Must be since I just remembered to try aplay with a capital L and you notice that nothing other then the basic info shows up. Strange that Pulse works at all but then again I am just a end user and don't know how stuff works #aplay -L null Discard all samples (playback) or generate zero samples (capture) default:CARD=Intel HDA Intel, ALC889 Analog Default Audio Device front:CARD=Intel,DEV=0 HDA Intel, ALC889 Analog Front speakers surround40:CARD=Intel,DEV=0 HDA Intel, ALC889 Analog 4.0 Surround output to Front and Rear speakers surround41:CARD=Intel,DEV=0 HDA Intel, ALC889 Analog 4.1 Surround output to Front, Rear and Subwoofer speakers surround50:CARD=Intel,DEV=0 HDA Intel, ALC889 Analog 5.0 Surround output to Front, Center and Rear speakers surround51:CARD=Intel,DEV=0 HDA Intel, ALC889 Analog 5.1 Surround output to Front, Center, Rear and Subwoofer speakers surround71:CARD=Intel,DEV=0 HDA Intel, ALC889 Analog 7.1 Surround output to Front, Center, Side, Rear and Woofer speakers iec958:CARD=Intel,DEV=0 HDA Intel, ALC889 Digital IEC958 (S/PDIF) Digital Audio Output hdmi:CARD=NVidia HDA NVidia, NVIDIA HDMI HDMI Audio Output