How do I get USB speakers working on my Pi 3?

Question

This may sound like a duplicate question, but the answers to similar questions are not solving my problem. I have plugged the USB cable from my Logitech S-150 digital speakers into a powered USB hub connected to my Pi 3. The speakers show that they're on - "DIGITAL" appears on the one with the controls and cable. My aplay -l output is

**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: ALSA [bcm2835 ALSA], device 0: bcm2835 ALSA [bcm2835 ALSA]
  Subdevices: 8/8
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
  Subdevice #1: subdevice #1
  Subdevice #2: subdevice #2
  Subdevice #3: subdevice #3
  Subdevice #4: subdevice #4
  Subdevice #5: subdevice #5
  Subdevice #6: subdevice #6
  Subdevice #7: subdevice #7
card 0: ALSA [bcm2835 ALSA], device 1: bcm2835 ALSA [bcm2835 IEC958/HDMI]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: AUDIO [USB  AUDIO], device 0: USB Audio [USB Audio]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

I used sudo nano /usr/share/alsa/alsa.conf to change the defaults.ctl.card 0 defaults.pcm.card 0 values to 1 as I read in an answer to a similar problem. I don't know if the speakers are working or the Pi is not recognizing them. I have used the GUI Audio Device Settings (under Preferences) to set the Control to PCM for both bcm2835 ALSA (Alsa mixer)(Default) and USB AUDIO (Alsa mixer). Is there a way I can test the speakers' output without finding & using an MP3 file with aplay?

I issued wget goo.gl/XJuOUW -O example.mp3 --no-check-certificate and got -

-2016-04-21 14:55:57--  http://goo.gl/XJuOUW
Resolving goo.gl (goo.gl)... 2607:f8b0:4002:c05::66, 216.58.217.238
Connecting to goo.gl (goo.gl)|2607:f8b0:4002:c05::66|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 301 Moved Permanently
Location: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/raspberrypilearning/burping-jelly-baby/master/sounds/la.mp3 [following]
--2016-04-21 14:55:58--  https://raw.githubusercontent.com/raspberrypilearning/burping-jelly-baby/master/sounds/la.mp3
Resolving raw.githubusercontent.com (raw.githubusercontent.com)... 23.235.44.133
Connecting to raw.githubusercontent.com (raw.githubusercontent.com)|23.235.44.133|:443... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 17260 (17K) [audio/mpeg]
Saving to: ‘example.mp3’

example.mp3         100%[=====================>]  16.86K  --.-KB/s   in 0.001s 

2016-04-21 14:55:59 (27.5 MB/s) - ‘example.mp3’ saved [17260/17260]

I then issued omxplayer example.mp3 and got

Audio codec mp3 channels 1 samplerate 11025 bitspersample 16
Subtitle count: 0, state: off, index: 1, delay: 0
have a nice day ;)

Through my Pi 3's GUI Preferences, I've set both bcm2835 ALSA (Alsa mixer) (Default) and USB AUDIO (Alsa Mixer).

Answer 1

Just had a similar issue and solved it like this (found in this tutorial):

Find your playback devices:

Locate your speaker in the list of playback hardware devices. Write down the card number and device number.

aplay -l

Create a new file named .asoundrc in the home directory (/home/pi). Make sure it has the right slave definitions speaker; use the configuration below but replace <card number> and <device number> with the numbers you wrote down in the previous step. Do this for pcm.speaker.

pcm.!default {
  type asym
  playback.pcm "speaker"
}

pcm.speaker {
  type plug
  slave {
    pcm "hw:<card number>,<device number>"
  }
}

Answer 2

This solved my problem:

All we have to do is tell Raspbian to look at "card #1" for the default audio. Card #0 is the built in audio, so this is fairly straightforward.

Tun sudo nano /usr/share/alsa/alsa.conf and look for the following two lines:

defaults.ctl.card 0

defaults.pcm.card 0

Change both “0” to “1” and then save the file. That’s it!

https://learn.adafruit.com/usb-audio-cards-with-a-raspberry-pi/updating-alsa-config

Answer 3

The answer above (answered Oct 7 '17 at 8:41) solved my USB speaker device problem on Raspberry Pi 4 with OS Raspbian GNU/Linux 10 (buster) (bought the speaker from Amazon: a UKHONK Mini USB Speaker Plug-and-Play for Notebook&PC, product model: HK-5002 and in USB listing referred to as GEMBIRD, but probably not mentioned online).

The Adafruit guide for USB speaker installation (that worked for the person that answered on Apr 4 '19 at 14:47) did not work alone for me.

Thanks for the tips! (Have not, however, rebooted the Pi yet...)