Re: [Alsa-user] USB soundcard advice
Good to hear that you also think it's a good pick. It would have been perfect if M Audio itself made it possible to update firmwe regardless of the os one uses, but I guess there not the only manufacturer out there that is not that visionary. Anyway, I'll order one and will start using it when I'm back home. If I'll bump into any problems I know where to turn for help. Thanks for your replies! -- Let Crystal Reports handle the reporting - Free Crystal Reports 2008 30-Day trial. Simplify your report design, integration and deployment - and focus on what you do best, core application coding. Discover what's new with Crystal Reports now. http://p.sf.net/sfu/bobj-july ___ Alsa-user mailing list Alsa-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/alsa-user
Re: [Alsa-user] USB soundcard advice
On Mon, 2 Nov 2009 20:42:48 +0100 Y.A. Bolawy bol...@gmail.com wrote: I'm a typical end user I'm afraid, so the card I'll get should run out of the box if at all possible. It'd be great if it would be from a manufacturer that is more or less open source friendly or at least alsa project friendly, so I can vote with my feet. I use an M-Audio Transit USB. 24 bit 96kHz. They say 100dB SNR, but it's nearer 90dB in reality. Has optical in and out, and analogue in and out on 3.5mm jacks. (Analogue and digital inputs share an aperture, so cannot be used simultaneously.) The device uses a non-standard DFU system for uploading its firmware, however there is a free open-source tool for doing this (madfuload), and at least Ubuntu has udev rules to automatically do this on insertion. Works a treat both ALSA straight, and through various extra layers of guff, like PulseAudio. Have successfully captured and played back 24 bit 96kHz and 24 bit 88.2kHz too, as well as the more normal combinations. Highly recommended. -- Rob Kendrick, Support Team Lead Simtec Electronics Telephone: +44 (0)1772 978013 Avondale Drive, Tarleton Fax: +44 (0)1772 816426 Preston, Lancs, PR4 6AX, UK http://www.simtec.co.uk/ mailto:r...@simtec.co.uk -- Let Crystal Reports handle the reporting - Free Crystal Reports 2008 30-Day trial. Simplify your report design, integration and deployment - and focus on what you do best, core application coding. Discover what's new with Crystal Reports now. http://p.sf.net/sfu/bobj-july ___ Alsa-user mailing list Alsa-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/alsa-user
Re: [Alsa-user] USB soundcard advice
On Mon, 2 Nov 2009 20:42:48 +0100 Y.A. Bolawy bol...@gmail.com wrote: Hi all, I'd like some advice on a USB soundcard. The reason for getting one is that I'd like to have good quality sound on all the computers I use or will use. The quality should be good enough to allow speech recognition. Of course, that is possible to some extend with any soundcard, but if the quality is low it has a big impact. Unfortunately, the better the quality of the cards, the less standard compliance they seem to be. At least that seems to be the underlying message of everything I've read so far. USB Audio is a standard. As long as the box says class compliant, it should work out of the box in linux. Only one caveat though as it wont default to card 0 and be your default card. Since you probably have a motherboard with onboard sound. Configure accordingly. I have a USB M-Audio Mobile Pre and it works fine. Although web browsers don't seem to use it properly even though I have it configured to card 0. I've never had a problem recording from it though. Not really the best audio option, but loads better than most stock soundcards. HTH, James -- Come build with us! The BlackBerry(R) Developer Conference in SF, CA is the only developer event you need to attend this year. Jumpstart your developing skills, take BlackBerry mobile applications to market and stay ahead of the curve. Join us from November 9 - 12, 2009. Register now! http://p.sf.net/sfu/devconference ___ Alsa-user mailing list Alsa-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/alsa-user
Re: [Alsa-user] USB soundcard advice
I got 2 usb sound cards, one is a 5.1 and work with the new .31 kernel out of the box (even 5.1 spdif trought the optical out), it's a generic chineese sound card with CMI chipset, I bougth for my Home Theater. Search for USB external 5.1 sound card on ebay, it's a blue or orange little case. like this http://cgi.ebay.com/USB-6-Channel-5-1-External-Sound-Audio-Card-PC-Laptop_W0QQitemZ300361484591QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item45eef0892f#ht_3251wt_968 And I purchased an UCA-202 (the best snd card for this price) for my 2 speaker stereo, it's flawless and sound is much better than any pci snd card or onboard i've listened. The only problem with linux is 96khz / 24bit support, but if you stay with 16bit/44khz I don't think you will be in trouble. ___ Fabrício Nihues 2009/11/3 Felix Pfeifer pfeifer.fe...