cs46xx sound quality and CD volume

cs46xx sound quality and CD volume

[Bob McElrath]

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My Hercules Game Theater XP sounds great with the 0.90rc3 driver (on an
alpha!), good work folks!  The driver used to hang my machine hard.

However, one small buglet.  When recording from line1 (aux in the
current driver), the sound sometimes sounds very tinny and scratchy.  I
can fix this by muting/unmuting the CD and adjusting the CD volume.
Yes, the CD slider in alsamixer.  Not the Aux one or the Capture one or
the DAC one.  The CD one.  Weird, huh?  I've tried playing with all the
other sliders and they do not affect the recording quality.

Note this is with the old driver, not the new experimental DSP code (but
I'll try that soon).  I also have not tried to reproduce this by
recording from one of the other inputs.

This seems like a simple fix.  Anyone know how?

Cheers,
-- Bob

Bob McElrath (rsmcelrath@students.wisc.edu) 
Univ. of Wisconsin at Madison, Department of Physics

    "The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher
    esteem those who think alike than those who think differently." 
        -- Nietzsche

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Re: cs46xx sound quality and CD volume

[Benny Sjostrand]

>
>
>However, one small buglet.  When recording from line1 (aux in the
>current driver), the sound sometimes sounds very tinny and scratchy.  I
>can fix this by muting/unmuting the CD and adjusting the CD volume.
>Yes, the CD slider in alsamixer.  Not the Aux one or the Capture one or
>the DAC one.  The CD one.  Weird, huh?  I've tried playing with all the
>other sliders and they do not affect the recording quality.
>  
>
This is a known problem (at least forme). When you unmute the CD volume
the soundcard amplifier is turned off, and at least for the Hercules 
Game Theater XP card
this makes no good.
This thing could be easily fixed.

Now, is there any other cs46xx based soundcard that for some reason relies
on this behaviour ??

/Benny



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Re: cs46xx sound quality and CD volume

[Bob McElrath]

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alsa-devel-request@lists.sourceforge.net [alsa-devel-request@lists.sourceforge.net] wrote:
> 
> >However, one small buglet.  When recording from line1 (aux in the
> >current driver), the sound sometimes sounds very tinny and scratchy.  I
> >can fix this by muting/unmuting the CD and adjusting the CD volume.
> >Yes, the CD slider in alsamixer.  Not the Aux one or the Capture one or
> >the DAC one.  The CD one.  Weird, huh?  I've tried playing with all the
> >other sliders and they do not affect the recording quality.
> >  
> >
> This is a known problem (at least forme). When you unmute the CD volume
> the soundcard amplifier is turned off, and at least for the Hercules 
> Game Theater XP card
> this makes no good.
> This thing could be easily fixed.

Is the amplifier the IEC 958?  (it now shows up in the mixer with the
new DSP code)

So I'm using 0.90pre3 right now with the new DSP code, and it does
something different-strange.  When I first insert the module everything
sounds great, but if I unmute the IEC958, I get a constant tone in my
speakers (~3 kHz, I'm guessing) and anything which tries to play PCM
audio just hangs.

It was not this way on bootup.  I think the card got into some bad
state.  I tried inserting both the alsa and oss drivers to try to reset
the card, but to no avail.

Also it seems like every mixer element is duplicated in alsamixer, but
you probably know that.

Also I tried the SPDIF in with this new DSP code, and it doesn't seem to
work.  There is an 'Optical/Coaxial SPDIF Input' in alsamixer but I
can't change its levels, only mute it.

And last thing, while the card is in this state, when I record I don't
get the proper audio.  It sounds like tick-tick-tick with a frequency of
about 2 Hz.

Cheers,
-- Bob

Bob McElrath
Univ. of Wisconsin at Madison, Department of Physics

    "The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher
    esteem those who think alike than those who think differently." 
        -- Nietzsche

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Re: cs46xx sound quality and CD volume

[Benny Sjostrand]

>
>
>So I'm using 0.90pre3 right now with the new DSP code, and it does
>something different-strange.  When I first insert the module everything
>sounds great, but if I unmute the IEC958, I get a constant tone in my
>speakers (~3 kHz, I'm guessing) and anything which tries to play PCM
>audio just hangs.
>  
>
That is a problem not related to the "CD Volume" that should be fixed by 
now.
The  "~3 kHz sound" that you are talking about usually happen when
the DSP hangs and it leaves some junk left in the HW FIFO.

I think you should try latest CVS.

/Benny



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Re: cs46xx sound quality and CD volume

[Bob McElrath]

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Benny Sjostrand [gorm@cucumelo.org] wrote:
> That is a problem not related to the "CD Volume" that should be fixed
> by now.  The  "~3 kHz sound" that you are talking about usually happen
> when the DSP hangs and it leaves some junk left in the HW FIFO.
> 
> I think you should try latest CVS.

The latest CVS has the tick-tick-tick recording problem I mentioned
earlier.  No matter what I record, no matter what source, no matter what
mixer settings, all I get is 'tick-tick-tick' in the right channel with
a frequency of 2Hz.  If I turn down the 'Capture' mixer setting the
ticking becomes quieter, but it is not affected by any other mixer
setting.  (I get it with all inputs and outputs muted)

Haven't seen the CVS one do the 3kHz sound thing though.

Benny Sjostrand [gorm@cucumelo.org] wrote:
> >Is the amplifier the IEC 958?  (it now shows up in the mixer with the
> >new DSP code)
> >
> That's not the amplifier, that's the SPDIF input/output control. On the
> Game Theater XP card the amplifier is always turned on (with the
> exception when unmute the CD volume). There is no mixer
> control for this.

No?  That seems odd...

> >Also I tried the SPDIF in with this new DSP code, and it doesn't seem to
> >work.  There is an 'Optical/Coaxial SPDIF Input' in alsamixer but I
> >can't change its levels, only mute it.
> >
> With that control you selects to use Coaxial digital input or Optical
> digital input. Look on the back on your beutiful blue break-out box
> and you will find them -;)

I know where it is!  ;)  I'm saying nothing comes out of my speakers
when I put an input there.  (but the fault may be my input -- so ignore
this complaint for now)

BTW, I tried opening /dev/dsp three times (simultaneously) and it
beautifully plays all three!  Neat!

Also, when trying to do full duplex record/play, the PCM output is
affected by a couple of quick scratches on device open.

Cheers,
-- Bob

Bob McElrath
Univ. of Wisconsin at Madison, Department of Physics

    "The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher
    esteem those who think alike than those who think differently." 
        -- Nietzsche

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Re: cs46xx sound quality and CD volume

[Benny Sjostrand]

>
>
>Is the amplifier the IEC 958?  (it now shows up in the mixer with the
>new DSP code)
>  
>
That's not the amplifier, that's the SPDIF input/output control. On the
Game Theater XP card the amplifier is always turned on (with the
exception when unmute the CD volume). There is no mixer
control for this.

>Also it seems like every mixer element is duplicated in alsamixer, but
>you probably know that.
>  
>
One is for the primary AC97 codec, and the other one for the secondary
AC97 codec. The Game Theater XP got two cs4294 codecs.
That's why many mixer control are duplicated, and probably
some of them may be obsolete. Like microphone and headphone
on the secondary codecs are not wired to anything.

>Also I tried the SPDIF in with this new DSP code, and it doesn't seem to
>work.  There is an 'Optical/Coaxial SPDIF Input' in alsamixer but I
>can't change its levels, only mute it.
>  
>
With that control you selects to use Coaxial digital input or Optical 
digital
input. Look on the back on your beutiful blue break-out box and you
will find them -;)

/Benny



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