Clementine 1.3: no more alsa output card options?

[ghost]

Hello,

with the new Clementine v1.3 , I sadly discovered that we are not able to configure ALSA output card parameters anymore. I fortunately own an audiophile DAC and I used to output streams to "hw:2,0" to avoid resampling. Now this option is gone, while two new options are added ("Sample Rate" and "Minimal Buffer fill"). To me this is a regression. Before it worked well, now high resolution files are downsampled in any case, sounding worse than 44.1KHz ones. This is a pity, since Clementine is by far the best Linux audio player.

Kind Regards Alex

[Sal1950]

@kilobyte , I agree that the fork isn't the best solution, but when faced with the alternative being forced to use proprietary non-open source software the fork looks like a most excellent idea. If we could get back to working out a solution that would make everyone happy that would be best. :1st_place_medal: I'm tired of having to use a obsolete built of both Clementine and it's library, along with an old-crude version of the android remote app.
cent' anni

[kilobyte]

Could someone from the audiophile crowd quote some ALSA device strings you'd want to use? Are these just plain device:subdevice (hw:3.0) or something more?

[tari01]

@kilobyte

In my case it was

[GstEngine] sink=alsasink device="hw:0,3"

I presume in most cases it's hw:d,sd

[kilobyte]

@tari01: and what are that card's subdevices (aplay -L|grep -A1 ^hw:)? aplay -L shows CARD=id instead of numbers these days but they're aliases.

[tari01]

@kilobyte

I'm on a netbook right now, so nothing fancy here, but the subdevices are shown with aplay -L|grep -A1 ^hw:

hw:CARD=Intel,DEV=0 HDA Intel, ALC269VB Analog

hw:CARD=Intel,DEV=3 HDA Intel, HDMI 0

The device is Intel, and it exposes two subdevices: ALC269VB Analog and HDMI 0

[Sal1950]

[sal@localhost ~]$ aplay -L null Discard all samples (playback) or generate zero samples (capture) default:CARD=Intel HDA Intel, ALC889A Analog Default Audio Device sysdefault:CARD=Intel HDA Intel, ALC889A Analog Default Audio Device front:CARD=Intel,DEV=0 HDA Intel, ALC889A Analog Front speakers surround21:CARD=Intel,DEV=0 HDA Intel, ALC889A Analog 2.1 Surround output to Front and Subwoofer speakers surround40:CARD=Intel,DEV=0 HDA Intel, ALC889A Analog 4.0 Surround output to Front and Rear speakers surround41:CARD=Intel,DEV=0 HDA Intel, ALC889A Analog 4.1 Surround output to Front, Rear and Subwoofer speakers surround50:CARD=Intel,DEV=0 HDA Intel, ALC889A Analog 5.0 Surround output to Front, Center and Rear speakers surround51:CARD=Intel,DEV=0 HDA Intel, ALC889A Analog 5.1 Surround output to Front, Center, Rear and Subwoofer speakers surround71:CARD=Intel,DEV=0 HDA Intel, ALC889A Analog 7.1 Surround output to Front, Center, Side, Rear and Woofer speakers iec958:CARD=Intel,DEV=0 HDA Intel, ALC889A Digital IEC958 (S/PDIF) Digital Audio Output [sal@localhost ~]$

[Sal1950]

[sal@localhost ~]$ aplay -l List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 0: ALC889A Analog [ALC889A Analog] Subdevices: 1/1 Subdevice #0: subdevice #0 card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 1: ALC889A Digital [ALC889A Digital] Subdevices: 1/1
Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
[sal@localhost ~]$

[Sal1950]

