OP here. I blew the dust of this card recently and found I still have the same problem... but I've found a fix which appears reasonably robust.
1. run 'aplay -L' to get the name of the iec958 device (my EMU10K1 is 'pcm iec958:Live"). You'll see something like this: iec958:CARD=Live,DEV=0 SBLive! Value [CT4832], Multichannel Capture/PT Playback IEC958 (S/PDIF) Digital Audio Output 2. create the file '/etc/asound.conf' and write the following to it (substitute your iec958 device): #---------------- pcm.!default rate_convert pcm_slave.sl2 { pcm iec958:Live rate 48000 } pcm.rate_convert { type rate slave sl2 } #--------------- This forces ALL output to SPDIF by default, and also resamples everything to 48KHz. This particular card won't to 96KHz, so this is required for a 96KHz source to play (but downsampled to 48KHz). I guess the fix is similar to what Jean-Francois Lalande said. Results may vary. I think it can be done in one line without all of the resampling stuff, but it doesn't seem to play when the input and output rates differ. I also suspect (as above) the file which makes this bug persistent between reboots is asound.state. It's changing something in it when the mixer/AC3 clash, and it doesn't change itself back. -- SPDIF won't play PCM after playing AC3 https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/25632 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is a direct subscriber. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs