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DAC+ and Raspbmc

Brian Ridgway

November 06, 2014 09:04

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I have just received my DAC+ board and tested it successfully with OPENELEC. However I prefer using Raspbmc as it a more open platform. I have followed the setup instructions but the green LED on the DAC+ illuminates briefly on bootup but does not stay on. I can select "snd_rpi_hifiberry_dac Analog" in System settings > Audio output, however 'aplay -l' lists 2 hardware devices:

**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: sndrpihifiberry [snd_rpi_hifiberry_dac], device 0: HifiBerry DAC HiFi pcm5102a-hifi-0 []
Subdevices: 0/1
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

It would seem that the DAC device is being selected rather than the DAC+.

Linux version 3.12.31 (root@raspbmcbb-legacy) (gcc version 4.7.1 20120402 (prerelease) (crosstool-NG 1.15.2) ) #2 PREEMPT Wed Oct 29 09:24:56 UTC 2014

Can anyone help?

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8 comments

• 0
  
  HiFiBerry team November 06, 2014 20:03

  A worksaround for this is deleting the hifiberry_dac module. For some reason raspbmc automatically loads it.
  
  Best regards
  Daniel
• 0
  
  Brian Ridgway November 06, 2014 21:52

  I have tried the workaround you suggested but with no success. I have been looking at modules in: /lib/modules/3.12.31/kernel/sound/soc/bcm
  
  When I rename snd-soc-hifiberry-dac.ko to snd-soc-hifiberry-dac.old and reboot, going to System settings > Audio output shows no DAC available at all.
  
  I have also tried renaming snd-soc-rpi-dac.ko to snd-soc-rpi-dacplus.ko but with no success either.
  
  Am I looking for modules in the correct location?
• 0
  
  HiFiBerry team November 07, 2014 05:36

  What is the output of aplay -l after the reboot?
• 0
  
  Brian Ridgway November 07, 2014 08:45

  pi@raspbmc:~$ 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
  
  No green LED on DAC+ and System settings > Audio output shows no DAC available at all.
• 0
  
  HiFiBerry team November 07, 2014 16:00

  That the green light turned off shows that some process was at least using it after reboot. It is possible the some process is still blocking access to the device. Driver configuration looks ok so far.
  
  Best regards
  Daniel
• 0
  
  Brian Ridgway November 07, 2014 16:51

  Yes you are correct. I have found this: http://forum.osmc.tv/showthread.php?tid=15674&highlight=hifiberry+dac%2B
  on the RASPBMC site. Doing the reconfiguring described does indeed select the DAC+ board and there is audio output.
  
  However there appears to be a level problem in the DAC which results in severe audio overload which can only be resolved by manually reducing the volume in XBMC via remote. This has to be repeated each reboot.
  
  I came across a similar problem with OpenElec 4.1.6 when I did an update. Reverting to 4.1.6 fixed the problem.
  
  Could there be a version/kernel issue with Raspbmc?
  
  Here is my system:
  
  pi@raspbmc:~$ cat /scripts/upd_hist/build_info
  raspbmc-rls-1.0-hardfp-b20130208-u20140926
  
  pi@raspbmc:~$ grep XBMC .xbmc/temp/xbmc.log | head -2
  16:19:49 T:3036750624 NOTICE: Starting XBMC (13.2 Git:20140901-867305b). Platform: ARM Linux 32-bit
  16:19:49 T:3036750624 NOTICE: Using Release XBMC x32 build, compiled Oct 31 2014 by GCC 4.7.1 for ARM Linux 32-bit 3.2.21
  
  pi@raspbmc:~$ uname -a
  Linux raspbmc 3.12.31 #2 PREEMPT Wed Oct 29 09:24:56 UTC 2014 armv6l GNU/Linux
• 0
  
  Brian Ridgway November 07, 2014 22:29

  I have tried a later version of Raspbmc but still have the audio overload problem.
  
  Here are my new system details:
  
  pi@raspbmc:~$ cat /scripts/upd_hist/build_info
  raspbmc-rls-1.0-hardfp-b20141101-u20141101
  
  pi@raspbmc:~$ grep XBMC .xbmc/temp/xbmc.log | head -2
  22:12:35 T:3036812064 NOTICE: Starting XBMC (13.2 Git:20140901-867305b). Platform: ARM Linux 32-bit
  22:12:35 T:3036812064 NOTICE: Using Release XBMC x32 build, compiled Oct 31 2014 by GCC 4.7.1 for ARM Linux 32-bit 3.2.21
  
  pi@raspbmc:~$ uname -a
  Linux raspbmc 3.12.31 #2 PREEMPT Wed Oct 29 09:24:56 UTC 2014 armv6l GNU/Linux
  
• 0
  
  HiFiBerry team November 07, 2014 22:40

  XBMC has a problem with 24bit audio playback. 24bit audio playback has been enabled in a late 3.12 release. It seems, that a fix for this in XBMC is coming. If you need XBMC now, I recommend using the OpenElec 4.1.6 release that we linked.
  
  Best regards
  Daniel