Please Help. PCP-Kali-piano 2.1 dual mono channel imbalance

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I recently received a Allo kali and piano 2.1. Getting up and running has been no problem, however, I cannot run dual mono without a significant channel imbalance between left/right volume noticeably shifting the image.
I have used pcp 3.5 audio optimized and 4.0 audio RT kernel,,,and with a pi 2 and a pi3b+...and different sd cards.
If I run dual stereo each dac is balanced stereo although Dac A stereo outputs are also measurably louder than dac b's (sub) stereo outputs.
If I ssh into alsamixer I can see that the master volume as well as digital/sub volumes show to be same /identical.....I am a bit defeated does anyone have any experience-suggestions
Thx in advanc
 
I recently received a Allo kali and piano 2.1. Getting up and running has been no problem, however, I cannot run dual mono without a significant channel imbalance between left/right volume noticeably shifting the image.
I have used pcp 3.5 audio optimized and 4.0 audio RT kernel,,,and with a pi 2 and a pi3b+...and different sd cards.
If I run dual stereo each dac is balanced stereo although Dac A stereo outputs are also measurably louder than dac b's (sub) stereo outputs.
If I ssh into alsamixer I can see that the master volume as well as digital/sub volumes show to be same /identical.....I am a bit defeated does anyone have any experience-suggestions
Thx in advanc

What happens if you bump Master volume in alsamixer?

Do the channels become same volume?

-Tim
 
1. Post the "amixer" output
2. And if you do any changes on pCP commandline you need to run the backup command:
"filetool.sh -b" to save the changes!
Don't forget - you're running a system that resides 100% in RAM and after a reboot every change you've manually done via ssh is gone!
3. Actually. You better install the pCP4.0-beta with audio rt kernel first
And then rerun the exercise.
 
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As one last try I downloaded and wrote both volumino and picoreplayer 4.0RT images on a neighbors desktop pc.....SOB, both worked completely normal in dual mono and has been stable over the last 12 hours
It appears that even though I am getting no download, checksum error or file corruption on my pc that has been used extensively for these purposes in the past ( including recent past) I have something going on with this pc in downloading and writing images onto sdcards.....at a loss as to what is going on to break the images in a way that is not generating any message/notification but will resolve it
But these new images from different pc are working normally, at least if I leave all default settings besides for selecting driver, gd-blck and dual mono settings. For the moment, I am a little gun shy in messing with any other settings in Squeezelite advanced ��
Thanks much to all who has offered assistance...as always a learning experience
 
1.
Most image files come with a checksum file.
pCP supplies one in the zip archive.

Generating the checksum of your downloaded image and comparing it to the given checksum rules out any corruption ( or tampering ) of that image.
OK. Tampering !?!? - not really - the pCP guys would have to provide the checksum separately.

The checksum check is actually the first thing you should do to make sure your base data are healthy.
Most people skip this step anyhow.

2.
Make sure you use a high quality SD card. I nowadays use SanDisk Ultra 16GB @7.99.
Hint:
To cope with wear down effects, as soon as I take the cards into operation
I write the date on each of them with a marker. Usually after two years in
use I'll ditch them.


3.
Yes there can be issues with the PC. But that's in my experience not
happening very often.
What I do though I'm buying from time to time (2-3 years) new and better USB sd-adapters.

And then I try to avoid a lot of parallel traffic on the PC while writing the cards.

4.
On the PI itself images can also get corrupted. (Due to its RAM operation and tiny size
IMO pCP is least prone to it though)
I havn't seen HW caused SD corruption since the 1 gen. PI devices.
However. Poor/unstable power supplies can also cause damage.
Especially the 3B+ Pi consumes more power then the rest of the bunch.
Make sure your PS fits the 3B+ (peak!) demands to avoid that situation.


Enjoy.
 
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Lance,

I assume you are the same Lance we were working with over at the LMS forums. Just incase anyone else stumbles on this thread. When in dual mono mode, do not use alsamixer and adjust the sub volume, as that will indeed only affect the right channel. When in dual mono mode, the "Master" control will override and adjust both left and right channels.
 
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