Audio output using HDMI to VGA converter

[norris_309]

Hi all, i'm all new to this raspberry pi business.. but enjoying messing about with it so far.

However..
I've got a raspberry pi zero & am using an HDMI to VGA converter to connect it to an old vga monitor.
This Converter has an Audio out 3.5mm jack on it, so I assumed I could connect this to a amplified speaker to output the sound from retropie.

This doesn't seem to be the case.

Does anyone know if this is actually possible? I had to change several settings in the config file for the vga monitor to actually get the video output, so I'm wondering whether by doing this it disables the audio that would otherwise work when using HDMI, as we're forcing it to do something else (vga through hdmi)
(when I connected to pi to an hdmi tv the video & sound work fine)

I hope that make sense!... cheers guys

[gkreidl]

Try
hdmi_drive=2
in /boot/config.txt

[norris_309]

Thanks for the reply, I got excited ready to try it & realised

hdmi_drive=2 is already set!! I must have done that already

stumped

[gkreidl]

What does n
tvservice -a
report?

[norris_309]

tvservice -a
this reports absolutely nothing?..
I have a battery powered speaker plugged into the vga connector & it is powered on.
Guess it's not seeing it at all.

need to buy a pi3 ... that'll be easier, I take it you can connect a speaker directly with 3.5mm cable?

[klricks]

tvservice -a
this reports absolutely nothing?..
I have a battery powered speaker plugged into the vga connector & it is powered on.
Guess it's not seeing it at all.

need to buy a pi3 ... that'll be easier, I take it you can connect a speaker directly with 3.5mm cable?

All RPi models except for the Zero have the 3.5mm audio out jack.

[gkreidl]

tvservice -a
this reports absolutely nothing?..
I have a battery powered speaker plugged into the vga connector & it is powered on.
Guess it's not seeing it at all.

need to buy a pi3 ... that'll be easier, I take it you can connect a speaker directly with 3.5mm cable?

If "tvservice -a" doesn't report anything the audio part of your VGA adapter is not recognized. The converter should report its audio support to the HDMI interface.

[ElEscalador]

Don't forget that it's not a standard audio jack- I use the same setup but had to make an adapter from the 4 pole jack to a regular stereo jack that I could plug a little speaker into. Google the raspi audio jack pinout

[klricks]

Don't forget that it's not a standard audio jack- I use the same setup but had to make an adapter from the 4 pole jack to a regular stereo jack that I could plug a little speaker into. Google the raspi audio jack pinout

The RPi does not need an adapter. For audio only, you can use either the 4 pole or the 3 pole plugs.

[ElEscalador]

Don't forget that it's not a standard audio jack- I use the same setup but had to make an adapter from the 4 pole jack to a regular stereo jack that I could plug a little speaker into. Google the raspi audio jack pinout

The RPi does not need an adapter. For audio only, you can use either the 4 pole or the 3 pole plugs.

My mistake on two counts - that's what I get for foruming while distracted at work. I see now that that OP is using a zero - no 4 pole jack anyway. And I'm not sure how I didnt know about using a stereo plugm I guess because I needed a custom adapter anyway so it never mattered to me - I come out with audio and video because sometimes I have to display with analog while using the hdmi for another pi - both on one display.

[norris_309]

Thanks or the replies guys.
I'll give up on this I think & upgrade to the pi3 at some point

cheers

[steveb4pi]

It should work - 'by default', when you play a movie, the Pi sends audio out via the HDMI (unless it's 'told' to use the TV out (AV))

If you are not playing movies, it's possible something has to be set to get aPlay (or whatever you are using to play your .wav) to use HDMI instead of the 'stereo jack' (yes, I know the Zero has no jack, however I bet Jessie assumes it's running on a one of the other Pi's so sends sound to the (non-existent) jack 'by default')


NB setting 'pass-through' on HDMI means 'send encoded ac3 5.1 surround sound' .. I doubt your VGA converter has a decoder built in - instead you just need the Pi to down-mix movie sound-tracks to stereo .. as it should do for DRM compliance when it discovers no 'vaild' HDMI handshake)