[LAU] noise with pulseaudio on Delta 66

[Paul Coccoli]

On Mon, Apr 8, 2013 at 6:48 PM, Len Ovens <len at ovenwerks.net> wrote:
> On Mon, April 8, 2013 5:32 am, Paul Coccoli wrote:
> > I've had a Delta 66 PCI audio card for over a decade, and it's always
> > sounded great.  I recently had to transfer it to a new PC with a fresh
> > install of Fedora 17.  Now, when I play anything using  any pulseaudio
> > client, I get a strange digital noise (sort of like static, but almost
> > like
> > aliasing too).
> >
> > This does NOT happen when running jack, as far as I can tell.
> >
> > Aside from disabling or uninstalling pulseaudio, is there anything else I
> > can do?  Does anyone else have this problem?
>
> I also have a d66, but have not had that problem. Running Ubuntu, but that
> shouldn't make a difference.
>
> Are you using spdif for an input? What sample rate do you normally use
> with jack? (pulse defaults to 44100) Does pulse have access to the
> internal card? Are you bridging pulse-jack? or just having problems pulse
> direct the d66?
>

I'm not using any input right now; playback only.  I normally run jack
at 48000.  The internal audio interface is disabled via the BIOS.
pulse and jack share the delta card via whatever mechanism Fedora uses
(I don't know how this works, but jack takes over and all pulse
clients go quiet).

The problem is pulse clients (e.g. banshee, firefox) playing back on
the delta 66.

> Latency should not be a problem with pulse on it's own. The only problem I
> have had with pulse has been with it having interaction between the
> internal audio IF and the d66 when bridging... and with a netbook mic
> which was 48000 only. I have had less problems setting pulse to default at
> 48k.

After figuring out how to change pulseaudio's sample rate (added
"default-sample-rate = 48000" to /etc/pulse/daemon.conf) the problem
*may* have gone away.  It's not happening right now, anyway.

Thanks for the suggestion, Len.