Pi3 Retropie USB powered audio

[Emmuss]

Hi folks,

i got my retropie setup up and running but if i plug my usb powered arctic speakers in i hear a frequently cracking with about 200ms delay.

pi power: Raspberry Pi Foundation official 2.5A power supply
arctic speakers: https://www.arctic.ac/de_de/s111.html

could this be caused by low power?

[EctoOne]

Does it still uses the headphone jack to get the sound? If so, the quality on it is pretty bad. I used it as well because I wanted to use headphones in Kodi even when my TV was off. And I also didn't want to spend like 200€ for an Av Receiver, so I bought a cheap usb soundcard. Sound is still not perfect (gets bad when I move files to my external USB drive) but it's way better than the build in jack.

[backstander]

@Emmuss
From the command prompt

List all USB devices
lsusb

cat /proc/asound/modules

Set "card #1" as the default audio device
sudo nano /etc/asound.conf

pcm.!default {
 type hw card 1
}
ctl.!default {
 type hw card 1
}

Disable HDMI audio
sudo nano /boot/config.txt

#hdmi_drive = 2

RetroArch audio fix
/opt/retropie/configs/all/retroarch.cfg

audio_device = "<name of USB audio device>"

Test audio
aplay -l

More info here:
https://learn.adafruit.com/usb-audio-cards-with-a-raspberry-pi/updating-alsa-config