Linux Sound devices

[Eddie]

are there any linux sound devices like a usb chip or a gpio breakout board that I can use to increase the quality of my sound systems hdmi output?  I dont want extra interfaces and I'm having a lot of trouble learning all this sound stuff, it really seems like another controlled hardware dead end. Any help?

 

[mcobit]

Why would it get better with external hardware?


HDMI is digital. The limiting factor in sound quality is your amplifier that turns the digital signal in to analog.


Before that there is no signal loss.


Edit:


What exactly do you want to achieve?


What do you want to play back (games, music, movies)?


What is wrong with the current quality (noise,jidder,distortion)?


What is your current hardware configuration?

 

[Eddie]

Im using a raspberry pi and I want the cheapest highest qualty audio I can get. Also the easyer it is to install the better. I'm looking for something that has a sound processor to help take the load off the main processor.

 

[mcobit]

You still didn't answer what you want to do with it.


If you want to passthrough digital audio from a movie for example, don't worry about the processor.


Same for gaming as the sound is not converted to analog before it reaches your amplifier/tv.


If you need to convert audio on the fly to pcm or something, external soundcards won't help you anyway as long as they don't have an integrated decoder.


If you need to get some good analog sound out of the pi, google for hifiberry(gpio) or external usb soundcards.

 

[Eddie]

It seems it was a misstake on my part. I had switched audio from HDMI to the jack in order to test better DVI settings on an old tv I have. But when I switched to my larger tv the audio jack isnt cutting it. Going to have to switch back to HDMI I hear its quality is solid?

I'm working on DialogPi

Edit:switched the sound back and tested, sound 1000% better and louder so I can hear it now

 

[mcobit]

Nice. As said, look into hifiberry for better analog audio.