First 2 posts were my main tower/media server

These 2 are from my laptop just for more data,

[sal@localhost ~]$ aplay -L null Discard all samples (playback) or generate zero samples (capture) default:CARD=Intel HDA Intel, AD1981 Analog Default Audio Device sysdefault:CARD=Intel HDA Intel, AD1981 Analog Default Audio Device front:CARD=Intel,DEV=0 HDA Intel, AD1981 Analog Front speakers surround21:CARD=Intel,DEV=0 HDA Intel, AD1981 Analog 2.1 Surround output to Front and Subwoofer speakers surround40:CARD=Intel,DEV=0 HDA Intel, AD1981 Analog 4.0 Surround output to Front and Rear speakers surround41:CARD=Intel,DEV=0 HDA Intel, AD1981 Analog 4.1 Surround output to Front, Rear and Subwoofer speakers surround50:CARD=Intel,DEV=0 HDA Intel, AD1981 Analog 5.0 Surround output to Front, Center and Rear speakers surround51:CARD=Intel,DEV=0 HDA Intel, AD1981 Analog 5.1 Surround output to Front, Center, Rear and Subwoofer speakers surround71:CARD=Intel,DEV=0 HDA Intel, AD1981 Analog 7.1 Surround output to Front, Center, Side, Rear and Woofer speakers iec958:CARD=Intel,DEV=0 HDA Intel, AD1981 Digital IEC958 (S/PDIF) Digital Audio Output [sal@localhost ~]$

[sal@localhost ~]$ aplay -l List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 0: AD1981 Analog [AD1981 Analog] Subdevices: 1/1 Subdevice #0: subdevice #0 card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 1: AD1981 Digital [AD1981 Digital] Subdevices: 1/1 Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
[sal@localhost ~]$

[jkorten]

Use a comma not a period and you are good.

On Jul 10, 2017 6:38 PM, "Adam Borowski" notifications@github.com wrote:

Could someone from the audiophile crowd quote some ALSA device strings you'd want to use? Are these just plain device:subdevice (hw:3.0) or something more?

— You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/clementine-player/Clementine/issues/5344#issuecomment-314269909, or mute the thread https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AI2x-wBVCxq90khRYZgzIJNUDK2neJyBks5sMqfjgaJpZM4IKzZz .

[Sal1950]

Any chance of progress on this issue? Linux still needing a great player that can output bit perfect streams to outboard DAC's etc. Clementine was the best there was and still hoping something can be worker out.

[kilobyte]

@Sal1950: unless your use case involves multiple sinks (so Clementine's output doesn't go to the default), anything that would be settable can already be done via /etc/asound.conf.

As for me, on the desktop I bought a 1€ USB sound card which works with PulseAudio (so I have no less than 4 cards: built-in (unused), HDMI (neither monitor has speakers), PCI (connected to speakers) and the USB dongle (headphones)), while on laptops and SoCs where PulseAudio breaks I don't have the multiple sinks problem.

Thus, fixing the issue isn't a priority for me (doesn't scratch a personal itch anymore), but it sounds like #6079 should be good enough for you in most cases. You can setup the sinks in /etc/asound.conf then select one via the finder. I haven't actually looked at it, but I guess that unless you have more than one sink per card all should be ok.

[Sal1950]

etc/asound.conf does not exist in my PCLinuxOS build. There is a etc/asound.state which symlinks to var/lib/alsa/asound.state? In any case that wasn't what we were hoping for, a menu choice like existed before 1.3. Not all Linux users are competent at editing files to get their media player to work as desired, myself barely so. How are we ever to attract Windows users if they can't accomplish their needs in the GUI?

asound.txt

[Sal1950]

@treebeard81, This relates to repairing Clementine how?

[dumbassrevealer]

"I don't think we care about "audiophile" things."

Great comment, shows brains and an open mind.

Clementine is a great player which needs support for modern music formats.

My question is this: Why are you deliberately making life difficult for audiophiles from using Clementine? is it some kind of prejudice?

[Sal1950]

Yes it is unfortunate what has happened to Clementine, I'm not sure if it is currently being maintained by anyone? I still love it's UI and ability to sound good in a High Fidelity system. I don't have the knowledge to code myself or I would join the dev team. BUMMER

[tari01]

@dumbassrevealer, @Sal1950:

Nothing's lost: http://www.strawbs.org/

[Sal1950]

@tari01 I've requested PCLinuxOS dev's package this and add it to our repository. TIA

[jkorten]

Thank you Sal1950 and tari01!!!

[dumbassrevealer]

@tari01, @jkorten, @Sal1950

Update: I recommend Strawberry in preference to Clementine. Binaries are available, but I compiled from source on two systems, no issues.

High resolution formats work by ALSA - and the sound is excellent.

Although I haven't tried it, there is support for Tidal and Deezer - I am waiting for Qobuz support.

My final advice, if anyone falls on this thread in future, is to move to Strawberry, and, and I recommend repos managers to include it in preference to Clementine, or offer both.

