6

I have installed RetroPie in my B+, but when I play a game, the sound cracks. I have connect my speakers using 3,5 mm jack.

goldilocks
  • 58,859
  • 17
  • 112
  • 227
wb9688
  • 255
  • 1
  • 2
  • 9
  • First, because of the nature of the jack(for video and audio out) I have learned that you have to put it in a certain way(you cant plug it in all the way). Also, speakers have impeadence values and will max out so check your volume. – NULL Jun 10 '15 at 19:15
  • This article talks about sound quality on the b+: http://www.crazy-audio.com/2014/07/sound-quality-of-the-raspberry-pi-b/ and suggests one of these http://www.hifiberry.com/dacplus after concluding the sound on the B+ was not that good. – NULL Jun 10 '15 at 19:22
  • @NULL If I plug my headphone into the Pi I don't have cracking sounds. And if I plug my speakers into another computer I don't have the cracking sounds. – wb9688 Jun 10 '15 at 20:08
  • The jack on the pi is different from that on your computer: the computer is only meant for headphones whereas the pi has more contacts so you have to stick it in farther or less possibly. Otherwise I am not sure. – NULL Jun 12 '15 at 14:16

2 Answers2

4

There are three solutions for this:

Solution 1

Make sure your Pi is getting enough power. This is the most common problem with Raspberry Pi's, because they don't come with a standardized power supply. Just make sure you are using a thick and short cord, and not a thin and long one like phone charging cords.

Solution 2

Pulseaudio. Pulseaudio is a package for the RPi that significantly increases the quality of the audio. Follow this tutorial.

Solution 3

Buy an external USB sound card. This is what I do, just because I needed to record things and the RPi's audio jack is not capable of input. I use this card, it is very cheap at $3 and the quality exactly the same as the audio port on my Macbook.

wb9688
  • 255
  • 1
  • 2
  • 9
Patrick Cook
  • 6,365
  • 7
  • 37
  • 63
  • While an older solution, worth mentioning that the OP mentioned running RetroPie. While Pulseaudio works great under Raspbian, in general, there are some reports of system hangs on RetroPie. I recently ran into freezing with Pulseaudio on an otherwise vanilla RetroPie image, twice. For anyone pursuing solution two on a RetroPie, who then experiences freezes, uninstalling Pulseaudio will get you back to even keel, most likely. – Joseph Ferris Mar 01 '17 at 04:11
  • Pulse Audio does NOT significantly increase the quality of the audio. PERIOD.

    It adds software mixing and network sound server capability. The problem is that it injects 100+ msec of latency on playback and it can do screwed up things like scratch sound over time because of POOR coding work.

     – Svartalf Oct 10 '21 at 15:11
0

If others are having this problem on a Raspberry Pi 1: Upgrade your firmware with rpi-update - see https://github.com/raspberrypi/linux/issues/128

That reduces the number of cracks to 1, on the first use.

cweiske
  • 101
  • 2