Fiio E7 usb DAC headphone amplifier

[penguinclaw]

Does anyone else out there have one of these? If you have a good pair of headphones, I would really recommend them.... they are serious hifi!!!! I've had mine for a couple of weeks and the sound is superb.

However there are two issues that would make my enjoyment even better:

1) I have to reload kde to swap between this and my Maudio Soundcard. The usb device is recognised but kde fails to swap....

2) I cannot get any sound with flash..... ie BBCi, Youtube.....

I'm not as bothered about the first issue but raised it in case it was a symptom of the second, which is rather annoying as I watch a lot of BBCi (I'm relying on Windows). Also because of my beloved M-Audio Audiophile soundcard the system uses Alsa and not Pulseaudio (in fact luckily Pclinux defaults to this on installation). Extra info the usb device is a Burr Brown from Texas Instruments.

Any feedback would be really appreciated.

[AS]

Hi penguinclaw,

the thread about setting multiple sound cards should help to solve your issue:
http://www.pclinuxos.com/forum/index.php/topic,93379.msg784450.html#msg784450

AS

[Just18]

Also because of my beloved M-Audio Audiophile soundcard the system uses Alsa and not Pulseaudio

I am puzzled by this .......  as I understand it Pulse is a user-layer on top of Alsa, which gives the user the ability to direct audio streams from specific applications to designated hardware.

[penguinclaw]

Also because of my beloved M-Audio Audiophile soundcard the system uses Alsa and not Pulseaudio

I am puzzled by this .......  as I understand it Pulse is a user-layer on top of Alsa, which gives the user the ability to direct audio streams from specific applications to designated hardware.

From what I can gather it is the unusual setup with the M-audio card. Pulseaudio at best can only see digital output/input and not the analogue that my amplifier needs. I have raised a bug report and although there are work arounds, it doesn't get fixed. I get the feeling, sadly, that Pulseaudio guys hope we'll get bored and buy a different card; but this used to work out of the box, it sounds fantastic so why should I change?

Thank you AS I will try your link

[Just18]

This looks promising .....  maybe some small changes needed for file name/paths  for use on PCLOS


http://www.feeditout.com/2011/05/07/fedora-15-pulseaudio-m-audio-audiophile-2496/

[penguinclaw]

Just19 thanks for your link. This does look interesting and I will give it a go although it seems to me that the guys @ Pclinux seem to default to just Alsa during standard install. My thought is whether this is because of some unforeseen hidden problems with Pclinux setup or maybe they are not aware of this fix, if it fully works!!

I think I will definitely explore this further. I guess this may improve my sound playback with flash, but I won't hold my breath!!

[penguinclaw]

Thanks guys for your help. However I managed to completely muck up my sound following the advice on the links. I remember to back up the scripts that I was to change but when I lost sound, my system wouldn't "restore" to my previous setup I have found, in the past playing with Pulse is like playing with fire...... Anyway I have bitten the bullet and reinstalled..... I have sound through my speakers but same problem as before with the Fiio.

[penguinclaw]

I've just reviewed what I've mentioned above and realised I have forgotten to mention the bug report I had raised:

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=499435

Is there any further input anyone from the Pclinux community provide? I really am quite an amateur with Linux, but if there is any way I could help with tackling of this problem, I would gladly oblige.

[Just18]

What are your results in a terminal when you try the following command?

aplay -D plug:front:0 </path/to/some_wav_file>

Does it work with Pulse enabled and disabled? Don't forget you need to reboot after enabling or disabling Pulse.

In the event of an error please post back the output showing the error report in the terminal.

*****

According to what I read in that bug report there has been a 'workaround' for the problem for some time, which appears to work for those following the bug report.

The 'fix' appears to be to edit the following file (as root) ....

/usr/share/alsa/cards/ICE1712.conf 

The edit involves the insertion of two lines in the file.
I get the impression that these sound cards are already working with Alsa and this fix is for Pulse Audio functionality.

Have you tried this 'fix' on a new install ?

****

Also, I suggest you install  QasMixer  from the repository, and go through the more advanced functions of that package ......  it might throw some light on things, or at least confirm that the cause is the same as the bug report above.

QasMixer also gives you a view of lots of things that are otherwise hidden from the user.


regards.

[penguinclaw]

Thank you for your reply. Your suggestions look really interesting and I will look into them over the weekend. I had not tried the "fix" with PcLinux as Pulseaudio is disabled by default when installing. Maybe I should try this as it may solve the issues of flash and soundcard recognition...

Again thanks for your assistance.

[menotu]

with PcLinux as Pulseaudio is disabled by default when installing

Simple matter of installing task-pulseaudio from Synaptic to enable Pulse.