[gentoo-user] Re: Poor sound quality

[James]

Neil Bothwick <neil <at> digimed.co.uk> writes:



> > My sound started sounding like crap ~6 months ago.

> Eliminate hardware failure as a cause by trying it from a live CD.

Agreed. Try first to use other components.

Also, if your wiring is a mess, try to separate wires that
carry power, from those that primarily carry signals.

GROUNDING is often a source of problems. It could be
a pseudo charging/discharging  from a failing component,
like a  small ampliflier. It could be the build up
of capacitance (evicenced by volume variations) followed
by a discharge of the built up capacitance. Hard to say.

So swap out components as practical, move wires around,
check for intermittant brokend cables and check groundings.

Sometimes the plug in transformer used to power external speackers
does not have a ground wire (avoiding loop currents). Moving
those modules to a different circuit in your home/office
might help.

Good luck, Good Hunting!

hth,
James