System wide sound equalizer for Hifiberry DAC?

Been looking into this as it would be nice to have a system wide solution to provide equalization to the sound output.
My setup uses a Suptronics X5000 I2S DAC. I’ve proceeded to install the alsaeq modules (following the step-by-step procedure outlined here). I also needed to manually install the alsa-utils and alsamixer in order to get the required UI and the command-line utilities.

I did not have a /etc/asound.conf file, so I created one and entered these values:

pcm.!default {
  type plug
  slave.pcm plugequal;
}
ctl.!default {
  type hw card 0
}
ctl.equal {
  type equal;
}
pcm.plugequal {
  type equal;
  slave.pcm "plughw:0,0";
}
pcm.equal {
  type plug;
  slave.pcm plugequal;
}

(again, following the procedures outlined in the above referenced page)

So when I issue the aplay -l command (from alsa-utils), I get this:

**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: sndrpihifiberry [snd_rpi_hifiberry_dac], device 0: HifiBerry DAC HiFi pcm5102a-hifi-0 []
  Subdevices: 0/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

Moving on to calling the UI utility via alsamixer -D equal command, I get this “semi-graphical” UI with a 10-band slider adjustment:

lqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqq AlsaMixer v1.0.28 qqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqk
x Card: Eq10                                                                                         F1:  Help               x
x Chip: alsaequal                                                                                    F2:  System information x
x View: F3:[Playback] F4: Capture  F5: All                                                           F6:  Select sound card  x
x Item: 01. 31 Hz                                                                                    Esc: Exit               x
x                                                                                                                            x
x                                                                                                                            x
x                                                                                                                            x
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x          lqqk       lqqk       lqqk       lqqk       lqqk       lqqk       lqqk       lqqk       lqqk       lqqk           x
x          x  x       x  x       x  x       x  x       x  x       x  x       x  x       x  x       x  x       x  x           x
x          x  x       x  x       x  x       x  x       x  x       x  x       x  x       x  x       x  x       x  x           x
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x          xaax       xaax       xaax       xaax       xaax       xaax       xaax       xaax       xaax       xaax           x
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x          xaax       xaax       xaax       xaax       xaax       xaax       xaax       xaax       xaax       xaax           x
x          xaax       xaax       xaax       xaax       xaax       xaax       xaax       xaax       xaax       xaax           x
x          mqqj       mqqj       mqqj       mqqj       mqqj       mqqj       mqqj       mqqj       mqqj       mqqj           x
x         66<>66     66<>66     66<>66     66<>66     66<>66     66<>66     66<>66     66<>66     66<>66     66<>66          x
x      <01. 31 Hz >02. 63 Hz  03. 125 Hz 04. 250 Hz 05. 500 Hz 06. 1 kHz  07. 2 kHz  08. 4 kHz  09. 8 kHz  10. 16 kHz        x
x                                                                                                                            x
x                                                                                                                            x
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mqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqj

However, moving the sliders makes absolutely no difference in my Hifiberry-based audio DAC. I suspected that maybe it has to do with telling the alsa drivers to pass through audio from the Pi to the DAC card (as a sink? Sorry - I’m using fancy words that I don’t fully understand here). So I pressed F6 and it greeted me with the sound card selection screen:

lqqqqqq Sound Card qqqqqqk
x-  (default)            x
x0  snd_rpi_hifiberry_dacx
x   enter device name... x
mqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqqj 

Upon selecting the snd_rpi_hifiberry_dac device and hitting Enter, I then get: This sound device does not have any controls.

I wonder if there is anything else in terms of editing configuration files in order to insert the alsaeq into the alsa audio-chain on OSMC (to plug in between the audio fed from the Pi to the DAC)? I’m not an expert in commanding Linux distros (more of a Windows mouse pilot myself) so I’d very much appreciate anything that could point me to the right direction.

Thanks in advance.

anyone?

Hi,

Not sure if this help, but according to readme provided with package the values you’ve put asound.conf need to go into .asoundrc and from some googling it appears this should be saved in the home directory /home/osmc.

Thanks Tom.

Thanks Tom. I did what you suggested, however it made no difference whatsoever in changing the equalizer’s values. However I have a hunch this is the right place, but not sure as I’m completely blindfolded on this one.
I wish I knew a bit more about the theory on injecting a dsp application into the alsa drivers for processing the audio coming in to the DAC board.

Perhaps someone with a bit more knowledge than me can stop by eventually and shed some light on this predicament of mine.

hi,

this may help:

http://www.alsa-project.org/main/index.php/Asoundrc#The_.asoundrc_file_format

Thanks Tom.

Same issue here. Did you make it work and how?