distorted sound from external USB sound device

[SilverDirk]

Hi, I recently bought a USB sound device to replace my extremely noisy onboard sound. I dual-boot with windows and it works fine there, and it got detected just fine under linux, but the sound that plays, while slightly recognizable, sounds like some bad sci-fi effect from the '60s.

Code: Select all

lsusb
  Bus 006 Device 006: ID 0d8c:0102 C-Media Electronics, Inc. CM106 Like Sound Device

CM106 doesn't seem to be listed in the alsa soundcard matrix, but its a pretty generic product and usually they just grab some common chip, and its conforms to the USB audio spec (I didn't install any drivers to get it to work in Windows) so I gave it a try. I can see all the channels in alsamixer, and everything looks like it ought to work. But I get distorted sound.

I'm wondering if anyone has had similar trouble, or if anyone knows tips or tricks to get the thing to work.

BTW, alsa does an awesome job of plug-n-play. I can swap out the thing with another USB audio device (turtle beach Audio Advantage SRM) and it works just fine.

The product:
http://www.amazon.com/Sabrent-USB-SND8- ... ref=sr_1_1

Code: Select all

dmesg
  usb 6-1: USB disconnect, address 5
  usb 6-2: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 6
  usb 6-2: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
  input: USB Sound Device         as /class/input/input8
  input: USB HID v1.00 Device [USB Sound Device        ] on usb-0000:00:1d.0-2

aplay -l
  **** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
  card 0: default [USB Sound Device        ], device 0: USB Audio [USB Audio]
    Subdevices: 1/1
    Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

aplay -L
default:CARD=default
    USB Sound Device        , USB Audio
    Default Audio Device
front:CARD=default,DEV=0
    USB Sound Device        , USB Audio
    Front speakers
surround40:CARD=default,DEV=0
    USB Sound Device        , USB Audio
    4.0 Surround output to Front and Rear speakers
surround41:CARD=default,DEV=0
    USB Sound Device        , USB Audio
    4.1 Surround output to Front, Rear and Subwoofer speakers
surround50:CARD=default,DEV=0
    USB Sound Device        , USB Audio
    5.0 Surround output to Front, Center and Rear speakers
surround51:CARD=default,DEV=0
    USB Sound Device        , USB Audio
    5.1 Surround output to Front, Center, Rear and Subwoofer speakers
surround71:CARD=default,DEV=0
    USB Sound Device        , USB Audio
    7.1 Surround output to Front, Center, Side, Rear and Woofer speakers
iec958:CARD=default,DEV=0
    USB Sound Device        , USB Audio
    IEC958 (S/PDIF) Digital Audio Output
null
    Discard all samples (playback) or generate zero samples (capture)

Thanks in advance for any tips
-Mike

[suicidal_orange_II]

Sounds like a sampling rate problem - look into forcing it to either 44100 or 48000kHz depending which it isn't defaulting to. I'm off to work so no time for tips but that should help you find an answer