Open Sound System

I'm having a bit of trouble trying to install OSS4 on my system. I just thought of something concerning this API. ALSA has an option under the alsamixer to switch between "Headphones", "FP Headphones", and "Speakers" when using the Xonar Essence STX. This is needed to use the correct jack on the card for playback. Since I use exclusively headphones only, I would of course use the "Headphones" option. Can OSS4 switch between these three outputs? I don't want to have to use the "Speakers" output for my headphones since this card has a headphone amp which can only be used by choosing the "Headphones" option. So does anyone out there know if the ossxmix can switch between these three output options?

shoober420 wrote:I'm having a bit of trouble trying to install OSS4 on my system.

That's weird since I actually already explained it to you.

shoober420 wrote:So does anyone out there know if the ossxmix can switch between these three output options?

I'm not sure what you mean by "Headphone option" but you can definately define every jack accoring to your needs in ossxmix. As far as I know you can define every possible option if you have an HD Audio device:

OSS Documentation wrote:HDAUDIO MIXER

The Intel HDA mixer is a new type of mixer that doesn't have
the normal volume controls found on AC97 or legacy SB devices.
The HDA mixer presents a concept of Jacks and you can configure
any jack to be either an output or an input jack.

Some motherboards may not correctly initialize the jacks according
to their color and functionality but in general here's the
configuration that should generally be followed:

Orange = Center/LFE o Blue = Line-in
Black = Rear o Green = Front
Grey = Side o Pink = Mic

Some Azalia codecs support front panel connectors and so if you see
fp-green and fp-pink connectors, then these are for front panel
speaker and mic/line-in Jacks.

There is a function selector for most of the analog audio jacks (for example
connector.pink.mode). This selector is used to control if the jack is used
as an input (microphone or line in) or output (front, rear, side, speaker,
etc).

http://manuals.opensound.com/usersguide/hdaudio.html

If your sound card is "unknown" to oss the labeling could be a bit cluttered.

nuc wrote:That's weird since I actually already explained it to you.

I tried to compile it last night, and got an error. I was going to post about it, then thought, is it even worth it considering OSS4 might not support my card.

nuc wrote:I'm not sure what you mean by "Headphone option" but you can definately define every jack accoring to your needs in ossxmix.

My sound card has a speaker jack, a microphone jack, and a headphone hack on the back. At first, using ALSA, I couldn't get any sound when I plugged into the headphone hack. I had to plug into the speaker jack to get any sound. I then googled about it, and you have to switch between, "Speakers" and "Headphones" in alsamixer for the sound to come out of the jack you desire. So when I switched from the "Speakers" option to "Headphones" option, I then plugged my headphones in the the headphone jack and was able to get sound. Its important that I use the headphone jack since it enables the use of the sounds cards headphone amp, which the speakers jack doesn't use.

I will try again to compile, since its not a definite yes or no answer of if OSS4 can support my card correctly. If it forces me to use "Speakers" mode, I won't use it since I don't want to have to plug my headphones into the speakers jack. If I get another error, i'll post it in my other thread.

Ok I got it. You can definately do that. Even if your card is labeled as "unknown" it should work becasue to 99% your card will be parsed properly anyways. What might happen is that the labeling gets mixed up, that's all.

You were right nuc, it has all the same options as the alsamixer did. I can switch between "Headphones", "Speakers", and "Microphone". One thing that is missing from the ossmixer, is that I can't choose the headphone impedance. I could choose from 64ohms, 100-300ohms, and 600ohms. I'm using "ossmix", instead of ossxmix. For some reason, ossxmix didn't get installed. I type ossxmix in the terminal, but it says unknown command. Does ossxmix have more options then ossmix, or is this feature to select different headphone impedance not available in the oss mixers?

Hm I have never heard of such feature (for sound cards in general). I guess somebody else would need to help you here. Was this option available in ALSA? If so, this should just be a driver issue. Most oss drivers are more or less generic for every sound card, this means that such super special features might not work out of the box.
If you're motivated enough you could buy the oss license (it's just 10 bucks and it includes 1 year support from the devs) and kindly ask the developers if they could improve support for your sound card. Unfortunately the devs do not have enough resources to support all sound cards perfectly out of the box...

Is your card "unknown" btw? Could you post the output of "ossinfo -v3"?

Your issue with ossxmix is really strange. I have never heard of such either - might be that something during compilation went wrong but I don't want to spread false info.
Surely somebody else could help you in this.

The "Headphones Impedance" control just reduces the volume a little.
(I didn't think this was worth implementing in the ALSA driver, but people whined until I did.)

Being charitable, this might not be a HiFi Voodoo stunt by Asus marketing, but an honest attempt at preventing unhealthily loud output levels …

nuc wrote:Is your card "unknown" btw? Could you post the output of "ossinfo -v3"?

My card is definitely reconized. It says "Xonar Essence STX" where "Engine" is.

nuc wrote:Your issue with ossxmix is really strange. I have never heard of such either - might be that something during compilation went wrong but I don't want to spread false info.
Surely somebody else could help you in this.

That must be it. I don't know what could of went wrong though. I followed the directions on the wiki. Is there any options I'm missing out on when using ossmix instead of ossxmix?

cladisch wrote:The "Headphones Impedance" control just reduces the volume a little.
(I didn't think this was worth implementing in the ALSA driver, but people whined until I did.)

Being charitable, this might not be a HiFi Voodoo stunt by Asus marketing, but an honest attempt at preventing unhealthily loud output levels …

For headphones that are like 1000+ dollars, you need to use the 600ohms option. But, if your using a lower end headphone like mine, 64ohms is more then enough. The reason its there, is so people with super high end headphones that require high impedance, can be used with this sound card without needing to buy a external headphone amp.

I assume that OSS4 defaults to the high 600ohms impedance option, because everything is much louder then it was with ALSA. It still sounds way better then ALSA. One thing I was reading about in regards to this, was supposily, if you use the wrong impedance option with your headphones, it can reduce the dynamic range of your headphones. Because the more gain you have, the less dynamic range you have.

For example, when record companies re-release recordings of older bands, they "remaster" them. But, all they really do is compress the sound. When you compress something, you just simply add more gain to it so its louder. The thing is, what this does is reduce the dynamic range of the original recording. This could be just one of the reasons people think records sound better then CDs.

Although this is just getting very picky, its always nice to be able to change all the options in your sound card. This is one special sound card, with some very unique features. Going back now, I think I would of rather got an external headphone amp, but I really wanted the DAC this sound card has. Its the best. It does 127 SNR. I'm willing to donate just to have this option included in the drivers.

shoober420 wrote:Although this is just getting very picky, its always nice to be able to change all the options in your sound card. This is one special sound card, with some very unique features. Going back now, I think I would of rather got an external headphone amp, but I really wanted the DAC this sound card has. Its the best. It does 127 SNR. I'm willing to donate just to have this option included in the drivers.

Sponsoring custom driver development should be possible:

Sponsoring Open Sound System
[...]
We will also do custom driver development for new sound devices (open source or proprietary). Please contact sales@opensound.com for more info.

see http://developer.opensound.com/opensource_oss/

So, if I want to support having the ability to change the headphone impedance on this card threw ossmix, I should contact them with that e-mail?

shoober420 wrote:So, if I want to support having the ability to change the headphone impedance on this card threw ossmix, I should contact them with that e-mail?

Well how else do you imagine too contact them? Through telepathy? I just quoted a paragraph from their website for your convenience, seven hells I have no idea if they still do this or if this way of contacting is still up to date...