[fritsch]

Yeah, your thinking is sadly not based on any facts ...

Provide me a sample that clearly reproduces your issue - then I can see and check.

[GEEMac]

Is there anyway to change the sample rate within Kodi? Maybe I can try different rates. I think right now it is at 48000. Maybe I can try 44100 or lower.

[fritsch]

When PA is running it does not matter at all what kodi does - as the PA server is resampling again to what it likes. So if you force your pulseaudio to 44100 all of kodi's input will be resampled by the audio server ...

Besides that: You can set kodi to "Fixed" and make it resample everything to 44100 it's under the System -> Settings -> Audio Configuration. Though as said - if PA server is running at 48 it will resample back.

[GEEMac]

You're not going to believe this. The sampling rate seems to be the issue. I set the rate to fixed and tried dropping down to 44100. That made it worse and the frequency response dropped off; muddy audio and more clipping/distortion.
I tried the opposite direction and went to 96000 the apparent limit of the chip set for this old system's built in audio, the frequency response went up and the distortion dropped off.
I wouldn't close this thread just yet as solved. I'll update you and whomever may be following this as soon as I run a few other tests. If I remember correctly there is a setting in the pulse confg to set a frequency with a fallback frequency. I'll try 48000 to 96000 ad see what smokes...

[GEEMac]

Here is what I did so far and the audio cleaned up for at least one test for now. If this works with a few more tests I'll mark this as solved.

I use Leafpad for my editor, but any editor is fine.
Open a terminal window and type:
sudo leafpad /etc/pulse/daemon.conf


Remove ; to un-comment a line.
Also I have noticed, at least in my .conf file that line 78 alternate-sample-rate =xxxxxx was missing. Just add "alternate-sample-rate = 96000" (without quotes)
If your sound card does not except 96000 then use 44100 default and 48000 alternate.

Line
76. default-sample-format = s16le
77. default-sample-rate = 48000
78. alternate-sample-rate = 96000

Next I opened System > Settings > Audio output > Output configuration [Change to] Fixed
Next Limit sampling rate (KHz) 96.0 or 48.0

[fritsch]

This does not make sense for "most people". As resampling from 44100 to 48000 sucks. Seems your output device has issues with 44100 hz?

PA's default is: 48000 / 44100 - into those you can transform all other rates nicely.

[GEEMac]

The embarrassing thing for me is that I should have caught this right in the beginning. I was a Broadcast Engineer for 40 years and I missed something as simple as this as a fix, or should I say proper settings. I will say that the HTPC world is fairly new to me, especially for XBMC/Kodi.
I got stuck with the thought of mismatch of audio source levels and lets say the preamp and amplification, Alsa and Pulseaudio. Overthinking the issue was blocking the right path to a fix.
The information in post #20 is the fix in my situation. I tried a few different streams and did not show any signs of distortion or clicking in the audio, well at least that these old ears to hear.

Can we get some sort of perm post of the info in #20 for others that may still be having the issue?

Also as a suggestion, maybe the Kodi team can find some place to post a video of Color Bars along with 400Hz and 1KHz tone in different codecs/formats so the user can test and maybe set up their video and audio properly.
Building it into Kodi may help but I think from an outside source would be the best way to test the decoding and sampling rates.

400Hz tone... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddP9YWpAK0A
1000Hz/1KHz tone... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yQcXlvccCI


Fritsch, Thank you very much for your patience and taking the time to work with me on this issue.
Consider this issue Solved.

GEEMac