Turtle Beach Audio Advantage Micro and Live
#1
I have searched here and on AVS but cannot find a how-to on setting up the Turtle Beach Audio Advantage Micro on an Acer Revo running XBMC Live.

I managed to get Live running and audio to my tv through HDMI, however I am now moving the machine and need digital audio passthrough to my receiver.

I was hoping it might be roughly plug and play but I can't figure out the syntax to use on the audio setup page. I get the "failed to initialize audio" message whenever I play a file.

I'm assuming I might need to setup more than just live to get this working?

Go easy on me; I have almost ZERO linux experience.

Thanks in advance; I appreciate any help in getting this to work.
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#2
I don't think their are linux drivers for Turtle Beach Audio Advantage Micro ..
The normal XBMC log IS NOT a debug log, to enable debug logging you must toggle it on under XBMC Settings - System or in advancedsettings.xml. Use XBMC Debug Log Addon to retrieve it.
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#3
CrashX Wrote:I don't think their are linux drivers for Turtle Beach Audio Advantage Micro ..

I read product review postings referring to using it with linux and even a few referring specifically to using it with XBMC Live. That's one of the reasons I bought it.

Unfortunately I just can't find specific details on HOW to get it to work Sad
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#4
Hmm I saw this post in newegg .. Maybe you can try that ..

Works perfectly in Linux Mythbuntu


Pros: I highly recommend this for Linux and MythTV. I bought one to bypass a lousy onboard ALC888 chip that was full of static. It works perfectly. I've had absolutely no problems since I started using it. I'm using the included SPDIF adapter to send the optical signal to my home theater receiver. I have not experienced any buffering problems with MythTV as mentioned by another reviewer.

Other Thoughts: I disabled my onboard sound chip in my system's BIOS. Then in Mythbuntu 8.04 I had to comment out "snd-usb-audio index=-2" in /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base to allow the card to grab index 0. You need to reboot to make this change take effect.
The normal XBMC log IS NOT a debug log, to enable debug logging you must toggle it on under XBMC Settings - System or in advancedsettings.xml. Use XBMC Debug Log Addon to retrieve it.
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#5
I'm looking into something like this too for xbmc live. Here's a little something I found on newegg also:

Pros: It works (see below). The sound is good for what I want, and I never expected high quality sound, just something to get sound because my headphone socket broke on the motherboard. Overall, I like it.

Cons: This may be a personal issue, but, 40% of the time, when I plug something into the wall or if I have static on me and touch the product or switch on a light, it cuts off! Then I have to unplug it and set it up again. It's a serious pain in the rear. Also, once in a while, the sound will get garbled or something. I don't know why, but, I can fix it with the method above.

Other Thoughts: I use this with Linux. Run this command, "chmod 777 /dev/snd/*", to get it to work.
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#6
I use one on my Aspire Revo running ubuntu 9.10 with no problems (Revo R1600 only has HDMI for digital audio). If the advantage micro is plugged in before booting Alsa makes it the "default" (at least for me) and no real setup is required other than telling XBMC to use the IEC958 digital output. No drivers other than the standard USB sound stuff is required.

I originally plugged it in after bootup and had some odd device lists in XBMC for audio, but after a reboot with it in nothing was funky and it works great.

Code:
<audiooutput>
        <ac3passthrough>true</ac3passthrough>
        <audiodevice>alsa:iec958:CARD=default</audiodevice>
        <customdevice></customdevice>
        <custompassthrough></custompassthrough>
        <downmixmultichannel>true</downmixmultichannel>
        <dtspassthrough>true</dtspassthrough>
        <mode>1</mode>
        <passthroughdevice>alsa:iec958:CARD=default</passthroughdevice>
        <sep1></sep1>
        <sep2></sep2>
        <sep3></sep3>
    </audiooutput>
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#7
dan1son - I have the same setup you listed. I tried your settings with my Audio Advantage Micro. While it works, I noticed that my "Audio output" setting from Digital to Analog. When I set it back to Digital, the DD/DTS capable options were checked, but XBMC reported that it was having problems initializing my audio device when I tried a AC3 video.

Did you have to modify anything else on your system (i.e. unmute the ie958 through alsamixer)? I specifically ask that because, I can't access my device through alsamixer... Still new to linux so I'm still digging through this particular problem.

Did you have to modify your asoundrc? If so can you post it?

What version of XBMC are you running? Did you install using: "apt-get install xbmc"?

Thanks!
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#8
Actually in alsamixer for card 1 I only have a PCM volume setting, iec958 isn't even listed in there.

I don't have an asoundrc file at all. Everything is stock.

