Sound Configuration Problems

[phil1349]

I have a Lenovo laptop running Kubuntu 14.04 LTS which I installed on
release and it has been perfect, no problem at all.

One of the many uses of the computer is as my primary means of music
playing via Amarok plugged into the hi-fi system. Again no problem
apart from the connecting cable.

I have recently bought a gizmo consisting of a USB transmitter unit
and a mains powered receiver which is wired into the hi-fi, the
intention being to cut out the connecting cable.

The device is advertised as plug & play and with windoze works
straight out of the box. With Kubuntu all seemed just as simple, as
soon as the dongle is plugged in it is recognised as "USB Speaker
Analogue Stereo". Going into System Settings > Multi-Media >
Audio/Video settings it appears at the bottom of the Device
Preference list so all that should be needed is to promote it to the
top of the list. This I did and on clicking the test button it all
worked and all system notification sounds play through the dongle.

The problem is that all the media playing software such as Amarok,
Kaffeine, Dragon video player etc refuse to talk to it and send their
outputs to internal sound card. I have been into the mixer panel to
ensure all relevant playback streams are enabled but it makes no
difference.

I also have an old laptop I experiment with, that is currently
running Mint 17 and that works out of the box no problem.

It is probably a minor configuration problem but I cannot find it so
if anyone can point me in the right direction I would be grateful.

[Rod J]

Did you check the settings for all the media that you want to play through the USB speaker system? It sounds to me like you might have just changed the settings for Notifications but haven't altered the other categories to suit.

In System Settings/Multimedia/Audio Playback/Music is the device you want to have preference the one at the top? You have to go through all the categories to make the choices you want for each particular sound type.

Please excuse if this is obvious and you already did this ... but you wouldn't be the first person to make this mistake.

[phil1349]

In reply to Rod J's post, I did of course go through all the options under System Settings/Multimedia/Audio Playback to promote USB speaker to the top of the preference list.

Then I tried experimenting. First I un-installed Kmix figuring this was just an extra software layer between the media player & the hardware. This seemed to make no difference but I tried all media players anyway which would not talk to the USB speaker. The last was VLC player which only played through internal audio. I did notice that under Audio/Audio Device on the main menu it was still set to internal audio so I clicked the USB speaker button and it worked ! What is even more amazing is that all the media players which a few seconds previously would not talk to the USB speaker now worked perfectly. I re-installed Kmix, re-started the system and all is still OK.

I would dearly like to know the precise reason for this, I realise that all the media players are just slightly different front ends to the same basic modules/libraries which constitute the backends which actually do all the work, it seems that changing the device in VLC player menu has permanently flipped something so if anyone can explain exactly what has happened I would be most interested.

In reply to Rod J's post, I did of course go through all the options under System Settings/Multimedia/Audio Playback to promote USB speaker to the top of the preference list.

Then I tried experimenting. First I un-installed Kmix figuring this was just an extra software layer between the media player & the hardware. This seemed to make no difference but I tried all media players anyway which would not talk to the USB speaker. The last was VLC player which only played through internal audio. I did notice that under Audio/Audio Device on the main menu it was still set to internal audio so I clicked the USB speaker button and it worked ! What is even more amazing is that all the media players which a few seconds previously would not talk to the USB speaker now worked perfectly. I re-installed Kmix, re-started the system and all is still OK.

I would dearly like to know the precise reason for this, I realise that all the media players are just slightly different front ends to the same basic modules/libraries which constitute the backends which actually do all the work, it seems that changing the device in VLC player menu has permanently flipped something so if anyone can explain exactly what has happened I would be most interested.

[Frank616]

phil1349:

In reply to Rod J's post, I did of course go through all the options under System Settings/Multimedia/Audio Playback to promote USB speaker to the top of the preference list.

I've had similar issues with a similar setup. I have a media PC in my living room, and I send the audio to my home stereo / home theater (Onkyo) amplifier via hdmi. I had to promote the digital output in my nVidia card to the top. But that didn't seem to 'stick' for some reason.

At the suggestion of another member, I installed the Veromix widget, which allows one to dynamically assign the output of a specific program to a specific sound 'sink' in the system, be it digital or analog. That worked, but I had to reset it each time I rebooted.

Recently, I got tired of that, so went back to Phonon, and noticed that my digital card had been 'demoted' for some reason. I put it back at the top, and I have not had to reset it since.

So, is that a result of the continuing improvement to 14.04? Is it due to the use of the Veromix widget? Is it due to sunspot activity? I have no idea. I do know that it is working now as it should.

Frank.