Re: audioquest dragonfly not connecting with alsa

On Fri, 13 Nov 2020 12:11:33 -0500,
chris hermansen wrote:
> 
> [1  <text/plain; UTF-8 (quoted-printable)>]
> John and list;
> 
> On Fri, Nov 13, 2020 at 8:28 AM John Covici <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
> > Hi.  I have a ?Dragonfly Red which is supposed to be a USB dac, and I
> > am unable to connectit with alsa.  Its seen by the system and here is
> > what I get for the card under Alsa:
> >
> >  1 [v10            ]: USB-Audio - AudioQuest DragonFly Red v1.0
> >                        AudioQuest AudioQuest DragonFly Red v1.0 at
> >                        usb-0000:00:14.0-10.2, full speed
> >
> > But if I try to use something like mpv to play anything with commands
> > such as
> >
> > mpv --audio-device=alsa/usbstream, the system comes back with invalid
> > type for card.
> >
> > If I do aplay -l I get for the card:
> >
> > card 1: v10 [AudioQuest DragonFly Red v1.0], device 0: USB Audio [USB
> > Audio]
> >   Subdevices: 1/1
> >
> > So, how would I even designate the device and how would I get alsa to
> > play it -- there is no volume control on the device which makes it
> > even more complicated.
> >
> > Thanks in advance for any suggestions.
> >
> >
> As it happens I have an original DragonFly which works just fine with ALSA.
> 
> With it plugged in, instead of "aplay -l", use "aplay -L"  (also it doesn't
> hurt to do "sudo aplay -L"). In my case I see the following:
> 
> default:CARD=DragonFly
>     AudioQuest DragonFly, USB Audio
>     Default Audio Device
> sysdefault:CARD=DragonFly
>     AudioQuest DragonFly, USB Audio
>     Default Audio Device
> front:CARD=DragonFly,DEV=0
>     AudioQuest DragonFly, USB Audio
>     Front speakers
> surround21:CARD=DragonFly,DEV=0
>     AudioQuest DragonFly, USB Audio
>     2.1 Surround output to Front and Subwoofer speakers
> surround40:CARD=DragonFly,DEV=0
>     AudioQuest DragonFly, USB Audio
>     4.0 Surround output to Front and Rear speakers
> surround41:CARD=DragonFly,DEV=0
>     AudioQuest DragonFly, USB Audio
>     4.1 Surround output to Front, Rear and Subwoofer speakers
> surround50:CARD=DragonFly,DEV=0
>     AudioQuest DragonFly, USB Audio
>     5.0 Surround output to Front, Center and Rear speakers
> surround51:CARD=DragonFly,DEV=0
>     AudioQuest DragonFly, USB Audio
>     5.1 Surround output to Front, Center, Rear and Subwoofer speakers
> surround71:CARD=DragonFly,DEV=0
>     AudioQuest DragonFly, USB Audio
>     7.1 Surround output to Front, Center, Side, Rear and Woofer speakers
> iec958:CARD=DragonFly,DEV=0
>     AudioQuest DragonFly, USB Audio
>     IEC958 (S/PDIF) Digital Audio Output
> dmix:CARD=DragonFly,DEV=0
>     AudioQuest DragonFly, USB Audio
>     Direct sample mixing device
> dsnoop:CARD=DragonFly,DEV=0
>     AudioQuest DragonFly, USB Audio
>     Direct sample snooping device
> hw:CARD=DragonFly,DEV=0
>     AudioQuest DragonFly, USB Audio
>     Direct hardware device without any conversions
> plughw:CARD=DragonFly,DEV=0
>     AudioQuest DragonFly, USB Audio
>     Hardware device with all software conversions
> usbstream:CARD=DragonFly
>     AudioQuest DragonFly
>     USB Stream Output
> 
> In my case, I'm mostly interested in using the DragonFly as a dedicated
> music-playing DAC so I would do the following:
> 
>    1. tell PulseAudio to ignore it (I don't want it to be the system
>    default) - see this article for example
>    https://jamielinux.com/blog/tell-pulseaudio-to-ignore-a-usb-device-using-udev/
>    2. use the plughw:CARD=DragonFly,DEV=0 device for a music player like
>    GogglesMM that talks directly to ALSA, or hw:CARD=DragonFly,DEV=0 for music
>    players like Guayadeque that use gstreamer to talk to the DAC.  This is
>    because, at least in the case of the original DragonFly, it only accepts
>    24bit signals, which you can see if you type:
> 
>    cat /proc/asound/DragonFly/stream0
> 
>    which in my case looks like this:
> 
>    AudioQuest inc. AudioQuest DragonFly at usb-0000:00:14.0-1, full speed :
>    USB Audio
> 
>    Playback:
>      Status: Stop
>      Interface 1
>        Altset 1
>        Format: S24_3LE
>        Channels: 2
>        Endpoint: 1 OUT (ASYNC)
>        Rates: 44100, 48000, 88200, 96000
>        Bits: 24
>        Channel map: FL FR
> 
> I hope this helps!

Thanks for your quick reply.  I would like to use a regular console
player such as mpv or some such to play directly to alsa without pulse
audio, and when I do /proc/asound/card1/stream0 I get much the same as
you.  so, for mpv, they have --audio-device=alsa/ and then they want
the alsa device name, so what can I put there?  Here is my current
/etc/asound.conf .

The second card mentioned in the .conf is another dac which I have,
but I could put a third stanza in there, if I knew what to put.

Thanks.


pcm.!default {
type hw
card
{
@func getenv vars [ ALSACARD ] default 0
}
}

ctl.!default {
type hw
card
{
@func getenv vars [ ALSACARD ] default 0
}

}
pcm.usbmix {
type dmix
ipc_key 1024
ipc_key_add_uid false
ipc_perm 0666
slave {
pcm "hw:1,0"
}
}

-- 
Your life is like a penny.  You're going to lose it.  The question is:
How do
you spend it?

         John Covici wb2una
         [email protected]