This is going a bit off topic, but since there are probably a number of sound gurus following the original thread, I thought I'd throw out another sound question.
I have a desktop machine running Debian 11. It contains an nVidia card which I've hooked to my TV via HDMI. Currently sound is coming out the analog jacks on the computer; I'd like to put the sound on the HDMI output so when switching the TV from my cable box to the computer, I don't have to also switch my sound system's input. I know my hardware is capable of doing this; if I type mpv --audio-device=alsa/hdmi:CARD=NVidia,DEV=0 foo.mp3 foo.mp3 will play through the HDMI audio output rather than the default analog jacks. What I want to do is make the HDMI audio output the default. When I bring up alsamixer and hit F6, I get the following choices: 0 HDA Intel 1 HDA NVidia 2 IVTV-0 3 IVTV-1 There's no mention of which is the default or how to set a default. Here's the output of the aplay -l command: **** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices **** card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 0: STAC9271D Analog [STAC9271D Analog] Subdevices: 1/1 Subdevice #0: subdevice #0 card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 1: STAC9271D Digital [STAC9271D Digital] Subdevices: 1/1 Subdevice #0: subdevice #0 card 1: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 3: HDMI 0 [HDMI 0] Subdevices: 1/1 Subdevice #0: subdevice #0 card 1: NVidia [HDA NVidia], device 7: HDMI 1 [HDMI 1] Subdevices: 1/1 Subdevice #0: subdevice #0 I've tried cobbling together bits and pieces I've found in various places to create the following /etc/aplay.conf: defaults.pcm.card 1 defaults.pcm.device 0 defaults.ctl.card 1 defaults.ctl.device 0 pcm.!default { type hw card 1 device 0 } ctl.!default { type hw card 1 device 0 } I've tried substituting both 3 and 7 on the "device" lines, but nothing seems to have any effect. I'm not sure what it takes to get ALSA to recognize a change in its configuration, so I rebooted after each change just in case. Although I've found many references to this topic on the web, the answers are confusing, conflicting, or oriented toward PulseAudio rather than ALSA. Can someone help clear the air? -- /~\ Charlie Gibbs | Life is perverse. \ / <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> | It can be beautiful - X I'm really at ac.dekanfrus | but it won't. / \ if you read it the right way. | -- Lily Tomlin