Arch Linux

schmidtbag

Member

From: NH, USA

Registered: 2011-02-08

Posts: 347

Routing audio from a program to a different set of speakers (alsa)

I have two separate sets of speakers - a SPDIF surround system and my TV's built-in HDMI speakers.  Since SPDIF seems to have issues with playing 5.1 and 2.0 channel sounds simultaneously (for example, watching a movie when suddenly a chat notification pops up), I'd like a way to route the sound from some programs to only use the HDMI audio.  Besides, sometimes I turn my 5.1 receiver off and would like to hear notifications.

I know this is possible using PulseAudio, but I wanted to know if there was a way to do this using strictly ALSA.  I'm using KDE, and Phonon has the ability to separate system notification sounds and play those through HDMI, so I don't see why I couldn't do that with other programs.

If its a matter of just executing the program with some alsa-specific prefix that's fine.