Good sound cards for Linux

hunter0one · 05-31-2022, 02:28 PM

I posted a thread about a month or two ago about having a Razer headset that had a constant popping sound with ALSA, which occurred regardless of any parameters I set. Someone elsewhere told me that this could be solved by using a dedicated sound card, but which one would be best? What are some top-tier sound cards for Linux, and would this really solve something like this?

dugan · 05-31-2022, 05:29 PM

USB DACs are top-tier. I can personally vouch for the Behringer UCA-202.

That said, the problem is obviously with the headset itself, which is most likely itself a sound card. I'm surprised "someone elsewhere" thought otherwise.

jefro · 05-31-2022, 06:57 PM

I too use a usb that is actually designed for music and it's driver had been ported a long time ago.

I guess you could also try to see why your system is popping. Try some other live boots.

hunter0one · 05-31-2022, 07:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dugan

That said, the problem is obviously with the headset itself, which is most likely itself a sound card. I'm surprised "someone elsewhere" thought otherwise.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jefro

I guess you could also try to see why your system is popping. Try some other live boots.

The thing is, I've been using FreeBSD for the past few months because it doesn't have this popping issue with the same pair of headphones in the same jack. Since FreeBSD uses a variation of OSS, I theorize it may also work on Linux if I use OSS. However, I've never actually managed to get OSS to work on Linux. It's brushed off by ALSA in 99% of distros, and even in ones where OSS v4 is supported as an alternative, such as Arch, I ran into errors while building the modules. Therefore I'd have to buy another pair of headphones dedicated to Linux.

frankbell · 05-31-2022, 07:58 PM

I have been in the fortunate position of purchasing native Linux computers for quite a few years. Invariably, they are Intel inside. The one I'm typing on now has an Intel Series 8/C220 audio chipset.

jefro · 05-31-2022, 08:01 PM

Might be worth reading. I got to that from reading a high sample rate thread. https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Pul...o#Choppy_sound

ondoho · 05-31-2022, 11:59 PM

^moved, maybe you meant https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Pul...istorted_sound

pan64 · 06-01-2022, 12:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hunter0one

I posted a thread about a month or two ago about having a Razer headset that had a constant popping sound with ALSA, which occurred regardless of any parameters I set. Someone elsewhere told me that this could be solved by using a dedicated sound card, but which one would be best? What are some top-tier sound cards for Linux, and would this really solve something like this?

These are two different things. If you have a software (driver?) error or hardware problem you can try to fix it by replacing the software or the hardware. But you need to know which one. A dedicated sound card will (may) not work either if you have an alsa error.
Do you really want [extreme] high quality audio?