[SunRescue] SPARC mp3 player revisited...

[Mike Hebel]

Here's an update on my LX SPARC mp3 box....
(32meg LX, 1gig boot drive, 4.3 gig barracuda (thanks John Croteau!) for
storage.  Now I just need right angle Molex power plugs to be able to close
the case.)

1)  I did find an OS that supports the DBRI sound - Debian!  It is full
16-bit stereo however there are some issues that I'll mention below.

2)  The first issue is that you have to make sure you get a clean install
with the Debian development tools so that mpg123 will compile cleanly.

3)  You need to install both audioctl and mpg123 and make sure they work
properly.  mpg123 will only run properly with 44khz mp3 files if the -r 8000
switch is set.  The --aggressive switch helps as well.  audioctl needs to be
run with 'audioctl -f /dev/audio -w play.gain=xxx' or a play.gain of about
170 depending on what you're hooking it to.

4)  Here's gotcha number one - the output is not switchable between
headphone, line-out, and speaker in the current 2.2 kernel.  It plays out of
ALL of them at once.  This is supposed to be fixed in the 2.4 kernel.

5)  Gotcha number two - the -r 8000 switch.  This forces a frequency rate of
8khz.  This affects the sound quality a little but without this switch it's
almost like the speaker becomes "switched" and it pops as if it's connected
to a constantly switching relay.  I'm not sure how to fix this one since I
do not understand the whole 8khz - 44khz frequency rates thing.  If someone
could explain that to me I'd really appreciate it.

There you have it.  It's a SPARC LX and it plays mp3 files!  Hope this
points people in the right direction.

Mike Hebel