Re: [xine-user] Cracking noise playing Audio CDs on kaffeine/xine
On Mon 30 May 05, 4:40 PM, Paulo M C Aragão <yagpaulo-listas@yahoo.com> said:
> Hi James,
>
> On Mon, May 30, 2005 at 06:13:29PM +0100, James Stembridge wrote:
>
> > > I hear a constant cracking/skipping noise when I play Audio CDs with
> > > kaffeine/xine. I'm using both straight out-of-the-box, installed from
> > > Debian binary packages.
> > >
> > > Some info about my setup:
> > >
> > > OS: Debian Sarge with KDE 3.3.2
> > > Sound driver: sb
> > > Audio system: aRts (libarts1 1.3.2-3)
>
> > Does it still happen when you stop using arts?
>
> Actually I didn't try it. Do you think alsa or OSS might solve the
> problem ?
alsa and oss are kernel land sound drivers that drive your audio hardware.
you either use one or the other. oss is the old (deprecated) driver and
alsa is the "new" (it's been around for awhile) driver. you already have
alsa (more likely) or oss (less likely) enabled.
arts is a user land sound daemon (that i think is associated with kde) that
sits in between the sound drivers (alsa and oss) and your audio programs
(like xmms, sox, audacity, etc).
people like sound daemons because normally, only one program can have access
to hardware resources at a time. so if you're playing an ogg file, any
other program that wants to play a sound won't be able to use audio. a
sound daemon "negotiates" use between two programs that want to play a sound
at the same time.
people don't like sound daemons because they add a level of complexity.
unlike windows, where the sound daemon is part of the kernel, there are a
few sound daemons (arts, esd, maybe some others) and so there's no there's
no standard on how to interact with a sound daemon. a program like xmms
needs to know how to "talk" to each individual sound daemon. the situation
is not unlike the DOS era where a game had to support individual sound
cards. linux sound apps have to know how to interact with the various sound
daemons. some apps know how to talk to all the major sound daemons (xmms)
and some don't (mp3blaster). there are ways around this, (like using
esddsp) but it doesn't always work (quake3 doesn't like esddsp).
james was suggesting to kill arts and see if your sound is any better. this
effectively kills the middleman -- your audio program will interact directly
with the sound hardware instead of needing to interact with another user
land program which in turn will interact with the audio hardware. so:
1. kill arts (i don't know how to do this because i know nothing about
arts. presumably killall -9 artd will work).
2. play a sound. see if it helps.
another thing you may want to try is to make sure your mixer settings are
about 50% - 75% of their maximum setting using a mixer program like xmix,
cam, or nmixer. adjust your speakers appropriately. see if that helps.
also, if you have them, try a different set of speakers. if your speakers
are really old, the cones might be brittle or even cracked which can cause
crackling.
also, wiggle your wires. loose audio connections can also cause crackling.
pete
--
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