I'm running ubuntu 9.10 (karmic 32-bit) on the Acer Aspire Revo with XBMC 9.11. As long as the card is in on bootup, it's my default in alsa. XBMC is setup to use "iec958" on default.

Code:
cat /proc/asound/cards
0 [NVidia         ]: HDA-Intel - HDA NVidia
                      HDA NVidia at 0xfae78000 irq 20
1 [default        ]: USB-Audio - C-Media USB Audio      
                      C-Media INC. C-Media USB Audio at usb-0000:00:04.0-3, full speed
[CODE]
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#9
dan1son - Thanks for your help. I finally got my setup to work. Between your <audiooutput> settings and meermanr's post in the following thread from ubuntu forums (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1151680), I was able to piece things together.

I'm listing the steps I followed to get things to work:
- Set pulseaudio to 48Khz output by creating a ~/.pulse/daemon.conf with the line in the above post by meermanr
- In XBMC's System-Settings-Audio Output: Set the Audio output to Digital and ticked the DD/DTS capable receiver settings. Set the "Audio Output device" to 'default'. For the "Passthrough output device" I set to 'custom' and created a entry called 'default'. No downmix to stereo.

My finaal audiooutput section from the xbmc settings looks like:
Code:
<audiooutput>
        <ac3passthrough>true</ac3passthrough>
        <audiodevice>pulse:default@default</audiodevice>
        <customdevice></customdevice>
        <custompassthrough>default</custompassthrough>
        <downmixmultichannel>false</downmixmultichannel>
        <dtspassthrough>true</dtspassthrough>
        <mode>1</mode>
        <passthroughdevice>custom</passthroughdevice>
        <sep1></sep1>
        <sep2></sep2>
        <sep3></sep3>
    </audiooutput>

I tested with a DTS encoded MKV and my reciever "DTS" light lit up! With a AC3 encoded MKV the DD lit up on the receiver.

EDIT: So I did a few more checks and found the following in xbmc.log
Code:
23:39:47 T:2923428720 M:2768281600  NOTICE: Creating audio thread
23:39:47 T:2853456752 M:2768281600  NOTICE: running thread: CDVDPlayerAudio::Pro
cess()
23:39:47 T:2861849456 M:2768027648  NOTICE:  fps: 23.976025, pwidth: 640, pheigh
t: 352, dwidth: 640, dheight: 352
23:39:47 T:2861849456 M:2768027648  NOTICE: Display resolution DESKTOP : 1920x10
80 @ 50.00 - Full Screen (12)
23:39:48 T:2853456752 M:2767278080  NOTICE: Creating audio device with codec id:
86020, channels: 2, sample rate: 48000, pass-through
23:39:50 T:2853456752 M:2765119488 WARNING: PulseAudio: Does not support passthr
ough
23:39:50 T:2853456752 M:2765119488   ERROR: Initialize - failed to open custom d
evice default:AES0=0x6,AES1=0x82,AES2=0x0,AES3=0x2, retry with default default
23:39:50 T:2853456752 M:2765119488   ERROR: GetDelay - snd_pcm_delay, alsa error
: -5 - Input/output error

So its not perfect... I think I'm causing something to crash. But I'm pretty happy since I get the menu clicks and DD/DTS passthrough. ;-)


Hope this helps someone.
Ken
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#10
Bump...still looking for a quick and dirty walkthrough on how to configure the Turtle Beach USB with XBMC Live on the REVO. Several users here seem to have it working but documentation appears to non-existent.
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#11
TheCodeMan Wrote:Bump...still looking for a quick and dirty walkthrough on how to configure the Turtle Beach USB with XBMC Live on the REVO. Several users here seem to have it working but documentation appears to non-existent.

Nice... Why don't you start one and we can proof? This thread has most the information you need. We've all done homework and summarized our findings here.

I'm using Ubuntu 9.10, but this might work for Live. Try these as your first steps:
1. Disable the REVO onboard sound through the bios. This step isn't necessary, but simplifies troubleshooting since the TB is your only sound device.
2. XBMC System Settings Audio enable the following:
Audio Output: Digital
-DD capable receiver: Enable
-DTS capable receiver: Enable
Audio output device: default
Passthrough output decvice: custom
- Custom passthrough device: default (may need to type this in)
Downmix multichannel audio to stereo: disable
3. Create a file "{home}/.pulse/daemon.conf" add the following line:
default-sample-rate = 48000
4. Watch your .xbmc/temp/xbmc.log for any errors. Use 'tail -f .xbmc/temp/xbmc.log' to see messages realtime.

Troubleshooting:
1. Check lsusb to ensure that your machine sees the Turtle Beach Audio Advantage Micro
2. Check aplay -l to verify "default" device
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