Pulsing White-Noise Like Sound from Speaker

[polson]

Hi Everyone,

Just got my PinePhone with PostmarketOS last week.  Still working issues with it.  One of the issues is a rapidly pulsating buzzing-like sound from the speaker.  It started when I had the phone booted and pulled the charging cord out of it.  Immediately the pulsing sound started.  On reboot, the sound kicks in about the desktop is displayed.  The only thing that diminishes the volume is setting the Sound Output Configuration to "Play HiFi quality music" (is that setting usable for making calls?).  If the speaker output device is tested, the sound resumes at low volume for about 8 seconds then stops.  Any ideas on how to stop this from happening?

The version I'm running is 5.7.0 #3-postmarketos-allwinner

Thanks

[bujiraso]

Hi Everyone,

Just got my PinePhone with PostmarketOS last week.  Still working issues with it.  One of the issues is a rapidly pulsating buzzing-like sound from the speaker.  It started when I had the phone booted and pulled the charging cord out of it.  Immediately the pulsing sound started.  On reboot, the sound kicks in about the desktop is displayed.  The only thing that diminishes the volume is setting the Sound Output Configuration to "Play HiFi quality music" (is that setting usable for making calls?).  If the speaker output device is tested, the sound resumes at low volume for about 8 seconds then stops.  Any ideas on how to stop this from happening?

The version I'm running is 5.7.0 #3-postmarketos-allwinner

Thanks

Hey.



By pulsing do you mean getting louder and then quieter? I don't think mine does that.

Instead would you agree it sounds like a consistent high-frequency whine or hiss that lasts some ~10 seconds? If it is the latter, then I hear it, too on every boot and every time the speaker turns on or off.



Notably, I've heard the same thing on my Bose QC-II headphones when its set to HSP (Headset Protocol) on Linux, which is a very low quality protocol (https://www.ap.com/technical-library/mor...-profiles/).
I don't hear this when using my Android or Windows machines so it's definitely a codec fault.



I don't read hardware schematics very well but it looks like the speaker is wired in here. (http://files.pine64.org/doc/PinePhone/Pi...ematic.pdf c.o. https://wiki.pine64.org/index.php/PinePhone) Can anyone confirm?



I wonder why the speaker is so chatty and if it can be fixed in software.
Is this a codec fault too?

[virnuik]

Hi, also have this issue.

To me, it just sounds like the phone's amplifier or DAC has a really poor SINAD. The reason you only hear the noise sometimes is because, by default, pulseaudio turns off audio devices when they are not in use in order to save power. If I'm playing music or something, the noise is always just there. But, if I'm not playing anything, it goes away. Also, like on my laptop that's running Linux, plugging and unplugging headphones causes the DAC/AMP to fire up, so that's why you hear noise with that.
More evidence supporting this is that the noise is just as apparent when using headphones as it is when using speakers. It is likely just a result of the phone's poor quality DAC/AMP.

[polson]

By pulsing do you mean getting louder and then quieter? I don't think mine does that.

Instead would you agree it sounds like a consistent high-frequency whine or hiss that lasts some ~10 seconds? If it is the latter, then I hear it, too on every boot and every time the speaker turns on or off.

It sounds like a hiss that is made up of two high pulse rate sine waves that resonate.

Originally, it does change volume when changing sound settings.  But after a few reboots, it now lasts for about five seconds after the desktop display, then stops.  But I have the output sound settings set to the high quality music setting.  If I set the output sound to "Make a Phone Call", the sound comes back at a louder volume.  Switching back to "Play High quality music" drops the volume, and eventually the sound disappears.

I haven't worked with the headphone settings yet.