SoundBlaster ZxR users w/ DBpro daughterboard: does it work?

Communities Audio Hardware & Music
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1

Hello SoundBlaster ZxR users (surely there are dozens of us)!

I’m trying to use the RCA Line-In jacks on the DBpro daughter card with PulseAudio, but the device labeled “Line In” in Gnome’s sound settings receives the same input as the port labeled “Microphone” on the main card.

Snooping around in the patch_ca1032.c file in the Linux kernel, detection of the DBpro card adds some additional audio devices:

	case QUIRK_ZXR_DBPRO:
		spec->adcs[0] = 0x8; /* ZxR DBPro Aux In */

		spec->num_inputs = 1;
		spec->input_pins[0] = 0x11; /* RCA Line-in */

		spec->dig_out = 0x05;
		spec->multiout.dig_out_nid = spec->dig_out;

		spec->dig_in = 0x09;
		break;

All of these show up, including digital in and out. Unfortunately I have no way to test the digital ports. The RCA Line-In jacks work fine in Windows, so the hardware definitely functions.

Here is the portion where certain “quirks” of the card are activated:

static void sbz_detect_quirk(struct hda_codec *codec)
{
	struct ca0132_spec *spec = codec->spec;

	switch (codec->core.subsystem_id) {
	case 0x11020033:
		spec->quirk = QUIRK_ZXR;
		break;
	case 0x1102003f:
		spec->quirk = QUIRK_ZXR_DBPRO;
		break;
	default:
		spec->quirk = QUIRK_SBZ;
		break;
	}
}

The output of lspci -nnv | grep Creative shows only the following:

7e:00.0 Audio device [0403]: Creative Labs CA0132 Sound Core3D [Sound Blaster Recon3D / Z-Series / Sound BlasterX AE-5 Plus] [1102:0012] (rev 01)
	Subsystem: Creative Labs SB1570 SB Audigy Fx [1102:0010]

I don’t seem to have 1102:0033 or 1102:003f PCI devices. Is this related to the issue? Am I on the right track at all?

Thanks!

3

I had one for a time. On some bootups the daughterboard wasn’t recognised for some weird reason. I had to restart from a cold boot to get it back most of the time. No idea if it may be the same case for you.

4

install pulseaudio volume control and look under configuration specifically the profile the sound blaster is using.

Hope this helps!

5

Wait, do you mean that SoundBlaster ZxR works in Linux? I tried to use it circa 2016 and it was completely silent… errors at bootup, etc. Then again I am rather on the noob side, but anyway, I gave up.

So if these days it started to work (even without the daughterboard), where can I do some reading to try again?

6

yep. I had to install the pulseaudio volume control to turn off my onboard sound card and turn off my ps5 controller to make my soundblaster work correctly. I don’t understand why linux or windows makes the ps5 controller the default audio device automatically is beyond me!

7

This step shouldn’t be required anymore, the card itself works out of the box. You can toggle between headphone and speaker output using the standard GUI in Gnome or KDE, even!

My issue is specifically that the inputs are either garbled or don’t work, and this bug seems to be known and unresolved.

So I went back to the FireWire solution I had been using.

8

Well I was getting annoyed that I had to change and configure the audio settings every time I logged into my system. Hence having to install the app to turn off the other devices and now it stays configured correctly!

Just figured your issue was similar enough to mine that this would work!

I still get scratchy audio from time to time and yet to have figured it out. Usually stems from a secondary app giving me a warning over the current in use app or alt tabbing to many time that cause the issues!