Re: audioquest dragonfly not connecting with alsa

[chris hermansen <clhermansen@xxxxxxxxx>]

John and list;

On Fri, Nov 13, 2020 at 8:28 AM John Covici <covici@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> 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!

Chris Hermansen · clhermansen "at" gmail "dot" com

C'est ma façon de parler.

_______________________________________________
Alsa-user mailing list
Alsa-user@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/alsa-user