USB DAC: No Sound

pmac · June 21, 2014, 5:40pm

Running Volumio 1.4 on Raspberry pi, with a Muse Audio mini USB DAC (PCM2704-based), the DAC shows up as “DAC” and is selectable, but when I play no sound comes out. It works fine as a DAC connected to my Mac…Any suggestions? Here’s what aplay -l says:

root@volumio:/home/volumio# aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: DAC [USB Audio DAC], device 0: USB Audio [USB Audio]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: ALSA [bcm2835 ALSA], device 0: bcm2835 ALSA [bcm2835 ALSA]
Subdevices: 8/8
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
Subdevice #1: subdevice #1
Subdevice #2: subdevice #2
Subdevice #3: subdevice #3
Subdevice #4: subdevice #4
Subdevice #5: subdevice #5
Subdevice #6: subdevice #6
Subdevice #7: subdevice #7

cmh714 · June 21, 2014, 6:19pm

So I had this issue on Rune using an AudioQuest DragonFly and when I figured it out finally I accidentally blew my woofers so make sure when your jacking with this you pay attention. Of course the foam was dry and brittle but I definitely blew it when I got volume working. Now having said that, I just flashed Volumio and seem to be having the same issue, but I need to test it in another stereo.

The fix was messing around with mpd.conf check the man page on the internet for more options.

This is what I have on the Rune working extremely well.
audio_output {

	 type 		"alsa"
	 name 		"DragonFly"
	 device 	"hw:0,0"
	 mixer_control 	"PCM"
	 mixer_device 	"hw:0"
	 mixer_index 	"0"
	 dsd_usb 	"yes"
	 replay_gain_handler	"none"

}

cmh714 · June 21, 2014, 7:37pm

Actually that was the wrong config…here is what I have working and I edited it by hand not through UI since that defaults back to the templates

###################################

Auto generated mpd.conf file

please DO NOT edit it manually!

Use RuneUI MPD config section

###################################

follow_outside_symlinks “yes”
follow_inside_symlinks “yes”
db_file “/var/lib/mpd/mpd.db”
log_file “/var/log/runeaudio/mpd.log”
pid_file “/var/run/mpd/pid”
music_directory “/mnt/MPD”
playlist_directory “/var/lib/mpd/playlists”
state_file “/var/lib/mpd/mpdstate”
user “mpd”
bind_to_address “any”
port “6600”
log_level “default”
zeroconf_enabled “yes”
zeroconf_name “runeaudio”
volume_normalization “no”
audio_buffer_size “2048”
buffer_before_play “0%”
filesystem_charset “UTF-8”
id3v1_encoding “UTF-8”
gapless_mp3_playback “yes”
auto_update “no”
#mixer_type “disabled” none,hardware,software
mixer_type “disabled”
max_connections “20”

decoder {
plugin “ffmpeg”
enabled “no”
}

input {
plugin “curl”
}

audio_output {
enabled “yes”
type “alsa”
name “AudioQuest DragonFly”
device “hw:DragonFly”
#device “hw:0,0”
dsd_usb “yes”
mixer_control “PCM”
mixer_device “hw:0”
mixer_index “0”
replay_gain_handler “mixer”
}

audio_output {
enabled “no”
type “alsa”
device “hw:1,0”
name “AnalogJack/HDMI”

cmh714 · June 21, 2014, 11:26pm

Ok, got it working in Volumio, has some clicks and junk that I need to figure out but overall its working as expected.

root@volumio:/etc# cat mpd.conf
###################################

Auto generated mpd.conf file

please DO NOT edit it manually!

Use player-UI MPD config section

###################################

follow_outside_symlinks “yes”
follow_inside_symlinks “yes”
db_file “/var/lib/mpd/tag_cache”
sticker_file “/var/lib/mpd/sticker.sql”
log_file “/var/log/mpd/mpd.log”
pid_file “/var/run/mpd/pid”
music_directory “/var/lib/mpd/music”
playlist_directory “/var/lib/mpd/playlists”
state_file “/var/lib/mpd/state”
user “mpd”
bind_to_address “any”
port “6600”
zeroconf_enabled “yes”
zeroconf_name “volumio”
samplerate_converter “Fastest Sinc Interpolator”
volume_normalization “no”
audio_buffer_size “4096”
buffer_before_play “20%”
filesystem_charset “UTF-8”
id3v1_encoding “UTF-8”
gapless_mp3_playback “yes”
auto_update “no”
mixer_type “disabled”
group “audio”
max_connections “20”

decoder {
plugin “ffmpeg”
enabled “no”
}

input {
plugin “curl”
}

audio_output {
enabled “yes”
type “alsa”
name “AudioQuest DragonFly”
device “hw:DragonFly”
#device “hw:0,0”
dsd_usb “yes”
mixer_type “hardware”
mixer_control “PCM”
#mixer_device “hw:0”
mixer_device “hw:DragonFly”
mixer_index “0”
replay_gain_handler “mixer”
}

audio_output {
enabled “no”
type “alsa”
device “hw:1,0”
name “AnalogJack/HDMI”
}

pmac · June 22, 2014, 5:56pm

Thanks, that worked!

I investigated a bit more, going back to what volumio writes into mpd.conf, and then adding:
enabled “yes”
to it, plus I changed the name to “muse”, followed by the same section you had for the built-in audio, including enabled “no”. That’s working also, so I think there was a problem with it deciding that the built-in audio was the one to use, even though it wasn’t specified in mpd.conf (or at least that’s my guess). Maybe after I get tired of listening to music I’ll take out the section for the built-in audio and see if it still works with just the enabled “yes” added…

cmh714 · June 22, 2014, 10:54pm

Sweet glad you could get it working.

dannykap · June 24, 2014, 10:48pm

I seem to be having a similar problem. I have a PCM 2704 DAC and can get no sound out of it in version 1.4 (it worked fine with 1.2). I have tried making similar edits to mpd.conf to those posted above, but no luck so far. The audio out jack on the pi works fine when I choose ALSA as the playback option. Can anyone suggest how I might get this to work?

kai41314 · June 25, 2014, 11:31am

I have a similar issue with my ARCAM rDac.

Please let me know how to modify mpd.conf to make it to work. Please see the outcome of aplay -l:

card 0: DAC [ARCAM DAC], device 0: USB Audio [USB Audio]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: ALSA [bcm2835 ALSA], device 0: bcm2835 ALSA [bcm2835 ALSA]
Subdevices: 8/8
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
Subdevice #1: subdevice #1
Subdevice #2: subdevice #2
Subdevice #3: subdevice #3
Subdevice #4: subdevice #4
Subdevice #5: subdevice #5
Subdevice #6: subdevice #6
Subdevice #7: subdevice #7

cmh714 · June 25, 2014, 6:00pm

your dac is device 0 so you can use the hw:0,0 line or edit what I have to match your device name which in your case is DAC

thats all I can suggest, other than staring at the man page for mpd.conf like I did forever

Ulric · July 24, 2014, 7:58pm

Same DAC same problem as Dsnny. Have tried scripts above but no joy. Volumio shows streamed music being played, but no sound. DAC recognised OK at boot. Guess I may end up going back to OPENELEC but I wanted to compare with Volumio. If anybody gets there please post

jens.w · September 18, 2014, 3:37pm

I got this working by just switching back and forth between the Dragonfly and the ALSA output. Also to note is that the volume inside volumio when I switched to my DragonFly was set to almost zero. This is actually a good safety feature, as it would probably have killed my speakers had it started to play on full volume from the start.