The Open Sourcerer

Avoid the Tenx "3D" USB audio sound cards2 min read

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by

Jeff
in ,

I ordered a dirt-cheap (3$) USB sound card from eBay in the vague hope that it would work with Linux. It doesn’t. Not a big loss, I guess.
They go by names like “USB 2.0 TO 3D AUDIO SOUND CARD ADAPTER VIRTUAL 5.1 ch” which is, as I could easily predict, a gross overstatement (but hey, that’s the Chinese cheap-junk marketing for you; it’s just funny in its own way). They look like this:
a07_0
At the time of this writing, with Ubuntu 8.10, they will give this syslog output when plugged in, which is also, of course, funny as hell (emphasis added):

kernel: [ 3911.030010] usb 3-1: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 7
kernel: [ 3911.227851] usb 3-1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
kernel: [ 3911.270954] input: USB  AUDIO   as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1a.2/usb3/3-1/3-1:1.3/input/input15
kernel: [ 3911.365501] input,hidraw3: USB HID v1.10 Device [USB  AUDIO  ] on usb-0000:00:1a.2-1
kernel: [ 3911.368925] input: USB  AUDIO   as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1a.2/usb3/3-1/3-1:1.4/input/input16
kernel: [ 3911.462667] input,hidraw4: USB HID v1.10 Device [USB  AUDIO  ] on usb-0000:00:1a.2-1
pulseaudio[6542]: alsa-util.c: Device front:2 doesn’t support 44100 Hz, changed to 48000 Hz.
pulseaudio[6542]: module-alsa-sink.c: Your kernel driver is broken: it reports a volume range from 0,00 dB to 0,00 dB which makes no sense.
pulseaudio[6542]: alsa-util.c: Device hw:2 doesn’t support 44100 Hz, changed to 24000 Hz.
pulseaudio[6542]: alsa-util.c: Device hw:2 doesn’t support 6 channels, changed to 1.
pulseaudio[6542]: module-alsa-source.c: Your kernel driver is broken: it reports a volume range from 0,00 dB to 0,00 dB which makes no sense.

I love those syslogs, they crack me up. Using lsusb, you can find that the device ID for this USB piece of junk is “1130:f211 Tenx Technology, Inc. USB audio headset”. Anyway, the thing is actually worse than my onboard audio (and that’s tough to beat), with random sine-like noise that … whatever, it’s not usable, and I did not play more than 5 minutes with it. And I don’t want to wait for the slim probability of a kernel/alsa hacker actually buying one of these things and fixing the driver.
Now some questions to entertain the audience:

  • Anybody nearby wants a free Linux-incompatible USB sound card?
  • Do you have recommendations of a USB sound card/adapter that is Linux compatible and would allow me to do clean voice recordings without the usual baseline noise/hiss from onboard sound cards? And I do mean dirt cheap. As in “guaranteed to work, easy to find and less than 80$”. The goal is to be able to use any microphone with it (I have an electret condenser mic sitting around: a Sony ECM-99)
  • Failing that, any recommendations for a dirt-cheap USB microphone (again, <80$) that will work with Linux (and especially, PulseAudio)? It could be a headset, as long as it works well.
Jeff
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Comments

One response to “Avoid the Tenx "3D" USB audio sound cards”

  1. s3phy Avatar
    s3phy

    HA I knew you would talk about that when I saw your recent eBay evaluations 😉
    >Anyway, the thing is actually worse than my onboard audio
    What did you expect >.>
    >Anybody nearby wants a free Linux-incompatible USB sound card?
    Keep it for me, I’ll play with it during the summer 🙂
    >Do you have recommendations of a USB sound card/adapter that is Linux compatible and would allow me to do clean voice recordings without the usual baseline noise/hiss from onboard sound cards?
    For the “clean voice” part I have a recommendation, but I’m not sure it’ll work with linux, and the price isn’t “dirt cheap”. The Behringer UCA202. Behringer is an audiophile brand, the device gives an excellent sound quality (or so I heard several times, never tried it myself), you could expect the price to be astronomical, actually it only costs 30€.
    And Google seems to say it works well with GNU/Linux 😉