@googlemail.com Hi, USB Audio is a standard. Sadly this is only true for usb 1.x. Most usb 2.0 audiocards don't work under linux. I am not sure if there is even 1 ^^ (Edirol ua101's playback is glitchy) Felix 2009/11/3 James Shatto shado...@earthlink.net: On Mon, 2 Nov 2009 20:42:48 +0100 Y.A. Bolawy bol...@gmail.com wrote: Hi all, I'd like some advice on a USB soundcard. The reason for getting one is that I'd like to have good quality sound on all the computers I use or will use. The quality should be good enough to allow speech recognition. Of course, that is possible to some extend with any soundcard, but if the quality is low it has a big impact. Unfortunately, the better the quality of the cards, the less standard compliance they seem to be. At least that seems to be the underlying message of everything I've read so far. USB Audio is a standard. As long as the box says class compliant, it should work out of the box in linux. Only one caveat though as it wont default to card 0 and be your default card. Since you probably have a motherboard with onboard sound. Configure accordingly. I have a USB M-Audio Mobile Pre and it works fine. Although web browsers don't seem to use it properly even though I have it configured to card 0. I've never had a problem recording from it though. Not really the best audio option, but loads better than most stock soundcards. HTH, James -- Come build with us! The BlackBerry(R) Developer Conference in SF, CA is the only developer event you need to attend this year. Jumpstart your developing skills, take BlackBerry mobile applications to market and stay ahead of the curve. Join us from November 9 - 12, 2009. Register now! http://p.sf.net/sfu/devconference ___ Alsa-user mailing list Alsa-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/alsa-user -- Come build with us! The BlackBerry(R) Developer Conference in SF, CA is the only developer event you need to attend this year. Jumpstart your developing skills, take BlackBerry mobile applications to market and stay ahead of the curve. Join us from November 9 - 12, 2009. Register now! http://p.sf.net/sfu/devconference ___ Alsa-user mailing list Alsa-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/alsa-user -- Come build with us! The BlackBerry(R) Developer Conference in SF, CA is the only developer event you need to attend this year. Jumpstart your developing skills, take BlackBerry mobile applications to market and stay ahead of the curve. Join us from November 9 - 12, 2009. Register now! http://p.sf.net/sfu/devconference___ Alsa-user mailing list Alsa-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/alsa-user
Re: [Alsa-user] USB soundcard advice
I have one of those. You can find a US vendor on ebay if you look at all the ads. It uses a C-Media chip. Not the greatest specs, but many usb cards like the Griffin Imic have no specs at all. -Original Message- From: Fabrício Nihues fabricio.nih...@gmail.com Date: Tue, 3 Nov 2009 11:48:47 To: Felix Pfeiferpfeifer.fe...@googlemail.com Cc: alsa-user@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [Alsa-user] USB soundcard advice -- Come build with us! The BlackBerry(R) Developer Conference in SF, CA is the only developer event you need to attend this year. Jumpstart your developing skills, take BlackBerry mobile applications to market and stay ahead of the curve. Join us from November 9 - 12, 2009. Register now! http://p.sf.net/sfu/devconference -- Come build with us! The BlackBerry(R) Developer Conference in SF, CA is the only developer event you need to attend this year. Jumpstart your developing skills, take BlackBerry mobile applications to market and stay ahead of the curve. Join us from November 9 - 12, 2009. Register now! http://p.sf.net/sfu/devconference ___ Alsa-user mailing list Alsa-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/alsa-user
Re: [Alsa-user] USB soundcard advice
Hi there, I own a HiFi USB sound card based on a TI Burr-Brown chip. It worked out of the box with Linux on two of my machines. However, I have bought a new machine and now I still haven't found a way to make it play correctly. After a random amount of time, the sound gets garbled. This is probably an issue with the USB host controller or it's driver. Do you want to use the sound card with a laptop? If so, I would suggest going to the store with your laptop and asking to try out the card before buying. I don't want to scare you away from buying such a device. I have been satisfied with my card until I changed my computer. I *NEVER* heard a on-board or PCI sound card that come close to the sound quality you can get with a good USB one. However, as I explained above there may be some problems, so I think you do your buying decision knowing that things can go wrong. Samuel Selon James Shatto shado...@earthlink.net: On Mon, 2 Nov 2009 20:42:48 +0100 Y.A. Bolawy bol...