Sound over USB speakers

Hi All,

I had a look around this forum to see any mention of sound over USB speakers, the closest I could find was audio via HDMI but nothing specific to my query.

I have a USB external speaker.

According to the USB inspector, within the Utilities drawer.

Under the functionality tab, it shows it is an audio USB 2.0 device.

I then looked at the sound icon within the prefs drawer but there no option to change the sound output to USB 2.0 audio as far I can see.

Question: Is it possible to use a external USB 2.0 speaker in Amiga OS 4.1?

Thank you.

there's no driver for it. but it wouldn't be a huge job to create one, relative to other things AmigaOS is missing at least

IIRC, a big problem with USB audio is its transient nature.

All advanced Amigas (and imitators) seem to rely on AHI (or
something like it??) and as I understand it it, AHI has no
provision audio sources/destinations changing without reboots.

IIRC, LyleHaze came up with a number of USB audio hacks over the
years, but the transient nature of USB made things touchy at
best.

So it's not that small a job for it ork well, AFAIK.

PJS

@pjs

So in other words, you need to make a AHI server/driver, that USB driver can connect to.

Technically all you need is a jump table.
the AHI server driver can create a library or resource interface.

So the USB driver can connect to it. It has to be atomic, so AHI can’t write to the USB driver, if its not connected.

@all
IIRC, webcams, audio, and video USB devices typically use isochronous transfers. Unless something changed since I last checked (which is certainly possible), the AmigaOS USB stack still doesn't support isochronous transfers.

It would be great if this were finally added...

Hans

@Hans

Quote:


Thanks to a lot of recent work by Thomas Graff Thoger, we now have isochronous transfers working!!

https://www.amigans.net/modules/news/article.php?storyid=3171

@mr2

But not yet public available or?

@MigthyMax

Nope, it's unfortunately still stuck in the AmigaOS4 release cadence.
While I could release my own USB modules out-of-cadence, the EHCI driver (which holds the bulk of the work done) is not mine to share, so it would be moot point.

@LiveForIt

Quote:
IIRC one of the problems is that AHI (by its design) expects audio hardware to be physically installed at boot time, for the AHI driver to recognize it. This is not the case with USB audio hardware, which can be plugged in any time.

by trixie on 2024/8/27 8:46:02

@LiveForIt

Quote:

So in other words, you need to make a AHI server/driver, that USB driver can connect to.

IIRC one of the problems is that AHI (by its design) expects audio hardware to be physically installed at boot time, for the AHI driver to recognize it. This is not the case with USB audio hardware, which can be plugged in any time.

@trixie

EXACTLY!

@Boabster

While this doesn't help with USB audio I did buy some USB speakers a while back. But, they were USB powered speakers. So I could have speakers without needing another power point. My current monitor has no speakers. I do find that sometimes there is some static though.

@pjsQuote:
At least on my MorphOS setup, which uses AHI too, I can plug in or unplug my USB headphones and AHI prefs get updated according to it. I just have to select another unit to get the list updated (or relaunch the prefs program), but I don't have to reboot the machine... so it's probably not about AHI per se...

BTW. have you tried AHI's AddAudioModes command to refresh the audio mode list manually? Don't know if it could do the trick, just remembered that there is such a command in AHI distributions.

@jPV

I think your right about that, but when you plug in the device, it has to be noticed, and driver has be added, or something like that.

devices and libraries are designed to be unloaded, but might not unload when you expect. They can stay in memory until you run low on memory, and then they will be forcefully removed. why that wont work with AHI I don't know.

Thanks for all the replies folks.

@Jpv,

I tried typing AddAudioModes in the shell. Nothing happens except just moves onto another line.

@Hypex

What brand of the external USB speakers you are using on Amiga OS 4.1?

@All

I had a look at the quick start manual, the audio out jack is at the rear of the A1222+, I wonder if I was to get an audio out convertor to USB, would that do the trick?

@boabster

"I wonder if I was to get an audio out convertor to USB, would that do the trick?"

It will but probably with latency.

@Boabster

Quote:

They are Logitech Z120.