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DAC+ green led flashing but no sound

ronald

November 05, 2014 10:11

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Hi all,

Just received my hifiberry DAC+ , tried several hours but was not able to get sound (total silence).

Contents of /etc/modules:
snd_soc_bcm2708
bcm2708_dmaengine
snd_soc_hifiberry_dacplus

Removed all blacklisted audio related modules in files in /etc/modprobe.d/

Updated raspbian (apt-get update && apt-get upgrade) and run rpi-update
rebooted

root@raspberrypi:~# aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: sndrpihifiberry [snd_rpi_hifiberry_dacplus], device 0: HiFiBerry DAC+ HiFi pcm512x-hifi-0 []
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
root@raspberrypi:~#

Used alsamixer to set playback volume to 100

Now when playing a wav file:
aplay sin1000_48khz.wav

During playback the green led on the DAC+ is flashing but no sound from the analog stereo RCA outputs (total silence).

Is my DAC+ defective of am I forgetting something?

Thanks in advance.

Regards.

Ronald

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15 comments

• 0
  
  ronald November 05, 2014 14:58

  Content of /etc/asound.conf:
  
  pcm.!default {
  type hw card 0
  }
  ctl.!default {
  type hw card 0
  }
  
  
• 0
  
  HiFiBerry team November 05, 2014 14:59

  Dear Ronald,
  
  in general it looks ok. However the LED should not flash. During playback it should be on all the time. Please use our test image to make sure the hardware works correctly:
  http://www.hifiberry.com/guides/sd-card-images/
  
  BTW: We have heard of issues from users that installed Raspbian from NOOBS. If you did this, please use a native Rasbian installation.
  
  Best regards
  
  Daniel
  
• 0
  
  ronald November 06, 2014 08:29

  Thanks for pointing me to the testimage Daniel :-)
  
  With the test image I have sound, so at least now I know the DAC is fine :-)
  
  I was mistaken about the flashing by the way, the green led is not flashing, it is lit constantly while playing a audio file.
  
  Now I still have to figure out whty I have no sound in my raspbian installation. Could it be that somehow the hardware volume control is muted?
  
  Ronald
• 0
  
  HiFiBerry team November 06, 2014 09:02

  Yes, volume can be a reason for this. Check the output of "amixer"
  
  Best regards
  Daniel
• 0
  
  ronald November 06, 2014 09:17

  This is the output of amixer...
  
  root@raspberrypi:~# amixer
  Simple mixer control 'DSP Program',0
  Capabilities: enum
  Items: 'FIR interpolation with de-emphasis' 'Low latency IIR with de-emphasis' 'High attenuation with de-emphasis' 'Ringing-less low latency FIR'
  Item0: 'Ringing-less low latency FIR'
  Simple mixer control 'Playback Digital',0
  Capabilities: volume pswitch penum
  Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
  Capture channels: Front Left - Front Right
  Limits: 40 - 255
  Front Left: 255 [100%] [4.00dB] Playback [on]
  Front Right: 255 [100%] [4.00dB] Playback [on]
  Simple mixer control 'Auto Mute',0
  Capabilities: pswitch penum
  Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
  Mono:
  Front Left: Playback [on]
  Front Right: Playback [on]
  Simple mixer control 'Auto Mute Mono',0
  Capabilities: pswitch pswitch-joined penum
  Playback channels: Mono
  Mono: Playback [on]
  Simple mixer control 'Auto Mute Time Left',0
  Capabilities: enum
  Items: '21ms' '106ms' '213ms' '533ms' '1.07s' '2.13s' '5.33s'
  Item0: '21ms'
  Simple mixer control 'Auto Mute Time Right',0
  Capabilities: enum
  Items: '21ms' '106ms' '213ms' '533ms' '1.07s' '2.13s' '5.33s'
  Item0: '21ms'
  Simple mixer control 'Clock Missing Period',0
  Capabilities: enum
  Items: '1s' '2s' '3s' '4s' '5s' '6s' '7s'
  Item0: '1s'
  Simple mixer control 'Deemphasis',0
  Capabilities: pswitch pswitch-joined penum
  Playback channels: Mono
  Mono: Playback [on]
  Simple mixer control 'Volume Ramp Down Emergency Rate',0
  Capabilities: enum
  Items: '1 sample/update' '2 samples/update' '4 samples/update' 'Immediate'
  Item0: '1 sample/update'
  Simple mixer control 'Volume Ramp Down Emergency Step',0
  Capabilities: enum
  Items: '4dB/step' '2dB/step' '1dB/step' '0.5dB/step'
  Item0: '4dB/step'
  Simple mixer control 'Volume Ramp Down Rate',0
  Capabilities: enum
  Items: '1 sample/update' '2 samples/update' '4 samples/update' 'Immediate'
  Item0: '1 sample/update'
  Simple mixer control 'Volume Ramp Down Step',0
  Capabilities: enum
  Items: '4dB/step' '2dB/step' '1dB/step' '0.5dB/step'
  Item0: '1dB/step'
  Simple mixer control 'Volume Ramp Up Rate',0
  Capabilities: enum
  Items: '1 sample/update' '2 samples/update' '4 samples/update' 'Immediate'
  Item0: '1 sample/update'
  Simple mixer control 'Volume Ramp Up Step',0
  Capabilities: enum
  Items: '4dB/step' '2dB/step' '1dB/step' '0.5dB/step'
  Item0: '1dB/step'
  root@raspberrypi:~#
  
