[pulseaudio-discuss] pacmd shows wrong sample spec for USB mic? (high-pitched, sped-up input)

[Ryan Lue]

> I’ve got a USB webcam mic that’s not playing well with PulseAudio:
> recordings are high-pitched and sped up (like an Alvin and the Chipmunks album).
> If I manually set PulseAudio’s default sample rate to 16000Hz
> (via `/etc/pulse/daemon.conf`), then it sounds _perfect,_
> but then the sound out of my bluetooth headset (44100kHz) is severely degraded.
> 
> I really don’t know much about how PulseAudio works,
> but it appears that pacmd is reporting the wrong sample spec on the mic,
> and I imagine that’s why it’s not working right:
> 
>     $ pacmd list-sources
>     3 source(s) available.
>       * index: 0
>             ...
>             sample spec: s16le 1ch 48000Hz
>             ...
> 
> At first, I was looking for a way to manually set different sample rates
> on different sinks/sources, but after a lot of failed Googling,
> I’m beginning to suspect it doesn’t work that way?
> So, is it possible to override the sample spec for a given sink/source?
> 
> Or am I way off, and is there another solution to this problem?
> 
> Many thanks,
> Ryan

If this is the wrong place to ask about this, could anyone suggest a
better one? I’ve tried the Unix StackExchange, askUbuntu, and
/r/linuxquestions. I’d really like to be able to get this working, but
I’m a bit overwhelmed trying to understand the PulseAudio system and not
sure where to begin.