Configuring "Mini External USB Stereo Speaker"

Spreader

Hello, I've spent some time troubleshooting and am out of ideas. I hope this forum can help.

I have a Pi4 that was loaded with Retropie a week ago. I was using a HDMI to VGA adapter that had a 3.5mm audio jack. I could plug in headphones or a speaker to the VGA adapter and get sound no issues. Tonight I plugged in a USB external speaker which is double-sided taped to the base of the old PC monitor. The Pi is VESA mounted to the monitor, I want as few cords and devices as possble.

This is the device "Mini External USB Stereo Speaker":
[link text]https://thepihut.com/products/mini-external-usb-stereo-speaker(link url)

I have disabled the hdmi & 3.5mm jack by changing:
/boot/config.txt
dtparam=audio=off

I now only have one playback device listed

I have changed the default card to #1 (in above snip listed as card 1)
/usr/share/alsa.conf
defaults.ctl.card 1
defaults.pcm.card 1

When I run a speaker test in Putty using the following command:
speaker-test -c2 -twav -l7 -D plughw:1,0
It works - I get the ladies test voice.

SO I think the problem is with my Retropie configuration.

Here is the output of amixer scontrols for "sysdefault" and aplay -L:

To me this shows I have a device "sysdefault" that uses "PCM". When I go into audio settings in Retropie I select these along with either "ALSA:HW:0.0" or "ALSA:HW:1,0" and I can use the volume slider.

But it doesn't work. I don't get audio from games or from moving through the menu. When I power on the system shortly after booting I can hear an audible buzz from the speaker and two large buzz sounds.

When I launch a game (I THINK) the screen briefly flashes the error "Lv10 AudioManager Error - unable to open sdl audio: ALSA: couldn't open audio device: no such file or director" but it goes so fast I'm not sure.

Please help, this was supposed to be a fun way to repurpose an old monitor and give my kids their first taste of console gaming NES style.

Thanks.

mitu

If you have an $HOME/.asoundrc file, just remove it and restart EmulationStation.

Spreader

@mitu said in Configuring "Mini External USB Stereo Speaker":

If you have an $HOME/.asoundrc file, just remove it and restart EmulationStation.

Thank you for the response.

I don't think I have that file.

I'm using the following command in terminal:

sudo find / -name .asoundrc

and it doesn't come back with anything.

Edit: Just to test the search string I used asound (with asterix before & after) and it came back with files of that name but nothing with "rc" at the end.

mitu

@spreader said in Configuring "Mini External USB Stereo Speaker":

I don't think I have that file.

Run

ls -l $HOME/.asoundrc

and post the output.

Spreader

@mitu

Thanks for following up so fast.

mitu

OK, so you don't have any residual .asoundrc file. You may follow up on the info at https://retropie.org.uk/docs/Sound-Issues/#using-a-usb-audio-device and edit es_settings.cfg to add your USB Audio card and use PCM as 'Audio Device'. This should get rid of the error message you see during game start.

Spreader

@mitu

That did it!

I have "pulse" sound when moved between games and now there is in game sound!

The audio level control in Retropie settings shows zero and will not control the in game volume. I will use Putty to find a good level for now.

!THANK YOU!

I will post this info as a review in the site that I got it from in the hope that it helps someone else.