• 0
  
  HiFiBerry team November 06, 2014 12:06

  Looks good so far. Do you get any error message when you play back something?
  In general I recommend using mplayer as it usually works much better than aplay.
  
  Best regards
  Daniel
• 0
  
  ronald November 07, 2014 08:31

  No errors at all Daniel, simply playing, but no sound.
  
  I tried mplayer, same thing... Playing but no sound.
  
  Must be something with the drivers then I suppose.
  
  Best regards,
  
  Ronald
• 0
  
  HiFiBerry team November 07, 2014 16:03

  Do you use a plain Rasbian or Rasbian installed from NOOBS? Some people already noted, that there is a problem with the noobs-Rasbian.
  
  Did you test the connection to your amplifier with our test image already?
  http://www.hifiberry.com/guides/sd-card-images/
  
  Best regards
  Daniel
• 0
  
  ronald November 07, 2014 19:21

  I am using plain Raspbian :-)
  
  Yes, connection to the amp is fine, using the testimage I do have sound.
  
  Ronald
• 0
  
  HiFiBerry team November 07, 2014 22:41

  What is the output of mplayer?
• 0
  
  ronald November 08, 2014 09:48

  Hi Daniel,
  
  This is the output of mplayer:
  
  
  root@raspberrypi:~# mplayer sin1000_48khz.wav
  MPlayer svn r34540 (Debian), built with gcc-4.6 (C) 2000-2012 MPlayer Team
  mplayer: could not connect to socket
  mplayer: No such file or directory
  Failed to open LIRC support. You will not be able to use your remote control.
  
  Playing sin1000_48khz.wav.
  libavformat version 53.21.1 (external)
  Mismatching header version 53.19.0
  Audio only file format detected.
  Load subtitles in ./
  ==========================================================================
  Opening audio decoder: [pcm] Uncompressed PCM audio decoder
  AUDIO: 48000 Hz, 2 ch, s16le, 1536.0 kbit/100.00% (ratio: 192000->192000)
  Selected audio codec: [pcm] afm: pcm (Uncompressed PCM)
  ==========================================================================
  AO: [pulse] Init failed: Connection refused
  Failed to initialize audio driver 'pulse'
  AO: [alsa] 48000Hz 2ch s16le (2 bytes per sample)
  Video: no video
  Starting playback...
  A: 19.8 (19.7) of 30.0 (30.0) 0.6%
  
  
  
• 0
  
  HiFiBerry team November 08, 2014 15:16

  Unfortunately I have no idea why it is not playing. In general it looks good.
  You can try to use sox to create a test tone:
  
  apt-get install sox
  play -n synth sine 1000
  
  Does this work?
  
  Best regards
  Daniel
• 0
  
  ronald November 09, 2014 21:55

  Does not work either... But its ok, just tried latest volumio image and then I do have sound :-)
  
  So I will use that distro as a base for now for my experiments.
  
  Thanks for you help!
  
  Best regards,
  
  Ronald
• 0
  
  ronald November 11, 2014 08:50

  For the record: I reinstalled raspbian and have sound now in raspbian as well... No idea why it did not work before...
  
  Regards,
  
  Ronald
• 0
  
  HiFiBerry team November 11, 2014 10:32

  Thanks for the feedback.
  
  Daniel