[Sal1950]

There is now a Strawberry package in the PCLinuxOS repository. I've installed it to a couple of my boxes and it's running perfectly in all. Getting high res streams to my Emotiva DAC up to 192 kbps. Kudos to the coder for the ability to recognized the device automagically. The user no longer has to know the needed commands, etc.

[tari01]

Just a quick note:

Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with @jonaski - the developer behind Strawberry, nor do I know the person in any way.

To all new users of Strawberry: Strawberry does not only give us bit-perfect playback, but also fixes some of Clementine's major other issues. Please, encourage the developer by letting him know you appreciate the effort - I think simply mentioning @jonaski is quite enough. Trust me as a long-time amateur hobbyist developer, it really means a lot when you receive some positive feedback from the community once in a while.

To the Clementine team, as well as the rest of you: The people behind Clementine have done something fantastic: they took Amarok and turned it into a light, beautiful and friendly piece of software for all of us to enjoy, my absolute favourite music player for many years. Strawberry has done the same, building upon the Clementine base - both proving why open-source development is so much superior to all other means of free software distribution.

And finally: Both Amarok and Clementine are heavily featured in web searches and also present in the repositories for nearly all Linux distributions. Strawberry is fairly unknown. If you have a way of spreading the word, help Strawberry take its place next to its ancestors: let people hear about it, and help it get into official repositories.

Thank you Amarok, Clementine and @jonaski

[kilobyte]

It seems wasteful to me to have two nearly-identical music players. There's a massive difference between Amarok and Clementine, but patches between Clementine and Strawberry look mergeable.

[dumbassrevealer]

Good point @tari01 - @jonaski thanks for your excellent work! :-) :-)

@kilobyte, as far as I can gather, this is the reason why: "I don't think we care about "audiophile" things."

@jonaski does, and created Strawberry to cater for our strange desires.

[Sal1950]

@dumbassrevealer, yes for 2 years we begged the developers to reintroduce the code that allowed configuration of Clementine to direct the datastream directly to alsa. Without it the awesome application became useless to Linux audiophiles that had spent large amounts of money on high resolution recordings and the custom DAC's they used to replay them. We were told by @hatstand that our "audiophile things" didn't matter and that a very easily reintroduced bit of functionality would not be forthcoming. :( This was a sad situation from an attitude perspective that left Linux audiophiles without a quality alternative. Since that time I've have to build a total special configured version of PCLinuxOS that still used a older 1.2.3 version of Clementine and it's supporting gstreamer lib's etc for our critical music listeners. A lot of work just to have a version of Clementine that supported the interests of people who cared about high quality music reproduction. Thank You @jonaski for stepping up to help us!

[rijnhard]

I can't take away from all the great work that has been done on Clementine, but I also can't tell you how sad this is (as an audiophile) and on an emotional level to have been so (I'm going to say) naively dismissed. I get the reasoning, but I do believe it's flawed, and as such I have moved to strawberry

[tomachinz]

Ah thanks a bundle, I will checkout Strawberry!

[Stele77]

Just switched fully to Linux, but have used Clementine for many years on Windows before i then used Musicbee for the last years. Thought Clementine was the way to go on Linux too. I am not a super duper Hifi guy, just someone with lossless music and normal quality gear wanting to have control over the playback chain. And I just want to add I am stunned by this arrogance (Dont know a nicer word for it, sorry). When i read about this elsewhere, i could not believe it. But yeah, just stunning.. Without any reasoning, discussion or explantion. Just f..k you. Great spirit never mind social skills. Goodbye.

[bobemoe]

Wow yeah Strawberry FTW! Default config just worked with ALSA! :)

I'm building a minimal embedded system and wanted a decent player without all the bloat of pulse audio and its dependencies.

[Sal1950]

Wow yeah Strawberry FTW! Default config just worked with ALSA! :)

I'm building a minimal embedded system and wanted a decent player without all the bloat of pulse audio and its dependencies.

Yes sad that hatstand chose to take that path and shoot Clementine in the head like that. My favorite Linux distro, PCLinuxOS, dropped Clementine and switched to Strawberry for their default media player some time back now. If you love music, Strawberry's the one to have. ;)

[Bluscream]

@hatstand are you just an UBER troll or are you actually such a big asshole?