[pulseaudio-discuss] Delayed muting of studio speakers

Tue Dec 22 19:28:08 UTC 2020

Yeah, I've thought about switching in a different set of speakers, but I
love the way these sound!  I have plenty of other sets of PC speakers, but
the lack of range on my favorite songs makes it hard to bear :-)  I'm sure
I'll give it a try in the fullness of time.

-Chris

On Tue, Dec 22, 2020 at 11:47 AM Matt Feifarek <matt.feifarek at gmail.com>
wrote:

> That'd be something to try; another device plugged into the same analog
> out, see if the muting behavior persists. Perhaps you thought of that
> already?
>
> On Tue, Dec 22, 2020 at 12:45 PM Chris Mayes <cmayes at cmayes.com> wrote:
>
>> Speaking of Spotify, I remembered that I'd selected "quiet" for the
>> volume level under Music Quality:
>>
>> [image: spotify_levels.png]
>>
>> I've switched it to "normal".  This ought to help with the signal level,
>> though I'd still like to find where this minimum signal threshold is being
>> enforced.  It may be in the speakers themselves, especially since the left
>> channel tends to mute before the right.  I've written to the manufacturers,
>> but I've yet to receive a response.
>>
>> I'll see how well the "normal" volume level does at keeping the cutoff at
>> bay.  If I ever do hear from the manufacturer, I'll send an update.
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> -Chris Mayes
>>
>> On Tue, Dec 22, 2020 at 8:57 AM Chris Mayes <cmayes at cmayes.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Thanks for your help, Arun!
>>>
>>> I ran the script, but the before-and-after look nearly identical:
>>>
>>> (base) cmayes at ninja:/home/cmayes/Downloads $ diff pulseaudio-active
>>> pulseaudio-muted
>>> 3,4c3,4
>>> < cmayes      2315  1.8  0.0 4179804 28436 ?       S<sl Dec21  18:02
>>> /usr/bin/pulseaudio --daemonize=no --log-target=journal
>>> < root       32265  0.0  0.0   3284   812 pts/3    S+   08:30   0:00
>>> grep pulseaudio
>>> ---
>>> > cmayes      2315  1.8  0.0 4179804 28436 ?       S<sl Dec21  17:58
>>> /usr/bin/pulseaudio --daemonize=no --log-target=journal
>>> > root       31674  0.0  0.0   3284   812 pts/3    S+   08:29   0:00
>>> grep pulseaudio
>>> 769c769
>>> < !!Script ran on: Tue Dec 22 15:30:16 UTC 2020
>>> ---
>>> > !!Script ran on: Tue Dec 22 15:29:20 UTC 2020
>>>
>>> I'll give it another go when the audio drops out again, but I doubt
>>> it'll be much different.
>>>
>>> It might also be worth noting that it's Spotify (Ubuntu Snap v. 43,
>>> which contains Spotify version 1.1.46.916.g416cacf1) that I'm using when
>>> the sound drops out.  I'll try playing other audio sources to see whether
>>> they work.
>>>
>>> Thanks!
>>>
>>> -Chris Mayes
>>>
>>>
>>> On Mon, Dec 21, 2020 at 7:59 PM Arun Raghavan <arun at arunraghavan.net>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Sat, 19 Dec 2020, at 2:43 PM, Chris Mayes wrote:
>>>> > Hi, everybody!
>>>> >
>>>> > It takes me back to have subscribed via Mailman to an email
>>>> > distribution list.  I'm generally able to solve my issues via
>>>> Googling,
>>>> > but this one's proven tricky.
>>>>
>>>> Welcome back to the past! :)
>>>>
>>>> > I recently bought a pair of KRK Classic 5
>>>> > <https://www.krkmusic.com/Classic> speakers to replace a pair of
>>>> > M-Audio Studiophile AV 40
>>>> > <https://m-audio.com/products/view/studiophile-av-40> speakers that
>>>> had
>>>> > developed a rapid popping noise in the internal amplifier.  The new
>>>> > speakers sound fantastic, but they have an odd spontaneous muting
>>>> > issue, at least as configured.
>>>> >
>>>> > The issue is that the speakers seem to become muted (first one, then
>>>> > the other, usually L->R) after some time of playing without any
>>>> issues.
>>>> >  My provisional solution is to crank the volume past 100%, which
>>>> > un-mutes them (though at an unpleasantly loud volume).  This clears
>>>> up
>>>> > the issue, though it usually happens again a few minutes later once
>>>> > I've brought the volume back to a reasonable level.
>>>> >
>>>> > Based on my Googling, I tried modifying analog-output.conf.common to
>>>> > "ignore" volume.  Here's the PCM block:
>>>> >
>>>> > [Element PCM]
>>>> > switch = on
>>>> > volume = ignore
>>>> > volume-limit = 2.0
>>>> > override-map.1 = all
>>>> > override-map.2 = all-left,all-right
>>>> >
>>>> > Sadly, this didn't seem to make any difference.  What else might I
>>>> try?
>>>> >
>>>> > I have a passing familiarity with audio concepts, and one difference
>>>> > that I noted is that the new speakers have about half of the
>>>> impedance
>>>> > of the old pair (which never had this problem).  Do sound cards use
>>>> > impedance to detect the presence of a device?  It's plugged into
>>>> > line-out (lime green) on an Asus Xonar SE
>>>> > <https://www.asus.com/us/Sound-Cards/Xonar-SE/> (the motherboard
>>>> (Asus
>>>> > PRIME Z390-A) <https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/PRIME-Z390-A/>
>>>> had
>>>> > the same issue).
>>>> >
>>>> > Also, the audio is fed to each speaker separately rather than being
>>>> fed
>>>> > to a single speaker and bridged to the left via speaker cable.  Maybe
>>>> > that's a factor?
>>>> >
>>>> > The brute-force thing would be to just mark the line-out port as
>>>> > "always on" and to skip attempts to detect whether there's a device
>>>> > connected.  Can PulseAudio do this?  More elegant solutions are also
>>>> > warmly welcomed.
>>>>
>>>> This is pretty odd. Could you run the pa-info script (hopefully it's
>>>> packaged in your distribution) when the stream is playing fine vs. when
>>>> it's not playing fine? The idea is to see if any mixer controls or any of
>>>> the stream/sink volumes have actually changed when this happens, or if
>>>> something else is going on lower down in the hardware.
>>>>
>>>> -- Arun
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> pulseaudio-discuss mailing list
>>>> pulseaudio-discuss at lists.freedesktop.org
>>>> https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/pulseaudio-discuss
>>>>
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>
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