Pulseaudio no LFE (subwoofer output) in 2.1 or 4.1 configuration

Question

I'm using pulseaudio with a 6-channel USB sound device (which reports itself as a "CM106 Like Sound Device"). I added the following to ~/.config/pulse/daemon.conf:

enable-lfe-remixing = yes
lfe-crossover-freq = 50

If I open pavucontrol and, under the configuration tab, select "Analog Surround 5.1 Output," everything works fine as best I can tell, except for the fact that I don't have 5 speakers. (I can test by moving the speakers around to different output ports and playing surround sound test files.)

Unfortunately, if I select either "Analog Surround 4.1 Output" or "Analog Surround 2.1 Output", I get no sound out of my subwoofer. Is there any way to make my subwoofer work with fewer than 6 channels?

Answer 1

It is the complete setup.

Copy the daemon.conf file.

cp /etc/pulse/daemon.conf ~/.config/pulse/

Uncomment 'enable-lfe-remixing' and set yes.

enable-lfe-remixing = yes

Copy the default.pa file.

cp /etc/pulse/default.pa ~/.config/pulse/

Add at the end of the file this load module.

load-module module-combine channels=6 channel_map=front-left,front-right,rear-left,rear-right,front-center,lfe

Open alsamixer > select the sound card which manage the woofer (F6) > unmute the bass speaker <Bass Spe>.

Finally reboot your computer / laptop.

If you are looking for test it. I recommend the Woofer and Subwoofer Test web page then click on the link '80-89Hz' or any greater than 50Hz.

The original solution: Andrea Grandi

Answer 2

I know that's an old thread, but I also know that some people like me, still have this problem. I found a solution, a really easy one and it worked great after messing around with the config files.

In /etc/pulse/daemon.conf I commented the following lines :

#enable-remixing = yes

#remixing-use-all-sink-channels = yes
 
#remixing-produce-lfe = yes

#remixing-consume-lfe = yes

#lfe-crossover-freq = 80

then restart pulseaudio

pulseaudio -k

This ONLY works if you have a real multichannel sound system (5.1, 4.1, etc.). Upmixing is only a solution for stereo sound systems "fake multichannel" (that's why the lfe doesn't work, at least, for me).

The crossover is useless in a true multichannel system like I use, because the av-receiver already does the job. The only thing pulseaudio does now (in a 5.1 configuration for example), is send the 6 channels to the av-receiver and the av-receiver will do the job perfectly fine and send each channel to the right speaker.

I hope this will help people having this issue.