all melodies are there, basses too, but something makes a noticeable difference to me...

I followed Arch wiki (http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/ALSA) to install alsa, and I'm playing music via mpd+sonata, but I've tried rhythmbox and mplayer with no luck...
I've also decreased the PCM and Headphone volume to 80% in alsamixer.

Here's a list of sound modules automatically loaded in rc.conf after installatio:

snd-mixer-oss snd-pcm-oss snd-hwdep snd-page-alloc 
snd-pcm snd-timer snd snd-hda-intel soundcore

Anyone has idea what could be the problem and how can I make the music sound better?

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#2 2008-11-30 21:59:26

skottish
Forum Fellow
From: Here
Registered: 2006-06-16
Posts: 7,942

Re: sound quality issue (not so good as in windows)

You can try OSSv4 instead of ALSA. It sounds way better, but it's hardware support is fairly limited:

http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/OSS

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#3 2008-12-01 09:47:44

Mr. X
Member
From: belgrade, serbia
Registered: 2007-02-28
Posts: 67

Re: sound quality issue (not so good as in windows)

thanks! it's WAY better now!
I always thought what's the big deal about OSS... now I wonder why I haven't tried it earlier...

[edit]
ok, there's one problem I just realized... I started to hear frequent "clicks" (one in about 5 sec) in the output sound... how can I fix that?

Last edited by Mr. X (2008-12-01 11:22:09)

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#4 2008-12-01 12:34:22

Themaister
Member
From: Trondheim, Norway
Registered: 2008-07-21
Posts: 652
Website

Re: sound quality issue (not so good as in windows)

Isn't the occational worse audio in ALSA related to the resampling? With hardware mixing here in ALSA, it sounds awesome at least big_smile

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#5 2008-12-01 12:50:49

Mr. X
Member
From: belgrade, serbia
Registered: 2007-02-28
Posts: 67

Re: sound quality issue (not so good as in windows)

how can I setup that (and will it work on the integrated sound card)?

Last edited by Mr. X (2008-12-01 12:52:22)

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#6 2008-12-01 18:46:46

skottish
Forum Fellow
From: Here
Registered: 2006-06-16
Posts: 7,942

Re: sound quality issue (not so good as in windows)

Mr. X wrote:

thanks! it's WAY better now!
I always thought what's the big deal about OSS... now I wonder why I haven't tried it earlier...

[edit]
ok, there's one problem I just realized... I started to hear frequent "clicks" (one in about 5 sec) in the output sound... how can I fix that?

The clicks are almost always from channels being overdriven. Start up your media application (you'll have to do this for all of them), and then open ossxmix from the console. I think that you'll find stuff in the red.

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#7 2008-12-01 21:04:25

Mr. X
Member
From: belgrade, serbia
Registered: 2007-02-28
Posts: 67

Re: sound quality issue (not so good as in windows)

ok, I experimented and lowered all volumes to about 70%, and i can still hear the clicks...
but I must say they are not so frequent with that setup... anyway, it's not practical... the sound is very low, and still not without clicks :\
is there any other solution?

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#8 2008-12-01 23:18:49

Gullible Jones
Member
Registered: 2004-12-29
Posts: 4,863

Re: sound quality issue (not so good as in windows)

Yes. Find out what model your sound hardware is, and put in /etc/modprobe.conf:

options snd-hda-intel model=foo

For your laptop I think it should be model=dell, but it might be something else.

If that doesn't work, try using position_fix:

options snd-hda-intel position_fix=X

Where X can range from 0 to 3. My laptop seems to require 1, otherwise I get buzzing/distortion when the volume exceeds some limit.

(Note that position_fix=3 will probably sound crappy when using dmix, but should sound fine when using JACK or Pulse.)

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