Orange Pi Zero 3 ALSA sound output way too soft

Troubleshooting
1

Creating a bug report/issue

I have searched the existing open and closed issues

Required Information

  • DietPi version:
G_DIETPI_VERSION_CORE=9
G_DIETPI_VERSION_SUB=12
G_DIETPI_VERSION_RC=1
G_GITBRANCH='master'
G_GITOWNER='MichaIng'

  • Distro version: bookworm

  • Kernel version: Linux Kasteel 6.12.23-current-sunxi64 #1 SMP Thu Apr 10 12:39:41 UTC 2025 aarch64 GNU/Linux

  • Architecture: arm64

  • SBC model: Orange Pi Zero 3 (aarch64)

  • Power supply used : 5V 1A

  • SD card used: Kingston MicroSD HC

  • Can this issue be replicated on a fresh installation of DietPi? Yes

What I am trying to do

I am trying to use an old speaker with a 3.5mm input into a smart speaker using Linux currently. A quick rundown of what I am trying/doing: Hardware is an Orange Pi zero 3 with the expansion board, so the goal is to use the 3.5mm jack on that as audio output. Running it on the most recent version of DietPi. I am trying to set up a headless spotify player, basically to make a dumb speaker smart, using the following docker image: GitHub - GioF71/librespot-docker: Use Librespot (Spotify Connect) with Docker (Alsa & PulseAudio supported)

I did actually have this working at a good volume beforehand, using the OS image from Orange Pi itself, but I broke something on that install and decided to try DietPi. The performance is just so much better that I would prefer getting it to work on this, rather than return to the base OS.

Steps to reproduce

  1. Set up dietpi as a headless system. Requires installation of ALSA, at the least.
  2. Via dietpi-config, go to audio options. Select hw:0,0 (audiocodec) as sound card.
  3. Run the command to unmute the mixers (I could not get that working via the alsamixer interface):
amixer -c 0 set 'Left Output Mixer DACL' 100% unmute
amixer -c 0 set 'Left Output Mixer DACR' 100% unmute
amixer -c 0 set 'Right Output Mixer DACL' 100% unmute
amixer -c 0 set 'Right Output Mixer DACR' 100% unmute
amixer -c 0 set 'LINEOUT volume' 100% unmute
amixer -c 0 set 'digital volume' 100% unmute
  1. Plug in some earbuds and play a sound file, or play sound in a different way (in my case I spun up the librespot docker container). The sound should be barely hearable.

Expected behaviour

  • Produce sound at a loud (or at least noticable volume) since every slider is at 100%

Actual behaviour

  • The music is playing, but it is very soft. I have to cover my ears and really concentrate in order to actually hear the music playing.

Extra details

  • I tried some asound.conf iterations, but none increased the maximum volume
  • I tried implementing pulseaudio as well as pipewire (pulse and alsa), but both resulted in any sound I could hear in the earbuds being static noise. (The noise would play when playing a song, and stop when pausing it though).
  • I will likely have to use Pipewire at some point in this process as well, or some other backend. I would also like to use a bluetooth usb in order to stream sound from i.e. my phone.

A compose.yaml file that should create a working container of librespot:

services:
  librespot:
    ##https://github.com/GioF71/librespot-docker
    image: giof71/librespot:latest
    container_name: librespot
    restart: unless-stopped
    network_mode: host
    devices:
      - /dev/snd:/dev/snd
    environment:
      - BACKEND=alsa
      - DEVICE=hw0,0
      - BITRATE=320
      - FORMAT=S16
      - INITIAL_VOLUME=50
      - VOLUME_CTRL=linear

This dietpi.txt should take care of most of the setup process, at least in terms of software installation. Keep in mind that it will change the hostname to Kasteel and will not change the default passwords; this was meant as a way for me to quickly go back to a fresh install while I try to get this working.
dietpi.txt (18.0 KB)