Hi, > > My understanding is that pulseaudio uses alsa for kernel interface and > > that speaker-test uses alsa directly. So if one cannot get speaker-test > > to sound right, it cannot work with pulseaudio. That why I suggest > > workarounds > > in alsa conf (asoundrc). > > I tried several configurations of ~/.asoundrc in these days but nothing > works with "speaker-test". Well some configurations let "aplay" to use > rear-left, rear-right, front-center speakers but "speaker-test" never sends > sound to front-center, rear-left, rear-right and LFE with this command: > [...] > Just now, checking the ALSA configuration in /etc/alsa/conf.d/ I found the > 99-pulse.conf file: > > ~# cat /etc/alsa/conf.d/99-pulse.conf > # PulseAudio alsa plugin configuration file to set the pulseaudio plugin as > # default output for applications using alsa when pulseaudio is running. > [...] > > Does Debian use Pulseaudio daemon as default output for ALSA applications? > Could it be a Pulseaudio misconfiguration? Should I try to uninstall it or > how can I stop Pulseaudio? If I do "killall pulseaudio" it re-spawns > immediately and "systemctl" doesn't work:
My hypothesis: speaker-test outputs directly to ALSA (kernel) but ALSA redirects to pulseaudio (the 99-pulse.conf file) and pulseaudio Output profile is stereo. Therefore, pulseaudio downmixes 5.1 to stereo. That would explain why only front-left and front-right output sound. To confirm, you can either: - move away that 99-pulse.conf file so that speaker-test use directly and only ALSA - configure pulseaudio output profile for surround5.1 (you can use command line $ pacmd set-card-profile 0 output:output:analog-surround-51 or pavucontrol (graphical) > ~# systemctl stop pulseaudio > Failed to stop pulseaudio.service: Unit pulseaudio.service not loaded. pulseaudio is usually a *user* service and socket activated (starts automatically if some app wants to use it). To stop it, the following should work: $ systemctl --user stop pulseaudio.socket # stop the socket to prevent auto start $ systemctl --user stop pulseaudio.service # stop the daemon Cheers, Alex