On 10/10/2013 12:50 PM, Marc Chamberlin wrote:
On 10/10/13 18:47, Marc Chamberlin wrote:
I opened the alsamixer, and used F6 to select my internal sound chip (HDA Intel PCH) as you suggested. That gives me a bunch of controls, some of which I understand (Master, Headphon) and many which I do not (PCM, PCM Loop, Front, Surround, S/PDIF, S/PDIF D) That said, I tried to figure out what Front and Surround controls are doing, both in the alsamixer konsole and in the YaST2 Sound/Volume Settings and I got some surprising results! If I set the Surround control, in the Alsamixer, all the way down to 0, AND if I set the Surround control in the YaST2 Sound setting to 50 then I am getting sound out of BOTH my left and right speakers, when I use the KMIX test buttons!!! I have no idea what "Surround" means in this context, in YaST2 it almost seems to be some sort of balance control, but in Alsamixer I simply do not grok it's purpose and meaning.
PCM is the audio stream coming from your application, I believe, I consider it analagous to an "input gain" control.
S/PDF and SPDF D are the digital audio out (jack and/or optical)
Front, surround (and possibly Rear, centre, ...) are for controlling 3.1 (or 5.1, ... etc) speaker sets ("surround sound" in the TV/cinema sense.) Your laptop can probably drive 3.1 and 5.1 (external) speakers as well as stereo, and the onboard speakers of course.
Second weirdness, this same non-orthogonal behavior is also demonstrated with the Front controls in the Alsamixer and the YaST2 sound controller, If I change the Front control in the YaST2 sound module, it affects the Alsamixer Front control, but not vice-versa. Also, the Front control in the Alsamixer controls the volume levels of my speakers, just like the Master control does, so I do not grok the purpose of having a separate Front control and it seems very confusing to have to adjust both of these controls in order to get any sound out of my speakers. While changes to the Front control in the YaST2 module does affect sound levels, indirectly, it appears to do so by making the Alsamixer Front control change, it can become confusing if the YaST2 Front controller is set to zero, and the Alsamixer Front control is then changed to 100, i.e. the two tools will then be reporting different control levels for the Front speakers!
Your laptop speakers (and external stereo speakers) are the same chanel as the "Front" speakers in a surround set, so when you only have a stereo pait Front and Master are effectively the same, but when more chanels are used Master controlls the overall level, and Front controls the front pair of speakers relative to the others (surround, rear etc...)
Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5.1 and all should become less muddy
Dylan Dylan - Thanks for the definitions, I do understand 3.1 and 5.1 sound systems. BUT if I am setting up my laptop for stereo then my argument
On 10/10/2013 11:12 AM, Dylan wrote: that having both controls for Master and for Front makes no sense and just causes confusion, especially when one is trying to figure out why they are not getting any sound or sound is not at an expected level. Go back to the days of amplifiers that only supported stereo output, or even look at amplifiers that support surround sound setups. Stereo means two speakers and to multiplex sound into multiple speakers if there are more than two. These amplifiers ONLY have one volume control and perhaps a balance control. Having dual volume controls just doesn't make sense! Software and GUI's can easily adapt to the sound model being chosen and do NOT have to try and super-impose one sound system model onto another. I dunno why anyone would ever want two independent volume controls for a stereo setup especially when both controls are setting volume levels for both speakers and not trying to balance them. And no, in this case Front and Master are not effectively the same, they are independent controls over the volume level, almost as if they are in series. And you cannot even argue that this is a model for an equalizer, it is not, that requires independent volume level (and frequency filters) for each speaker.!
IMHO of course! Marc...
I think sound systems in general in Linux are Phucked and have been for a LONG time. Fist you were lucky to get any sound at all. Then OSS came along and almost worked. Then Alsa came along and pretty much fixed it. When Alsa was finally working, all the mixers and patch panel technology came roaring into the picture and for the most part its been a crap-shoot ever after. Arts, Esound, Jack, Pulse, GStreamer, and none of them are reliable from one version to the next, most of them pretty much beat Alsa into submission instead of using the its capabilities. Look at the wreckage of history: http://linux-sound.org/dsp.html http://www.penguinproducer.com/Blog/2011/12/history-and-clarification-of-lin... 15 different flavors, over three generations, and pretty much all of them are a grab bag of fail. There are probably 6 people in the world that need all of the supposedly marvelous features of Pulse or Jack. Most of us just want the sound on or computer to sound at least as good as Windows. -- _____________________________________ ---This space for rent--- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org