getting USB speakers to work

Submitted by reikje on Fri, 2009-06-12 08:32

Forums:

Hi,

I have bought a set of USB speakers (Logitech Z-5) which I cannot get to work with MOC. I managed to get them working in audiacious. I think to get them working in MOC, I have to have the right settings in ~/moc/config. I tried a couple of settings but never got it to work. I assume I need to fill in this value correctly

# ALSA output device
AlsaDevice = default

Anyone can help me to find the right settings?

hiben

Fri, 2009-06-12 09:11

Maybe it would help to know what you did to get them working in adacious.

I assume the speakers are working with an ALSA-driver (and not via OSS) so maybe you
need to define them in your $HOME/.asoundrc (ALSA configuration, the file might not be there yet) to get a name for them (to use with AlsaDevice in the configuration).

Do you have another soundcard in your setup ? Like onboard sound or an additional card ?
In this case it is very likely that one of them is the 'default' device.

The command 'aplay -l' (from ALSA utilities) will list all (ALSA-)cards and devices known to the system.

reikje

Thu, 2009-06-18 16:45

Sorry for the late reply. Here is what aplay -l returns:

**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 0: ALC883 Analog [ALC883 Analog]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 1: ALC883 Digital [ALC883 Digital]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 2: Speakers [Logitech Z-5 Speakers], device 0: USB Audio [USB Audio]
Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

I have onboard sound yes. In adacious I went to Preferences > Audio > Output Plugin Preferences. This brought up a "Alsa Driver Configuration" window. They appear in the dropdown under Audio Device as "Logitech Z-5 Speakers: USB Audio (hw:2,0)"

reikje

Thu, 2009-06-18 16:53

Fixed it. Was exactly what you said. Create ~/.asoundrc then run aplay -l to get the values for card and device. Enter an alias in ~/.asoundrc like:

pcm.logitech {
type hw
card 2
device 0
}

finally in ~/.moc/config use it:

# ALSA mixer device
AlsaMixer = PCM

# ALSA output device
AlsaDevice = logitech

Works like a charm. Thanks a lot.

hiben

Wed, 2009-06-24 20:17

Glad to hear you were successful!

Just out of curiosity: would you recommend these speakers in terms of sound quality / handling ?