Hi,

EFIKA problem with audio something crackle/wheeze and very low quality audio with 22.05 kHz, 44.1 kHz, 88.2 kHz

24 kHz, 32 kHz, 48 kHz and 96 kHz is a good sound

EFIKA "Supported audio sample rates include 48kHz, 44.1kHz, 32kHz, 22.05kHz, 16kHz, 11.025kHz, and 8kHz; additional rates are supported in the STAC9766/67 soft audio drivers." http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/datasheets/STAC9766.pdf
http://media.digikey.com/pdf/Data%20Sheets/IDT/STAC9766_67.pdf

Mac mini very low quality audio with 24 kHz, 32 kHz, 48 kHz, 96 kHz (under OSX is a great sound)

22.05 KHz, 44.1 kHz, 88.2 KHz is a good sound

Do these crackles happen when you're moving the mouse around or resizing windows etc?

I think you have choosen Unit0:xxxx in Audio-perferences.....afaik this is a software-device (can confirm crackles wit this device on EFIKA).
Use direct device EFIKA:xxxx instead (but then there is no frequency to choice! Afaik it's fixed to 48KHz. This seems to be EFIKA-specific.........)

@stephen_robinson

Exactly what wheeze only one channel (once in the right and sometimes the left) only just like playing music and only in ahi mode stereo, modes mono no wheeze, so is there any bug in the sound drivers Efika.

@Amigaharry2

I checked all the modes and set it all on 2 channels in prefs ahi, but it still did not help.

Turn this same music of frequencies 96kHz and 88.2kHz etc. on SongPlayer or MPlayer on efika.audio/appleI2s.audio - HiFi 16 bit stereo

Test and write, hear a significant difference?

Efika no hardware sound 96kHz, but plays perfectly and better than the Mac mini, which is hardware sound 96kHz. With other frequencies the opposite is true. Unfortunately, most of the music I have in the frequencies of 22kHz and 44KHz and Efika is poor sound quality, and I have to convert to 24kHz and 48kHz.

If you do not have the same music in different frequencies to use AudioConvert, which is distributed together with SongPlayer.

This problem is caused by coincidence of two facts. First, in many MorphOS machines audio codec is fixed at one frequency. For example Efika codec is fixed at 48 kHz, while PowerBook codec is fixed at 44.1 kHz. This means, when application wants to play at different frequency, audio needs to be resampled. Then AHI comes with its poor quality resampling algorithms. Even in so-called HiFi modes, AHI uses linear interpolation without oversampling. It means signal to noise ratio is -26 dB in the worst case, which is very bad. It will be improved globally when AHI will be replaced with something better. For now one has to resample audio, or use player which has resampler built-in, for example MPlayer.

That's horrible to know! I was about to make a post about this very issue till I found this one.
Aggg. I remember a day when I was excited about AHI. Now I just loath it more and more every day.

Quote:

Sound on MPlayer is not better than SongPlayer 1.53 as without resample, and even worse, because they do not support modes HiFi in stereo without ++

EfikaHiFi16bitstereo.png

Source code driver from 2009 for Linux looks like it uses 3 hardware frequency 32/44.1/48 kHz
http://lxr.free-electrons.com/source/sound/soc/codecs/stac9766.c?a=powerpc

And what about the crackling sound on the Efika? Audio on Efika in the mono by audio.device you can not hear crackles, so maybe something wrong with the drivers Efika audio, whether produced some defective Efika?

EfikaUnit0HiFi16bitmono.png

Other users Efika this same problem with audio:

http://www.ppa.pl/forum/morphos/26828/efika-charczy#m365805

https://morph.zone/modules/newbb_plus/viewtopic.php?forum=2&topic_id=5377&post_id=106759&viewmode=flat&sortorder=0&showonepost=1


Besides there is another problem with sound of random channel swapping on Efika Wave Out.

Can the Efika be fitted with a PCI riser card to allow the use of a sound card?

No.

I found something, the boards Sam460ex/AmigaOne500 was also a problem with the crackling audio and bug has been identified: http://www.acube-systems.biz/index.php?page=news&id=115

This is the problem with commercial ventures like this. The consumer throws down money expecting that if there are any bugs in relation with the "supported" hardware they purchased, that they will eventually be worked out and improved upon.

First and foremost I purchased this unit to see if my Odamex project would run on it. I came to find that without OpenGL, that the machine could do Odamex fine, but the frame rate on my project dropped to low at points to make it playable.

I then figured I would use this for a fast means to run classic software (which was initially the main draw of MorphOS back in the day. As fate would have it though, not only is the audio buggy (just launch Digibooster 2.x and switch the screens a few times while a song is playing), but also support for the serial port was never written which still leaves me without access to a MIDI device for use with HD-Rec.

It would also appear that Camd for MorphOS still needs some work so even if I had access to a MIDI adapter via the serial port, I'm still not certain I'd be able to use it.

Likewise considering that backwards Amiga support used to be a highlight on the list of the MorphOS agenda, I still don't understand why there was never software written such as like Amithlon and OS 4 have that allow you to re-direct all Paula output to your sound card via AHI, or even the ability to trick the software to thinking you are using a Matrix or what ever it was called, which again would give us access to OctaMED Sound Studio.

Last but not least I still am experiencing artifacting with most of my classic Amiga graphics applications. There are some features which I was told that if I turn off, should reduce that chances of that happening. I took care of the ones which I knew how to access, but the others were elusive and I can't find any clear place to disable them.
Again that's another feature I'd like to see in MorphOS is something that makes it easy to turn off or turn on what ever it necessary to make older software more usable. If classic gfx programs don't artifact on a classic Amiga supporting a PCI video card, then I'd hope to see the same results on MorphOS if possible. Again, there are not many native applications for MorphOS, and a lot of them are ports, so what is the benefit of paying for a commercial OS that on the one hand, is getting better and better every day, yet at the same time leaves a lot of hardware neglected and the backwards support neglected. I don't think it is wise to move into the future of Intel or ARM processors and no backwards compatibility until support for what previous customers paid for (and intended for) is more fleshed out.

After all, what good is an Amiga clone if it's use in regards to multi-media creativity is so finite?

Sorry if I seem pissy, I love MorphOS I really do, and I hope the best for it, but stuff like this kind of stings, especially in the wallet and patience department.

P.S. Please don't tell me to learn how to code, I'm busy making my own game, writing musick, writing, doing video, enjoying nature, smashing tell-lie-visions, and all manor of other things, so I'll leave the coding to the coders till maybe some day I have more time and passion to investigate it my self. ;)