@gmail.com wrote: Hi all, I'd like some advice on a USB soundcard. The reason for getting one is that I'd like to have good quality sound on all the computers I use or will use. The quality should be good enough to allow speech recognition. Of course, that is possible to some extend with any soundcard, but if the quality is low it has a big impact. Unfortunately, the better the quality of the cards, the less standard compliance they seem to be. At least that seems to be the underlying message of everything I've read so far. USB Audio is a standard. As long as the box says class compliant, it should work out of the box in linux. Only one caveat though as it wont default to card 0 and be your default card. Since you probably have a motherboard with onboard sound. Configure accordingly. I have a USB M-Audio Mobile Pre and it works fine. Although web browsers don't seem to use it properly even though I have it configured to card 0. I've never had a problem recording from it though. Not really the best audio option, but loads better than most stock soundcards. HTH, James -- Come build with us! The BlackBerry(R) Developer Conference in SF, CA is the only developer event you need to attend this year. Jumpstart your developing skills, take BlackBerry mobile applications to market and stay ahead of the curve. Join us from November 9 - 12, 2009. Register now! http://p.sf.net/sfu/devconference ___ Alsa-user mailing list Alsa-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/alsa-user
Re: [Alsa-user] USB soundcard advice
Felix Pfeifer wrote: USB Audio is a standard. Sadly this is only true for usb 1.x. Most usb 2.0 audiocards don't work under linux. The USB Audio 1.0 standard was written for 1.x devices. There are no devices for the new 2.0 revision because Windows doesn't implement it (see http://www.freelists.org/post/wdmaudiodev/Why-would-you-want-USB-Audio-20-in-Windows). I am not sure if there is even 1 ^^ SB Audigy 2 NX Emu 0202/0404/Tracker Pre (probably) (Edirol ua101's playback is glitchy) Somebody was working on this, but I haven't heard from him. Best regards, Clemens -- Come build with us! The BlackBerry(R) Developer Conference in SF, CA is the only developer event you need to attend this year. Jumpstart your developing skills, take BlackBerry mobile applications to market and stay ahead of the curve. Join us from November 9 - 12, 2009. Register now! http://p.sf.net/sfu/devconference ___ Alsa-user mailing list Alsa-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/alsa-user
Re: [Alsa-user] USB soundcard advice
Samuel Gilbert wrote: I own a HiFi USB sound card based on a TI Burr-Brown chip. It worked out of the box with Linux on two of my machines. However, I have bought a new machine and now I still haven't found a way to make it play correctly. After a random amount of time, the sound gets garbled. This is probably an issue with the USB host controller or it's driver. There are known firmware bugs in several TI chips that have this symptom, but that is unlikely to be your problem if it does not occur with your other computers. Do you have CONFIG_USB_EHCI_TT_NEWSCHED enabled? I *NEVER* heard a on-board or PCI sound card that come close to the sound quality you can get with a good USB one. The high-end Xonar cards are definitely better (if overpriced). Best regards, Clemens -- Come build with us! The BlackBerry(R) Developer Conference in SF, CA is the only developer event you need to attend this year. Jumpstart your developing skills, take BlackBerry mobile applications to market and stay ahead of the curve. Join us from November 9 - 12, 2009. Register now! http://p.sf.net/sfu/devconference ___ Alsa-user mailing list Alsa-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/alsa-user
Re: [Alsa-user] USB soundcard advice
Thanks for all replies so far! I'm reading information re all suggestions. Many seem very nice. I will use it with a laptop and I guess there's no need therefore to get a card with fancy features such as xlr or direct monitoring of the inputs. I basically want to be able to use a combination of a good headset and good soundcard capable of achieving the quality needed for speech recognition. I never tried a microphone that requires phantom power/xlr and am unsure if there's any worthwhile improvement. I guess for my purpose USB 1 suffices. A small size would be a nice bonus and the same goes for good quality outputs to connect the card to a stereo. By the way I'm in Europe (mostly nl), so models that are sold and relatively easy to get over here have a strong preference. Thanks again, Bolawy -- Come build with us! The BlackBerry(R) Developer Conference in SF, CA is the only developer event you need to attend this year. Jumpstart your developing skills, take BlackBerry mobile applications to market and stay ahead of the curve. Join us from November 9 - 12, 2009. Register now! http://p.sf.net/sfu/devconference ___ Alsa-user mailing list Alsa-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/alsa-user
Re: [Alsa-user] USB soundcard advice
