Low headphone volume - v4.1 kit

Hi - I built my zynthian from the v4.1 kit and I’m experiencing fairly low volume when using the RPi headphone jack. I have the headphone volume turned up to 100% in my Audio Levels config - do I need to adjust anything else? Thanks!

Hi @dComposer - lovely to see you here.

The Headphone output is actually the Raspberry Pi onboard audio output (which is lower quality that main output). There is an overhead to run this output so it is disabled by default and recommended it not be used if not required. It is enabled from an option in the admin menu. Using the latest firmware should configure this output with correct level.

Selecting “Test Audio” in the admin menu plays some audio which should sound fairly loud.

What headphones are you using? Do you know their impedance?

Thanks @riban - to be clear, I got the headphone jack to work, it just sounded like it was maybe 20-30% loud at max volume (using an old pair of sennheiser ear buds). Yeah, I scoured the forum before posting so maybe I’ll have to do that cheap headphone amp mod to get this to work - just wanted to be sure I wasn’t missing some hidden setting! Thanks again…

If you are happy to drop to command line furtling, either by ssh or webconf INTERFACE->Terminal you could try@

amixer -c Headphones

to see the current level. Mine gives:

Simple mixer control 'Headphone',0
  Capabilities: pvolume pvolume-joined pswitch pswitch-joined
  Playback channels: Mono
  Limits: Playback -10239 - 400
  Mono: Playback 0 [96%] [0.00dB] [on]

and volume is what I would call normal into a pair of cheap 32 Ohm headphones.

Wow thanks again, @riban ! Really appreciate the help :slight_smile:

When I typed that into the terminal I got the exact same settings as you except for the last line:

Mono: Playback 7 [96%] [0.07dB] [on]

Do I need to adjust this?

Nope! That is close enough. Maybe your headphones are less sensitive or maybe there is an issue with your headphone output.

[Edit] You do have a bit more boost you can provide in the “Audio Levels” screen.

1 Like

Whang the volume up on the synth layer you’re using too.

That’s the thing though - the mixer is already clipping from that volume knob being cranked. Do you get into the red zone easily?

Slight update - I bought a new usb-c cable to connect my power bank to my Zynthian and it doesn’t seem to redline as quickly now! I’m able to increase the volume of the instrument without clipping immediately. It’s still not extraordinarily loud but at least it’s something! I’m going to try the headphone amp mod once I get the board!