# TerraTec Aureon 7.1

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The Terratec Aureon 7.1 USB is an affordable external sound card which supports optical and digital output through S/PDIF with full 5.1/7.1 surround sound. To use this card, install ALSA (which has support for this sound card). To configure the card for usage, follow these steps:

## Installation

### Set the card as the default device

If you have multiple sound cards, you need to set the Terratec card as a default. Create the following file

    /etc/modprobe.d/alsa.conf

    options snd slots=snd_usb_audio

Rebooting may be required for the changes to take effect.

### Enable volume control

This card doesn't have hardware volume control, so you need to create software Master control. Create the following file in your home folder

    .asoundrc

    pcm.softvol {
            type softvol
            slave {
                    pcm "dmix"
            }
            control {
                    name "Master"
                    card 0
            }
    }

    pcm.!default {
            type plug
            slave.pcm "softvol"
    }

Again, restart alsa, then open a music player, play a file and close the player. Then check alsamixer, as you should have a Master volume control.

### Hotkeys

The sound card has external hotkeys for volume change and mute. You can capture the button presses by installing Xbindkeys and using the following config:

    .xbindkeysrc

    #Volume up
    "amixer set 'Master' 5+"
        m:0x0 + c:123
        XF86AudioRaiseVolume

    #Volume down
    "amixer set 'Master' 5-"
        m:0x0 + c:122
        XF86AudioLowerVolume

    #Mute
    "/media/disk/programs/mute.sh"
        m:0x0 + c:121
        XF86AudioMute

As you can see, alsamixer doesn't handle mute for this mixer, which is why you can use a simple mute.sh script, which stores the volume level in `volume.txt`. Be sure to change the file path to mute.sh accordingly.

    #!/bin/bash
    var=$(amixer get Master | grep "Front Left:")
    var=$(echo "$var" | sed -ne 's/^[^[]*\[\([^]]*\)\].*/\1/p')
    if [ $var == "0%" ]
    then
            volume=$(cat volume.txt)
            amixer set 'Master' $volume
    else
            rm volume.txt
            echo $var > volume.txt
            amixer set 'Master' 0%
    fi

### Configure mplayer for surround sound (optional)

Add the following codec settings for mplayer:

    .mplayer/config

    ac=hwac3,hwdts,a52,dts,
    ao=alsa

Kodi can be used for media playback too, as most receivers do no support the AAC codec. Kodi will re-encode AAC to a common codec (AC3 probably) in realtime, so you can watch most surround sound media files. It also has a self-explanatory configuration system using a GUI.

## Tips

To change volume using amixer and hotkeys, use the following command (for example): `amixer set 'Master' 5+`.

Category:

- Sound