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When I plug my FiiO E7 USB Audio DAC & Amp in Ubuntu 13.04, it is recognized as Audio DAC but only via the Analog Output port.

I have to log-out and in again before the USB Audio DAC Digital Output (S/PDIF) comes available in Sound settings, which has much better quality.

How can I enable the Digital Output manually, so I don't have to logout?

landroni
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Janghou
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  • [This answer](http://askubuntu.com/questions/544843/is-fiio-e10k-dac-supported-on-ubuntu-14-04/564523#564523) to a similar question suggests `sudo alsa reload` followed by `sudo killall pulseaudio`, and then plugging the FiiO DAC device. Does this work for you? (In my case, with a FiiO X3, I'm still only seeing `DAC Analog Stereo`, and no digital port...) – landroni Feb 14 '15 at 21:35
  • [This other answer](http://askubuntu.com/questions/294512/setting-the-default-alsa-device-for-pulseaudio/519156#519156) proposes an interesting VLC-based workaround, but I'm not yet sure if it makes a real difference (at least FiiO X3 keeps displaying 44kHz/24bits, which I suspect effectively means `Analog Output` port). – landroni Feb 14 '15 at 22:24

2 Answers2

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To enable digital output on a FiiO X3 without ending session you need to kill PulseAudio as suggested in How to I get the right Pulseaudio profiles to show up without restarting Pulseaudio?: 

pulseaudio -k

Then I can see the device FiiO USB Audio Class 2.0 DAC Digital Stereo (IEC958), while PulseAudio Mixer reports the Digital Output (S/PDIF) port.

I'm not convinced yet that using the Digital Output (vs the Analog Output) changes audio quality that much, though... And the X3 still displays 48kHz/24bits, whichever device is selected, so I suspect that the OS still downsamples the whole thing before passing it to the device...

Community
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landroni
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1

You need to connect your E07 before you turn on your computer. It is that easy. Enable Digital Output for E07 in Ubuntu

user294508
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