On Tue, 3 Nov 2009, Y.A. Bolawy wrote: Thanks for all replies so far! I'm reading information re all suggestions. Many seem very nice. I will use it with a laptop and I guess there's no need therefore to get a card with fancy features such as xlr or direct monitoring of the inputs. I basically want to be able to use a combination of a good headset and good soundcard capable of achieving the quality needed for speech recognition. I never tried a microphone that requires phantom power/xlr and am unsure if there's any worthwhile improvement. I guess for my purpose USB 1 suffices. A small size would be a nice bonus and the same goes for good quality outputs to connect the card to a stereo. The USB Transit by Maudio works well and have quite impressive performance. It is pretty basic ( line in and line out, no Mic preamp, 2V phantom power, on the standard inline 3/8 jack input) cheap ($100 Cdn) and small (smaller than a deck of cards and much lighter) See www.theory.physics.ubc.ca/soundcard/soundcard.html for a test. Because of the lack of a mic preamp in the card, putting in a microphone preamp is probably a good idea, as otherwise the mic input tends to be pretty quiet. By the way I'm in Europe (mostly nl), so models that are sold and relatively easy to get over here have a strong preference. No idea what is for sale in the Netherlands. Thanks again, Bolawy -- Come build with us! The BlackBerry(R) Developer Conference in SF, CA is the only developer event you need to attend this year. Jumpstart your developing skills, take BlackBerry mobile applications to market and stay ahead of the curve. Join us from November 9 - 12, 2009. Register now! http://p.sf.net/sfu/devconference ___ Alsa-user mailing list Alsa-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/alsa-user -- William G. Unruh | Canadian Institute for| Tel: +1(604)822-3273 PhysicsAstronomy | Advanced Research | Fax: +1(604)822-5324 UBC, Vancouver,BC | Program in Cosmology | un...@physics.ubc.ca Canada V6T 1Z1 | and Gravity | www.theory.physics.ubc.ca/ -- Come build with us! The BlackBerry(R) Developer Conference in SF, CA is the only developer event you need to attend this year. Jumpstart your developing skills, take BlackBerry mobile applications to market and stay ahead of the curve. Join us from November 9 - 12, 2009. Register now! http://p.sf.net/sfu/devconference ___ Alsa-user mailing list Alsa-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/alsa-user
Re: [Alsa-user] USB soundcard advice
Because of the lack of a mic preamp in the card, putting in a microphone preamp is probably a good idea, as otherwise the mic input tends to be pretty quiet. I assume that that is not necessary if I'd use a pc headset, but only if I would want to use a more advanced mic right. For now I'll use arelatively good quality pc headset. Also I wondered if the additional preamp wouldn't defeat the purpose of choosing a relatively small soundcard? Or are preamps equally small or some of them anyway. Thanks again. B -- Come build with us! The BlackBerry(R) Developer Conference in SF, CA is the only developer event you need to attend this year. Jumpstart your developing skills, take BlackBerry mobile applications to market and stay ahead of the curve. Join us from November 9 - 12, 2009. Register now! http://p.sf.net/sfu/devconference ___ Alsa-user mailing list Alsa-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/alsa-user
Re: [Alsa-user] USB soundcard advice
On Tue, 3 Nov 2009, Y.A. Bolawy wrote: Because of the lack of a mic preamp in the card, putting in a microphone preamp is probably a good idea, as otherwise the mic input tends to be pretty quiet. I assume that that is not necessary if I'd use a pc headset, but only if I would want to use a more advanced mic right. For now I'll use arelatively good quality pc headset. Also I wondered if the additional preamp wouldn't defeat the purpose of choosing a relatively small soundcard? Or are preamps equally small or some of them anyway. Yes, some of them are. I have just built myself one that fit in one of those legendary altoids boxes (those are a brand of UK candies with the box about the size of a deck of cards)-- battery powered. In doing a recording this past summer, I discovered that if I plugged the laptop in, I got a 60Hz humm on all the recordings. It was stupid as the battery had a 4 hr lifetime which was more than enough for the project. Thanks again. B -- Come build with us! The BlackBerry(R) Developer Conference in SF, CA is the only developer event you need to attend this year. Jumpstart your developing skills, take BlackBerry mobile applications to market and stay ahead of the curve. Join us from November 9 - 12, 2009. Register now! http://p.sf.net/sfu/devconference ___ Alsa-user mailing list Alsa-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/alsa-user -- William G. Unruh | Canadian Institute for| Tel: +1(604)822-3273 PhysicsAstronomy | Advanced Research | Fax: +1(604)822-5324 UBC, Vancouver,BC | Program in Cosmology | un...@physics.ubc.ca Canada V6T 1Z1 | and Gravity | www.theory.physics.ubc.ca/ -- Come build with us! The BlackBerry(R) Developer Conference in SF, CA is the only developer event you need to attend this year. Jumpstart your developing skills, take BlackBerry mobile applications to market and stay ahead of the curve. Join us from November 9 - 12, 2009. Register now! http://p.sf.net/sfu/devconference ___ Alsa-user mailing list Alsa-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/alsa-user
