Difference between revisions of "TerraTec Aureon 7.1"
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The Terratec Aureon 7.1 USB is an affordable external sound card which supports optical and digital output through S/PDIF with full 5.1/7.1 surround sound. To use this card, install [[ALSA]] (which has support for this sound card). To configure the card for usage, follow these steps: | The Terratec Aureon 7.1 USB is an affordable external sound card which supports optical and digital output through S/PDIF with full 5.1/7.1 surround sound. To use this card, install [[ALSA]] (which has support for this sound card). To configure the card for usage, follow these steps: | ||
Revision as of 06:05, 8 May 2012
The Terratec Aureon 7.1 USB is an affordable external sound card which supports optical and digital output through S/PDIF with full 5.1/7.1 surround sound. To use this card, install ALSA (which has support for this sound card). To configure the card for usage, follow these steps:
Contents
Set the card as the default device
If you have multiple sound cards, you need to set the Terratec card as a default. Create the following file
/etc/modprobe.d/alsa.conf
options snd slots=snd_usb_audio
Rebooting or restarting the ALSA (sudo /etc/rd.d/alsa restart) may be required for the changes to take effect.
Enable volume control
This card doesn't have hardware volume control, so you need to create software Master control. Create the following file in your home folder
.asoundrc
pcm.softvol { type softvol slave { pcm "dmix" } control { name "Master" card 0 } } pcm.!default { type plug slave.pcm "softvol" }
Again, restart alsa, then open a music player, play a file and close the player. Then check alsamixer, as you should have a Master volume control.
Hotkeys
The sound card has external hotkeys for volume change and mute. You can capture the button presses by installing Xbindkeys and using the following config:
.xbindkeysrc
#Volume up "amixer set 'Master' 5+" m:0x0 + c:123 XF86AudioRaiseVolume #Volume down "amixer set 'Master' 5-" m:0x0 + c:122 XF86AudioLowerVolume #Mute "/media/disk/programs/mute.sh" m:0x0 + c:121 XF86AudioMute
As you can see, alsamixer doesn't handle mute for this mixer, which is why you can use a simple mute.sh script, which stores the volume level in volume.txt. Be sure to change the file path to mute.sh accordingly.
#!/bin/bash var=$(amixer get Master | grep "Front Left:") var=$(echo "$var" | sed -ne 's/^[^[]*\[\([^]]*\)\].*/\1/p') if [ $var == "0%" ] then volume=`cat volume.txt` amixer set 'Master' $volume else rm volume.txt echo $var > volume.txt amixer set 'Master' 0% fi
Configure mplayer for surround sound (optional)
Add the following codec settings for mplayer
.mplayer/config
ac=hwac3,hwdts,a52,dts, ao=alsa
I recommend using XBMC for media playback, as most receivers do no support the AAC codec. XBMC will re-encode AAC to a common codec (AC3 probably) in realtime, so you can watch most surround sound media files. XBMC has a self-explanatory configuration system using a GUI.
Tips
To change volume using amixer and hotkeys, use the following command (for example): "amixer set 'Master' 5+"