Altec Lansing FX5051 USB Speakers

From: Jeremy Nickurak <alsa-devel@rifetech.com>
To: alsa-devel@alsa-project.org
Subject: Altec Lansing FX5051 USB Speakers
Date: Thu, 17 Jul 2008 18:53:37 -0600	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <20080718005336.GA6753@atrus.rifetech.com> (raw)

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It's been about 7 months since I last brought this up, and didn't really 
get any success at the time, so I thought I'd check and see if anybody 
has any insights again.

About a year ago I posted my original request here for any suggestions 
in getting a set of USB speakers from Altec Lansing, model# FX5051, 
working with ALSA. They're a set of 5.1 speakers with a built in USB 
sound card. Sound does appear to work, but the mixer is locked at 100%. 
There is no analog manual mixer, and the digital control dial exhibits 
the same problem as alsamixer, so I have to find a way to adjust the usb 
device's mixer volume in order to make the speakers usable.

The speakers work fine in Windows XP, without installing any drivers, so 
it would seem that this device is operating based on some standard.

In windows, adjusting the mixer via the digital control dial, or via the 
windows mixer control both result in the LED display moving in sync to 
indicate the new volume setting.

In alsa, adjusting the digital control dial doesn't appear to have any 
effect, other then waking the LED display from its low-light mode. 
Attempting to adjust volume from alsamixer likewise wakes the display 
from low-light mode, but also fails to significantly change the mixer 
setting.  When I say significantly, I mean that the mixer flips between 
about 98% and 100%, when using the Up/Down keys (or PgUp or PgDown). End 
appears to drop the volume to 0%, but Home doesn't restore it.

Pressing the device's 'Power' button also behaves strangely. I can turn 
the device off, but it is turned back on shortly afterward. No usb 
connect/disconnect events appear here, instead, the power button seems 
to function more like a mute.

amixer -c 2 contents yields:

atrus@kedri:~$ amixer -c 2 contents
numid=3,iface=MIXER,name='Tone Control - Bass'
  ; type=INTEGER,access=rw------,values=1,min=0,max=10,step=0
  : values=1
numid=4,iface=MIXER,name='Tone Control - Treble'
  ; type=INTEGER,access=rw------,values=1,min=0,max=10,step=0
  : values=3
numid=1,iface=MIXER,name='PCM Playback Switch'
  ; type=BOOLEAN,access=rw------,values=1
  : values=on
numid=2,iface=MIXER,name='PCM Playback Volume'
  ; type=INTEGER,access=rw---R--,values=2,min=0,max=49,step=0
  : values=48,48
  | dBscale-min=-49.00dB,step=1.00dB,mute=0

I'm attaching the contents of 'lsusb -v'.

Any suggestions would be appreciated, and any requests for further 
information about this device will be accomodated ASAP.

Thanks in advance.

--
Jeremy Nickurak

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