# iMac Late 2009 running GhostBSD Sound works but shrill.



## fatjackdurham (Dec 10, 2020)

I've also posted this on the GhostBSD forum here

Hi. I have loaded GhostBSD on my iMac (late 2009). I am running FreeBSD 12.2-STABLE FreeBSD 12.2-STABLE GENERIC amd64 running MATE.

Everything has been easy so far, but when I play music through youtube with either firefox or chromium, that sound is flat and shrill, as though someone has turned down all the base EQ settings and turned up the midrange.

I've been poking around the FreeBSD handbook and this forum looking for answers and the closest I came was the Parametric EQ post, but I am not sure that's correct. I put the `hint.pcm.0.eq=1` in the loader.conf, but it didn't fix the problem and i haven't made any other changes.

dmesg shows this:

```
pcm0: <Cirrus Logic CS4206 (Internal Analog 4.0/2.0)> at nid 10,11 and 13 on hdaa0
pcm1: <Cirrus Logic CS4206 (Rear Analog)> at nid 9 and 12 on hdaa0
pcm2: <Cirrus Logic CS4206 (Rear Digital)> at nid 16 and 15 on hdaa0
pcm3: <NVIDIA MCP7A (Digital)> at nid 5 on hdaa1
```
I've tried to research how to tell what audio driver is running, and how to download current drivers, but so far, everything seems to just be automatic. I installed aumix, and while the balance and volume settings do work, the bass and treble controls don't seem to have an effect.

Does anyone have any hints on what needs to be done to get better sound quality? I compared it to the regular MacOS running on the box and the speakers definitely can make better sound. I just wonder if I have just some generic settings somewhere that can be tweaked, or a specific chipset or audo driver I should install, but the handbook makes it sound like there isn't much to do. It seems more about making sound work, not work well.

Thanks. Oh, yeah, obviously new to FreeBSD> I tried loading some other snd drivers from the boot/kernel directory with kldload, but not different.


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## fatjackdurham (Dec 10, 2020)

I found this https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2409016 Which seems to describe the issue I am having, but I installing alsa mixer didn't fix it. I notice the alsa mixer shows the sound card as this:

Card: FreeBSD/OSS 
Chip: FreeBSD/OSS

So, based on the ubuntu posting, it seems the current driver I am using isn't enabled for all speakers maybe? Any ideas how to enable the base speakers too?


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## fatjackdurham (Dec 11, 2020)

I delved into the sysctl settings and device hints, however, I haven't located the correct entries to turn on the other speakers. in increased the vchan settings, and set the gpios for what its worth. What I am wondering if FreeBSD is actually selecting the correct driver? In the hand book it says you just have to load snd_hda, and sound, and it will find the best one. IN alsa mixer though, it's not showing the Intel HD driver its showing FreeBSD/OSS. What is OSS? is that a driver or more of a frameword?

from sysctl
device    snd_cmi
device    snd_csa
device    snd_emu10kx
device    snd_es137x
device    snd_hda
device    snd_ich
device    snd_via8233
device    snd_uaudio
dev.pcm.0.eq_preamp: +0.0dB
dev.pcm.0.eq: 1
dev.pcm.0.bitperfect: 0
dev.pcm.0.buffersize: 65536
dev.pcm.0.rec.vchanformat: s16le:2.0
dev.pcm.0.rec.vchanrate: 48000
dev.pcm.0.rec.vchanmode: fixed
dev.pcm.0.rec.vchans: 1
dev.pcm.0.rec.autosrc: 2
dev.pcm.0.rec.32bit: 24
dev.pcm.0.play.vchanformat: s16le:4.0
dev.pcm.0.play.vchanrate: 44100
dev.pcm.0.play.vchanmode: fixed
dev.pcm.0.play.vchans: 4
dev.pcm.0.play.32bit: 24
dev.pcm.0.%parent: hdaa0
dev.pcm.0.%pnpinfo: 
dev.pcm.0.%location: nid=10,11,13
dev.pcm.0.%driver: pcm
dev.pcm.0.%desc: Cirrus Logic CS4206 (Internal Analog 4.0/2.0)
dev.pcm.%parent: 
hint.pcm.0.vpc=1
hint.pcm.0.eq=1

oot@steve-ghostbsd-pc:~ # cat /dev/sndstat 
Installed devices:
pcm0: <Cirrus Logic CS4206 (Internal Analog 4.0/2.0)> (play/rec) default
pcm1: <Cirrus Logic CS4206 (Rear Analog)> (play/rec)
pcm2: <Cirrus Logic CS4206 (Rear Digital)> (play/rec)
pcm3: <NVIDIA MCP7A (Digital)> (play)
No devices installed from userspace.

Any ideas at all?


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## bsduck (Dec 15, 2020)

fatjackdurham said:


> What is OSS? is that a driver or more of a frameword?


OSS (Open Sound System) is to FreeBSD what ALSA (Advanced Linux Sound Architecture) is to Linux: the built-in sound system. ALSA tools like alsamixer you installed are using a compatibility layer on top of OSS and you usually don't need them. The native command line mixer is `mixer`, if you want something similar to alsamixer you can install audio/mixertui.



fatjackdurham said:


> In the hand book it says you just have to load snd_hda, and sound


Both are loaded automatically.
Did you try as mentioned on the GhostBSD forum to use snd_csa instead of snd_hda? What are the results?


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## fernandel (Dec 26, 2020)

I have iMac 27'' 11,1 (late 2009) and in /boot/device.hints I have:

```
hint.pcm.1.eq="1"
# hint.hdaa.gpio_config="3=set"
hint.hdaa.1.nid9.config="as=4 seq=0 misc=1"
hint.hdaa.1.nid10.config="as=4 seq=2"
hint.hdaa.1.nid11.config="as=4 seq=4"
# hint.hdaa.1.nid9.config="as=4 seq=15"
# hint.hdaa.1.nid10.config="as=4 seq=2"
#hint.hdaa.1.nid11.config="as=4 seq=4"
# hint.hdaa.1.nid14.config="as=4 seq=15 misc=1"
```


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