[pulseaudio-discuss] PulseAudio and 5.1 sound

[Ira Snyder]

Hello all. I'm having trouble with 5.1 sound and pulseaudio.

I'm using gentoo ~x86, and PA 0.9.7. I have an Audigy2 ZS soundcard, which uses the emu10k1 driver in ALSA.

I had 5.1 sound working in PA 0.9.6 with the following line in my /etc/pulse/default.pa file:
load-module module-alsa-sink device=surround51 channels=6

Now, with PA 0.9.7, it doesn't recognize the device at all. It gives me the following error message:
ALSA lib control.c:909:(snd_ctl_open_noupdate) Invalid CTL surround51

The output of aplay -L is:
front:CARD=Audigy2,DEV=0
    Audigy 2 ZS [SB0350], ADC Capture/Standard PCM Playback
    Front speakers
rear:CARD=Audigy2,DEV=0
    Audigy 2 ZS [SB0350], ADC Capture/Standard PCM Playback
    Rear speakers
center_lfe:CARD=Audigy2,DEV=0
    Audigy 2 ZS [SB0350], ADC Capture/Standard PCM Playback
    Center and Subwoofer speakers
side:CARD=Audigy2,DEV=0
    Audigy 2 ZS [SB0350], ADC Capture/Standard PCM Playback
    Side speakers
surround40:CARD=Audigy2,DEV=0
    Audigy 2 ZS [SB0350], ADC Capture/Standard PCM Playback
    4.0 Surround output to Front and Rear speakers
surround41:CARD=Audigy2,DEV=0
    Audigy 2 ZS [SB0350], ADC Capture/Standard PCM Playback
    4.1 Surround output to Front, Rear and Subwoofer speakers
surround50:CARD=Audigy2,DEV=0
    Audigy 2 ZS [SB0350], ADC Capture/Standard PCM Playback
    5.0 Surround output to Front, Center and Rear speakers
surround51:CARD=Audigy2,DEV=0
    Audigy 2 ZS [SB0350], ADC Capture/Standard PCM Playback
    5.1 Surround output to Front, Center, Rear and Subwoofer speakers
surround71:CARD=Audigy2,DEV=0
    Audigy 2 ZS [SB0350], ADC Capture/Standard PCM Playback
    7.1 Surround output to Front, Center, Side, Rear and Woofer speakers
iec958:CARD=Audigy2,DEV=0
    Audigy 2 ZS [SB0350], ADC Capture/Standard PCM Playback
    IEC958 (S/PDIF) Digital Audio Output
null
    Discard all samples (playback) or generate zero samples (capture)


That output is how I chose to use device=surround51 in my PA 0.9.6 configuration.

I have tried many other things for the device= parameter, but none seem to work. They either give me the above error, or "Device ... doesn't support 6 channels, changed to 2"

I tried:
hw:0
hw:0,3        (see below)
surround51
plug:surround51

I tried hw:0,3 because /proc/asound/pcm gives me the following output:
00-04: p16v : p16v : playback 1 : capture 1
00-03: emu10k1 : Multichannel Playback : playback 1
00-02: emu10k1 efx : Multichannel Capture/PT Playback : playback 8 : capture 1
00-01: emu10k1 mic : Mic Capture : capture 1
00-00: emu10k1 : ADC Capture/Standard PCM Playback : playback 32 :
capture 1


However, 6 channel sound with plain ALSA is working, as it has been for a long time. I confirmed this by running "speaker-test -Dsurround51 -c6 -l1 -twav" which works wonderfully. I can also use "-Dplug:surround51" and it gives me the same, working 5.1 sound.

So, my question is: why can't pulseaudio open the "surround51" device?

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Ira

-- 
Ira Walter Snyder
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