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Raspbmc and DAC+: confusion between DAC and DAC+

rajah

September 20, 2014 22:21

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Hi,
I would very much welcome some help with the installation of my new Hifiberry DAC+.

I have a Raspberry Pi B+ on which I installed Raspbmc via Noobs.

I have added the DAC+ and followed the instructions by executing rpi-update, getting the kernel updated to the last version, installing alsa-utils, and added the lines on /etc/modules:
snd_soc_bcm2708
bcm2708_dmaengine
snd_soc_hifiberry_dacplus

For good measure I also edited asound.conf as prescribed.

The result is that when I type aplay -l I get the very reassuring message:
**** 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

At this point as far as I understand the process I should be all set. The last step is to activate "External audio cards" in RSBPMC settings and reboot. However as soon as I do that, upon reboot, I get the following by typing aplay -l:
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: sndrpihifiberry [snd_rpi_hifiberry_dac], device 0: HifiBerry DAC HiFi pcm5102a-hifi-0 []
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: sndrpihifiber_1 [snd_rpi_hifiberry_dacplus], device 0: HiFiBerry DAC+ HiFi pcm512x-hifi-0 []
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

So the system apparently thinks there are both a DAC and a DAC+, but when I get to the XBMC audio output options I only have the DAC (snd_rpi_hifiberry_dac) and not the DAC+. Needless to say when I activate the DAC it does not give any sound.

Can anybody help me with this? It seems very close to work but I don't know what to do to fix it.

Thank you very much in advance.

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5 comments

• 0
  
  rajah September 20, 2014 22:25

  Sorry I can see that I missed this which might contain the answers:
  http://www.hifiberry.com/forums/topic/dac-setup-correct/
• 0
  
  rajah September 20, 2014 22:41

  I tested what I could find here:http://www.hifiberry.com/forums/topic/dac-setup-correct/ and mostly here: http://forum.osmc.tv/showthread.php?tid=13681&page=7
  and succesfully deleted the file /lib/modules/3.12.xx/kernel/sound/soc/bcm/snd-soc-hifiberry-dac.ko.
  This solved part of the problem since now aplay -l only shows the dacplus.
  However RSPBMC doesn't show the DAC+ in the audio output (now it shows only the Pi's onboard outputs, despite the option 'external audio cards' being activated in RSPBMC settings).
  Any help would be most welcome.
• 0
  
  HiFiBerry team September 21, 2014 08:39

  Dear Rajah,
  
  I'm not sure what could be the problem here as the DAC itself seems to be configured correctly. Have a look at the DAC and Digi forum. There are already some threats about OpenElec/Raspbmc and XBMC, maybe somebody there has an idea what to do.
  
  Best regards
  Daniel
• 0
  
  rajah September 21, 2014 10:28

  Dear Daniel,
  
  Thank you very much for your answer.
  
  I got the DAC+ working by restarting xbmc once raspbmc has started:
  sudo initctl stop xbmc
  sudo initctl start xbmc
  
  Once this is done it works smoothly (I have a partial problem with the sound which I am going to ask in another post, but it works, including dvdplayer).
  
  However as soon as I reboot the Pi Raspbmc forgets the DAC+ and I have to stop/start xbmc and reselect the card in the settings. Raspbmc setting "Enable external audio cards" doesn't seem to change anything.
  
  I realise this seems to be more of a Raspbmc problem but if anybody has an idea it is most welcome.
  
  Thank you!
• 0
  
  rajah September 21, 2014 11:30

  For other interested users, I posted a thread in the Raspbmc forum in which I repeat the whole installation process:
  http://forum.osmc.tv/showthread.php?tid=15674