[kevwag]

Set PCM Settings to Stereo 2.0

Hello All!
I have scrolled this forum but am none the wiser!
I have a Bee-link GS-King X running Coreelec with a spdif cable to my Audiolab amplifier.
The volume is only a 10th of what it should be - compared to my previous Vero4k OSMC box.
Volume is at full ball on the amp but only just audible.
Help please!
Where are the PCM settings?

If you're using CoreElec then all the audio settings are done from within Kodi, there are no eternal settings to worry about like there are in android.

Go to;
Settings>>System>>Audio
At the top of the page there's a setting to select the audio device, check the correct output is selected, I think the default is analogue unless the box detects an HDMI connection, either way you need to change it to spdif. None of them will be actually called spdif, you need the one that says PCM but does not have analogue in brackets before the PCM part. On my box it's called "ALSA: AML-MESONAUDIO, PCM".

Once that's correctly set, set channels to 2.0 then scroll down, turn on "Allow Passthrough" and enable whichever codecs are supported by your amp.
If you want surround sound even when the stream only has 2 channel audio then you can either use your amp to do it if it has Dolby Pro Logic / DTS Neo OR you can configure Kodi to do it by enabling Dolby Digital (AC3) transcoding AND Stereo upmix on the same settings page.

If all that's configured properly and your volume is still too low then your only other option is to use the boost / amplification setting that's only accessible when you are playing a video. Start a video playing, click the settings icon, select audio and it's the second setting from the top. Once boosted to the volume you want, check the bottom setting to use these settings for all media.

Note: the boost setting is usually unavailable if you're using passthrough mode but hopefully you won't need to use it. I'm 80% sure that your problem is caused by the wrong audio device being selected. Boost is a workaround, not a fix so it should be considered a last resort measure.

[anarchotaoist]

Hello All!
I have scrolled this forum but am none the wiser!
I have a Bee-link GS-King X running Coreelec with a spdif cable to my Audiolab amplifier.
The volume is only a 10th of what it should be - compared to my previous Vero4k OSMC box.
Volume is at full ball on the amp but only just audible.
Help please!
Where are the PCM settings?

If you're using CoreElec then all the audio settings are done from within Kodi, there are no eternal settings to worry about like there are in android.

Go to;
Settings>>System>>Audio
At the top of the page there's a setting to select the audio device, check the correct output is selected, I think the default is analogue unless the box detects an HDMI connection, either way you need to change it to spdif. None of them will be actually called spdif, you need the one that says PCM but does not have analogue in brackets before the PCM part. On my box it's called "ALSA: AML-MESONAUDIO, PCM".

Once that's correctly set, set channels to 2.0 then scroll down, turn on "Allow Passthrough" and enable whichever codecs are supported by your amp.
If you want surround sound even when the stream only has 2 channel audio then you can either use your amp to do it if it has Dolby Pro Logic / DTS Neo OR you can configure Kodi to do it by enabling Dolby Digital (AC3) transcoding AND Stereo upmix on the same settings page.

If all that's configured properly and your volume is still too low then your only other option is to use the boost / amplification setting that's only accessible when you are playing a video. Start a video playing, click the settings icon, select audio and it's the second setting from the top. Once boosted to the volume you want, check the bottom setting to use these settings for all media.

Note: the boost setting is usually unavailable if you're using passthrough mode but hopefully you won't need to use it. I'm 80% sure that your problem is caused by the wrong audio device being selected. Boost is a workaround, not a fix so it should be considered a last resort measure.

Thanks for the reply.
Helpful info but it seems the issue was the interaction of 3 volume controls: TV, Kodi and stereo. I now have volume. What I do not like though is that the Kodi volume is linked to the amplifier volume with seemingly no way to divorce the two.
This should not be a problem but there is latency between the TV audio and the amplifier so turning down the TV so only the amp is heard was the tricky part.

[kevwag]

Hello All!
I have scrolled this forum but am none the wiser!
I have a Bee-link GS-King X running Coreelec with a spdif cable to my Audiolab amplifier.
The volume is only a 10th of what it should be - compared to my previous Vero4k OSMC box.
Volume is at full ball on the amp but only just audible.
Help please!
Where are the PCM settings?

If you're using CoreElec then all the audio settings are done from within Kodi, there are no eternal settings to worry about like there are in android.

Go to;
Settings>>System>>Audio
At the top of the page there's a setting to select the audio device, check the correct output is selected, I think the default is analogue unless the box detects an HDMI connection, either way you need to change it to spdif. None of them will be actually called spdif, you need the one that says PCM but does not have analogue in brackets before the PCM part. On my box it's called "ALSA: AML-MESONAUDIO, PCM".

Once that's correctly set, set channels to 2.0 then scroll down, turn on "Allow Passthrough" and enable whichever codecs are supported by your amp.
If you want surround sound even when the stream only has 2 channel audio then you can either use your amp to do it if it has Dolby Pro Logic / DTS Neo OR you can configure Kodi to do it by enabling Dolby Digital (AC3) transcoding AND Stereo upmix on the same settings page.

If all that's configured properly and your volume is still too low then your only other option is to use the boost / amplification setting that's only accessible when you are playing a video. Start a video playing, click the settings icon, select audio and it's the second setting from the top. Once boosted to the volume you want, check the bottom setting to use these settings for all media.

Note: the boost setting is usually unavailable if you're using passthrough mode but hopefully you won't need to use it. I'm 80% sure that your problem is caused by the wrong audio device being selected. Boost is a workaround, not a fix so it should be considered a last resort measure.

Thanks for the reply.
Helpful info but it seems the issue was the interaction of 3 volume controls: TV, Kodi and stereo. I now have volume. What I do not like though is that the Kodi volume is linked to the amplifier volume with seemingly no way to divorce the two.
This should not be a problem but there is latency between the TV audio and the amplifier so turning down the TV so only the amp is heard was the tricky part.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by the kodi volume being linked to your amplifier volume, particularly if you're using an optical spdif cable. Unlike hdmi, spdif does not pass any control data that can adjust things like that, it's just digital audio so your amp's volume control should allow you to adjust its volume independently of the tv. With coreelec, kodi's volune is directly linked to the master volume of the amlogic box (as opposed to using android where the volume buttons control the master volume and you have to use + and - to control kodi's volume).
I didn't fully explain in my previous post that when using passthrough kodi will only output at maximum volume or silent (except when transcoding an upmixed stereo stream) because it is literally just passing the unmolested audio stream on for the amp to process.

The latency issue is probably being caused by transcoding as it does take a bit of cpu time to encode raw pcm into ac3/dts etc. If you reduce the encoding quality it will bring the latency down a bit but the only way to eliminate it completely is to turn transcoding off so it comes down to a trade-off as to what is a higher priority for you; perfect audio sync on amp & tv or full surround sound from a stereo stream.  
Most AV amps allow you to apply delay or offset to the audio but because it's the signal going to the amp that you're transcoding, it'll be the amp's audio lagging behind the tv anyway - applying delay will only make that worse! It's less common for a tv to have such a setting but if yours does then that's your fix.
Another option (if your tv has a passthru setting plus spdif output) would be to select hdmi as your main output in kodi, enable passthru on the tv, then connect your amp via the spdif output on the tv - that way both devices will be receiving the same transcoded stream and therefore should be in sync.

All that said, if you have a decent 5.1 or 7.1 amp and speakers, my personal choice would be to just mute the tv anyway. Most TVs have crappy speakers built-in (on purpose so the manufacturer has an excuse to try and sell you a soundbar or other upgrade!)