Fade-in for the first second or two at each playback/file with PipeWire

Having this issue with PipeWire, where it would skip the first one or two second(s) of the playback, then immediately fade in.

Looked into this problem, was suggested that this might be an issue with power saving being used on on Intel HDA/integrated sound module. However, I’m using a USB headphone DAC/amplifier.
So in that case I disable that power saving feature for the device through modprobe:

$ inxi -A
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel Xeon E3-1200 v3/4th Gen Core Processor HD Audio
    driver: snd_hda_intel
  Device-2: Intel 8 Series/C220 Series High Definition Audio
    driver: snd_hda_intel
  Device-3: FiiO K3 type: USB driver: snd-usb-audio
  Sound API: ALSA v: k5.15.85-1-MANJARO running: yes
  Sound Server-1: PipeWire v: 0.3.63 running: yes
$ cat /etc/modprobe.d/snd-usb-audio.conf 
options snd-usb-audio power_save=0

Did the same for snd_hda_intel for good measure.
Both of these did not fix my issue.

This happens with all apps, including VLC, Firefox, Tenacity, sound notifications for other apps. System sounds and Wine seem unaffected weirdly enough.

Any idea what I could try next?

can you report

pacman -Ss manjaro-alsa
pacman -Ss manjaro-pipewire
pacman -Ss manjaro-pulseaudio

see also

pacman -Si manjaro-alsa
pacman -Si manjaro-pipewire
pacman -Si manjaro-pulseaudio

modinfo snd-hda-intel confirms parameter power_save is available for snd_hda_intel driver, but would have no effect on USB devices using a different driver

modinfo snd-usb-audio does not show parameter power_save available for snd_usb_audio driver
Modprobe option for snd-usb-audio is probably not recognised and ignored

One workaround to prevent USB device being suspended is to leave PulseAudio Volume Control pavucontrol open on desktop
(pavucontrol works with PulseAudio and pipewire-pulse )

If you were using PulseAudio and pavucontrol works to allow playback without a fade-in, module suspend-on-idle can be disabled for a permanent solution
AFAIK PipeWire does not have a similar module and device suspend is managed by pipewire-media-session or wireplumber

1 Like
$ pacman -Ss manjaro-alsa
extra/manjaro-alsa 20221002-1 [installed]
    Manjaro meta package for complete ALSA support


$ pacman -Ss manjaro-pipewire
extra/manjaro-pipewire 20221015-2 [installed]
    Manjaro meta package for complete PipeWire support.

$ pacman -Ss manjaro-pulseaudio
[empty output]

What am I looking for in those outputs exactly?

Thank you for this, this has fixed the issue, but would you happen to know of a more elegant solution?

In the meantime I’m trying the solution mentioned on the PipeWire article on Arch wiki under section “Noticeable audio delay or audible pop/crack when starting playback” and see if that helps

I know a simple solution for PulseAudio

Noise starting sound on AMD Ellesmere HDMI Audio Radeon RX 590

use this command to comment out the module load command in PulseAudio configuration:

sudo sed -i '/load-module module-suspend-on-idle/s/^/#/' /etc/pulse/default.pa