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Weak, scratchy SB Radio sound, requires daily power-cycle to fix
Weak, scratchy SB Radio sound, requires daily power-cycle to fix
> This may be unrelated, but I found that certain tracks on Spotify would
> kill the left channel of my SB Touch. Audio would be very low volume,
> and sometimes sounded scratchy.
This may be unrelated, but I found that certain tracks on Spotify would kill the left channel of my SB Touch. Audio would be very low volume, and sometimes sounded scratchy.
The only remedy was as you've noted, power cycling the unit.
Audio quality is good each morning only *after* I power-cycle the SBR; the AQ stays good for at least 8 hours without requiring any additional attention.
At the end of the day, I "turn off" this station, but I don't typically power-down the SBR unit.
When I return to this station the next morning (using the SBR UI and buttons) , the audio is weak (low-volume) and scratchy.
This "poor AQ in the morning" started about 2 weeks ago, ~ April 15, 2022.
Prior to that, this station worked normally for over a year -- and I only power-cycled the SBR once or twice a year.
I have an SB Radio that I use mainly for listening to a few favorite internet radio stations.
When I switch this SB Radio on in the morning, the sound is weak and scratchy.
Disclaimer - I have never experienced this, just read about it. I also don't know if the symptoms/resolution method you describe match those experienced by others. I just interpreted "scratchy" as maybe being lacking bass.
At the end of the day, I "turn off" this station, but I don't typically power-down the SBR unit.
When I return to this station the next morning (using the SBR UI and buttons) , the audio is weak (low-volume) and scratchy.
This "poor AQ in the morning" started about 2 weeks ago, ~ April 15, 2022.
Prior to that, this station worked normally for over a year -- and I only power-cycled the SBR once or twice a year.
My first question would be around identifying what changed on 15 April 2022 ?
Have you updated LMS recently ? What version are you currently running ? If you updated recently, can you recall the earlier version.
I see that your SB Radio is running the "community" firmware: 8.0.1-r16867. Is this a new install/update ?
Answers may or may not offer clues as to where to look.
I cannot directly play your TuneIn URL here in the UK, because TuneIn is "geo-blocking" UK users owing to circumstances in the UK courts a year or two ago. And I don't use a VPN.
Tinkering on Tinternet suggests that TuneIn is providing you with an underlying MP3 stream, with URL https://kclustream.callutheran.edu:8090/kclump3. Can you confirm that the stream is, indeed, MP3 ? The File Format under more info would show up as MP3 if that is the case. I can play that URL in the UK.
As an experiment, you might try to see if you get the same (mis)behaviour using that underlying URL instead of the TuneIn URL. You would lose metadata, but a positive/negative result might help to narrow things down. Or not.
How do you "turn off" the station ? Do you "briefly" press the SBR UI pause/stop key, which puts it into the "paused" state, or is your press a little firmer, which would put into the "stopped" state ? I don't know that this would make any difference, but it may be worth paying some attention to it. The UI, bottom left hand corner, shows a Square icon if it is stopped, and a Paused icon ('II') if only paused.
Given this thread mentions KCLU ... I had a quick look and it was easy to add it into Radio Now Playing plugin.
So - you should see it in beta 0.0.21b and you should see the programme name and short synopsis.
It might also show music track names - but I will not know if it does until they have a music show.
I suspect that you already get the programme info in LMS via TuneIn ... but I am in UK so this is not available to me to verify.
TuneIN web site says that the next programme is "The Best of Car Talk" (in about 2 hours from now) but I think that my plugin will claim it is "Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!" (which TuneIn says is on 1 hour later).
Paul Webster Author of "Now Playing" plugins covering Radio France (FIP etc), PlanetRadio (Bauer - Kiss, Absolute, Scala, JazzFM etc), KCRW, ABC Australia and CBC/Radio-Canada
and, via the extra "Radio Now Playing" plugin lots more - see https://forums.slimdevices.com/showt...Playing-plugin
Disclaimer - I have never experienced this, just read about it. I also don't know if the symptoms/resolution method you describe match those experienced by others. I just interpreted "scratchy" as maybe being lacking bass.
My first question would be around identifying what changed on 15 April 2022 ?
Have you updated LMS recently ? What version are you currently running ? If you updated recently, can you recall the earlier version.
I see that your SB Radio is running the "community" firmware: 8.0.1-r16867. Is this a new install/update ?
Thanks for the suggestions!
Not a new install. I cut over to community firmware back in February or so. No changes of any kind in the month of April. That makes me suspect some kind of impending hardware failure.
Answers may or may not offer clues as to where to look.
I cannot directly play your TuneIn URL here in the UK, because TuneIn is "geo-blocking" UK users owing to circumstances in the UK courts a year or two ago. And I don't use a VPN.
Tinkering on Tinternet suggests that TuneIn is providing you with an underlying MP3 stream, with URL https://kclustream.callutheran.edu:8090/kclump3. Can you confirm that the stream is, indeed, MP3 ? The File Format under more info would show up as MP3 if that is the case. I can play that URL in the UK.
I'm not sure how to confirm MP3 but I am 99% sure it is. I am not familiar with the "file format" and "more info" guidance you have provided.
I have independently discovered the same MP3 URL that you cite. I think I used VLC on the Mac to discover this.
As an experiment, you might try to see if you get the same (mis)behaviour using that underlying URL instead of the TuneIn URL. You would lose metadata, but a positive/negative result might help to narrow things down. Or not.
I will give this a try. It will take a day or so to make sure this is an accurate test -- I'll need to wait till the SBR can "rest" overnight.
How do you "turn off" the station ? Do you "briefly" press the SBR UI pause/stop key, which puts it into the "paused" state, or is your press a little firmer, which would put into the "stopped" state ? I don't know that this would make any difference, but it may be worth paying some attention to it. The UI, bottom left hand corner, shows a Square icon if it is stopped, and a Paused icon ('II') if only paused.
I turn off this station by briefly pressing the on/off button on the front of the radio. This is what I have done for months (years?) prior to this issue popping up.
Not a new install. I cut over to community firmware back in February or so. No changes of any kind in the month of April. That makes me suspect some kind of impending hardware failure.
Almost certainly not impending hardware failure.
Originally posted by mrw
As an experiment, you might try to see if you get the same (mis)behaviour using that underlying URL instead of the TuneIn URL. You would lose metadata, but a positive/negative result might help to narrow things down. Or not.
Well, I tried that experiment, and replicated your result. Very scratchy.
Two tell tale entries in the Radio's log (/var/log/messages):
These match with log entries that were (still are?) sometimes seen in the context of the radio "bass amp problem". These kernel errors reflect under-runs somewhere down the audio chain, probably associated with DMA->Serial line audio sample transfers. I suspect that the existence of these entries is not a coincidence.
The stream itself is unusual in that it has a sample rate of 22050 HZ. Most steams will be 44100 HZ, or 48000 HZ. I wonder if, somehow, that is contributory. The ALSA subsystem may be continuously resampling "silence" from 22050 HZ to the Radio's native 44100 HZ, which could be adding some "not usual" work load on the system.
Switching to almost any other stream (with sample rate not 22050 HZ) will reset the ALSA playback sub-system, which is why you find that switching to a different internet radio station is an effective fix.
Originally posted by JPEG
This "poor AQ in the morning" started about 2 weeks ago, ~ April 15, 2022.
Prior to that, this station worked normally for over a year -- and I only power-cycled the SBR once or twice a year.
Just musing, but I wonder if KCLU switched their stream from a "conventional" 44100 HZ sample rate to 22050 HZ around that time. It would, I suppose, have halved the load on their server.
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