Improve sound quality

    Hi Thanks for reading.

    At the moment i have LE installed on desktop pc that uses the asus h110m motherboard. It is a low end board. Also uses 16GB generic ram and the I7-7700 processor

    The audio quality from the alc889 motherboard jacks is fine, Which direction do you think should i move in to get better or audiophile quality sound.

    Perhaps buy a new board with the latest codec which is the alc 1220, or move to external usb dac, that is if LE supports external dacs.

    Is there any hardware that LE works particularly well with?

    What do you think?

    My speaker set up is 2 channel stereo sound.

    Most of my media is multi-channel, and i use LE to downmix to stereo. So i am looking for an external usb dac, or motherboard with onboard codec, which has good stereo perfomance.

    Is there anything that works well with LE. I am concerned as some external dacs require specalist drivers, or an asio driver, as they are usually designed to work on a windows or mac pc, a driver that LE may not have and may hinder performance.

    Have 200 bucks to spend

    Thanks!

    Quote from jack121

    Is there anything that works well with LE. I am concerned as some external dacs require specalist drivers, or an asio driver, as they are usually designed to work on a windows or mac pc, a driver that LE may not have and may hinder performance.

    Standard ASIO works fine with LE. I've tested my Behringer UMC22 on RPi3B+. Connect your speakers balanced for best quality. If you also want to make music, consider to invest more to get an audio interface with bonus software (DAW, plugins etc.).

    Quote from jack121

    So you don't think getting a " higher quality " motherboard and codec is the way to go.

    Correct. Processing speed is no problem, you can play HD audio with an RPi these days.

    Internally a sound card or a USB audio interface (DAC) both offer codecs. LE will select the best one, and transforms from source to target. For stereo, the sampling rate is the most important spec of the codec. The above Behringer UMC22 offers 48kHz sampling rate, but you can go higher with a better audio interface.

    Because audio interfaces for musicians have high sampling rates, low latency and best analog connectivity (balanced output), an audio interface with studio speakers (balanced input) is the best stereo setup you can buy.

    Thanks!

    The only reason i asked is my sister spent 2K on a desktop which she never uses, it has been hanging around for a year so she offered it to me for free just to get rid of it. Has asus rog strix z490f gaming motherboard with supreme fx s1220a codec for audio, and hdmi 1.4b

    But if you still think an external audio solution is better then i will go with that.

    Take what’s been offered. With what you save get yourself an external usb DAC. Something like a Cambridge Audio DAC Magic100. I have one and LE recognises it as a Class 2 USB device straight out of the box. Sound is amazing too.

    Quote from jack121

    Has asus rog strix z490f gaming motherboard with supreme fx s1220a codec for audio, and hdmi 1.4b

    But if you still think an external audio solution is better then i will go with that.

    The codec is optimized for 3D audio to provide a good gaming experience. That's not what you want. Buy the above audio interface. It's a steal for that money.

    Buy studio speakers. They are also called nearfield monitors, because they will sound good on short distance. Studio speakers are usually active (own amp), and have balanced input to reduce electronic noise. If you never had studio speakers, these bad boys will blow you away.

    Here is a short list of good studio speakers:

    • everything from KRK (market leader, they also have white speakers)
    • JBL 3 Series (best value for the money, also used by professionals on YouTube)
    • Mackie MR Series (which I have on my desktop)

    PS: If you want to keep your existing consumer speakers (unbalanced input), follow the advice from petediscrete .

    Thanks. I picked up a behringer in used condition for a tenner, good cheap experiment with good sound quality as you rightly stated.

    What would your recommendation be for a good sound quality multichannel 5.1 interface via usb.

    Thanks

    Quote from jack121

    I picked up a behringer in used condition for a tenner, good cheap experiment with good sound quality as you rightly stated.

    :saint: :thumbup:

    Quote from jack121

    What would your recommendation be for a good sound quality multichannel 5.1 interface via usb.

    LE has to have the right driver, and we don't have a whitelist. Users with such hardware should answer here.

    Search for fitting Linux drivers. In most cases LE is up-to-date with drivers, provided by a regular Linux kernel.

    Thanks!

    Having a few problems over here: when i boot up LE and go straight into settings > audio, LE crashes and i have to do a hard shutdown.

    If i play a file first, then go into settings, LE does not crash. Have you noticed this?

    Also am trying LE with an asus stxII sound card and it works fine, also have a soundblaster card and LE does not produce any audio, the card is recognised but no audio at all.

    So am wanting to upload the log file, is this possible as the pc that LE is installed on does not have internet access, can i copy the log file to a flash drive and upload it from a different pc

    Many thanks

    Quote from jack121

    Having a few problems over here: when i boot up LE and go straight into settings > audio, LE crashes and i have to do a hard shutdown.

    If i play a file first, then go into settings, LE does not crash. Have you noticed this?

    Also am trying LE with an asus stxII sound card and it works fine, also have a soundblaster card and LE does not produce any audio, the card is recognised but no audio at all.

    Please open new threads on Bug Reports.

    Quote from jack121

    So am wanting to upload the log file, is this possible as the pc that LE is installed on does not have internet access, can i copy the log file to a flash drive and upload it from a different pc

    Copy into PasteBin and post the resulting link.

    • Connect another PC (notebook) to your LE device by Ethernet cable (direct connection).
    • Login by SSH, and execute cd .kodi/temp.
    • Display the log by nano kodi.log.
    • Copy & paste into PasteBin.
    • Make sure PasteBin contains the complete kodi.log after the upload, otherwise create another PasteBin link for the rest.

    It's also possible to copy kodi.log to your SSH terminal by SSH command (google it).

    Quote from Da Flex

    Standard ASIO works fine with LE. I've tested my Behringer UMC22 on RPi3B+. Connect your speakers balanced for best quality. If you also want to make music, consider to invest more to get an audio interface with bonus software (DAW, plugins etc.).

    Are you saying that if I use this via USB to my laptop https://www.behringer.com/product.html?modelCode=P0AUX it works also as a DAC?
    I just followed your link in my first tread I opened because my needs is to convert USB audio from my laptop to a analog pre - RCA

    If that behringer works , is these one also fine ?
    I do not see RCA outputs...



    I need it to record concerts (2 XLR in + 96 khz)

    Thanks

    Edited once, last by Sargon (October 27, 2022 at 4:07 PM).

    Every audio interface / DAC with standard ASIO driver works on LE.

    An audio interface is a DAC plus input (ADC).

    You could convert from TRS to RCA by a cable.

    If you definitely need RCA output, take this (I think it also uses standard ASIO driver): Click!

    If you want to record, then LE isn't the right software, and you need a DAW instead.

    However, you can use the same audio interface for both software.

    Not sure which driver is used by the UMC202HD. Ask the Behringer support team about Linux compatibility.