hi.
using the past 5 t3ch builds i have experienced very significant distortion on the audio output during video and music playback. it is most noticeable at the low "bass" ranges (forces you to lower the volume to very low levels).
i have verified it on 3 different xbox's using optical/analog audio output and using quite a few videos and songs that used to play perfectly well.
i'd appreciate it if someone could confirm that they experince this as well.
thanks.
does this occur with another set of speakers and amp outputting the sound?
i have noticed this. i thought this was just my tv. i can't try my stereo now, but i went back to a december 15th build and it didn't seem to do this.
caldor -
i can now confirm this for 3 separate xboxs with 3 different (high end) audio systems (and speakers) and all of which i have also tested using digital and analog output.
as mentioned - the biggest issue is with the bass sound which is so bad that you simply can't continue watching the movie using the same volume level.
you can try dropping the audio headroom in settings.xml down to 6 instead of 0.
i doubt it'll make any difference, as to be honest, i can't see how xbmc will ever produce any volume based distortion. all that setting does is drop the overall volume setting by 6db (also achievable just by dropping the volume with the right thumbstick by the same amount).
if you are getting distortion on ac3 or dts sources with digital out, that's getting passthroughed (ie no frame rate modifications or anything), then i can guarantee it has nothing to do with xbmc as if the data is getting decoded by the receiver, it's obviously being sent untouched.
hey jmarshall.
first, thanks for the quick reply.
i re-checked and the problem does not appear while playing ac3/dts content.
also - modifying the headroom doesn't really help, it just makes it a bit more tolerable to listen to... on the other hand - you can't really figure out what the butler says just before he pulls the triger... :-)
let me know if there is anything i can post on my systems that would help isolating this issue.
make sure output to all speakers is disabled, and that you aren't doing any dynamic range compression (video -> osd) on videos.
the music output section hasn't changed for a long time, but one thing to look for is the replaygain settings (make sure you aren't allowing it to clip, and ideally aren't gaining over 89db).
cheers,
jonathan
ok, thanks for the details there.
one last question to rule out an idea with this, do you get the static occuring on both rca analogue leads as well as the digital leads?
when we say its confirmed on three different xbox's, do all three of these have the same audio configuration settings?
could you please provide the details of the config so we can look at replicating it.
could you please provide the config details your using, as attempts to replicate the issue either on rca leads or digital fibre is not showing the problem. i have custom speakers using jm labs/focal drivers and a custom power amp so the fidelity is there for any colouration/distortion to show up.
i just wanted to post that i am having the same distortion problems noted in this thread. i am a long time xbmp/xbmc user and have never had an issue with sound quality until now. i upgraded to a t3ch build from 5-13 and the distortion is horrible. i played around with the replay-gain settings but it does not seem to effect the poor sound quality for the kcrw shoutcast stream i listen to most often. (i get the best sound by setting the pre-amp levels all the way down to 79 db or so). some of music comes out ok but much of it has an audible buzz which wasn't present previously.
i also have some decent, higher-end audio hardware and the sound in the past has been pristine. now, it isn't even tolerable and i've had to revert back to the dec build which i was using previously.
i'm happy to post whatever config information is required to help resolve this issue. this has been the first problem i've ever experienced using xbmc which has moved me to post.
regards,
rob
i was having unrelated audio problems with paplayer. (sometime in april it became the default, i think...) if i use mplayer all is fine. give it a try.
-george
thanks for the tip, george. i will give that a shot.
rjv
i am also having problems w/ paplayer as well..for me, it seems that some mp3's would replay at half the speed, making it sound very low and slow...using mplayer fixed the issue.
which brings back to a ? someone else had, but noone answered--
is there a way to change default audio player to mplayer?