Re: [Alsa-user] USB soundcard advice
Hi Clemens and everybody else, I just rebuilt my kernel activating CONFIG_USB_EHCI_TT_NEWSCHED as you suggested and I still get the same problem with the usual messages when the sound is messed-up and I try to play the next song ; [ 758.452549] usb 3-2: amarokapp timed out on ep0out len=0/0 [ 758.452561] ALSA sound/usb/usbaudio.c:1346: 2:1:1: usb_set_interface failed Is there anything else I can try or must I activate the new USN scheduling at runtime? Thank you, Samuel On November 3, 2009 10:24:27 Clemens Ladisch wrote: Samuel Gilbert wrote: I own a HiFi USB sound card based on a TI Burr-Brown chip. It worked out of the box with Linux on two of my machines. However, I have bought a new machine and now I still haven't found a way to make it play correctly. After a random amount of time, the sound gets garbled. This is probably an issue with the USB host controller or it's driver. There are known firmware bugs in several TI chips that have this symptom, but that is unlikely to be your problem if it does not occur with your other computers. Do you have CONFIG_USB_EHCI_TT_NEWSCHED enabled? I *NEVER* heard a on-board or PCI sound card that come close to the sound quality you can get with a good USB one. The high-end Xonar cards are definitely better (if overpriced). Best regards, Clemens -- Come build with us! The BlackBerry(R) Developer Conference in SF, CA is the only developer event you need to attend this year. Jumpstart your developing skills, take BlackBerry mobile applications to market and stay ahead of the curve. Join us from November 9 - 12, 2009. Register now! http://p.sf.net/sfu/devconference ___ Alsa-user mailing list Alsa-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/alsa-user
Re: [Alsa-user] USB soundcard advice
Thanks everyone who shared his thoughts. I think I'll get myself the M Audio transit. It seems to be an expensive deck of cards, but it sounds like the quality is good and I guess it's not easy to achieve that on that scale. For now I'll stick with my pc-headset (sennheiser), which can operate without a preamp as far as I can tell , so I do not have to figure out how to make one of those with my very limited electric s knowledge. Thanks again! B -- Let Crystal Reports handle the reporting - Free Crystal Reports 2008 30-Day trial. Simplify your report design, integration and deployment - and focus on what you do best, core application coding. Discover what's new with Crystal Reports now. http://p.sf.net/sfu/bobj-july ___ Alsa-user mailing list Alsa-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/alsa-user
Re: [Alsa-user] USB soundcard advice
Samuel Gilbert wrote: I just rebuilt my kernel activating CONFIG_USB_EHCI_TT_NEWSCHED as you suggested and I still get the same problem with the usual messages when the sound is messed-up and I try to play the next song ; [ 758.452549] usb 3-2: amarokapp timed out on ep0out len=0/0 [ 758.452561] ALSA sound/usb/usbaudio.c:1346: 2:1:1: usb_set_interface failed This is a bug in the device's firmware. I don't know why only one of your computers triggers it. Best regards, Clemens -- Let Crystal Reports handle the reporting - Free Crystal Reports 2008 30-Day trial. Simplify your report design, integration and deployment - and focus on what you do best, core application coding. Discover what's new with Crystal Reports now. http://p.sf.net/sfu/bobj-july ___ Alsa-user mailing list Alsa-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/alsa-user
[Alsa-user] USB soundcard advice
Hi all, I'd like some advice on a USB soundcard. The reason for getting one is that I'd like to have good quality sound on all the computers I use or will use. The quality should be good enough to allow speech recognition. Of course, that is possible to some extend with any soundcard, but if the quality is low it has a big impact. Unfortunately, the better the quality of the cards, the less standard compliance they seem to be. At least that seems to be the underlying message of everything I've read so far. I'm a typical end user I'm afraid, so the card I'll get should run out of the box if at all possible. It'd be great if it would be from a manufacturer that is more or less open source friendly or at least alsa project friendly, so I can vote with my feet. Thanks! Bolawy -- Come build with us! The BlackBerry(R) Developer Conference in SF, CA is the only developer event you need to attend this year. Jumpstart your developing skills, take BlackBerry mobile applications to market and stay ahead of the curve. Join us from November 9 - 12, 2009. Register now! http://p.sf.net/sfu/devconference ___ Alsa-user mailing list Alsa-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/alsa-user
