Post #1444353

2026-04-18 17:45 UTC

So I pulled out my old Origen G2 amp DAC and I&#39;m now using it since I no longer have a mixer to plug into. It sounds decent, but there&#39;s one critical problem: the internals shut off when there&#39;s silence and cut off several words of my screen reader. I&#39;ve tried using those silent audiostream addons with no luck. As far as I can tell, this thing will shut off its internals if there is silence. It doesn&#39;t care if there&#39;s a silent audiostream. As far as it&#39;s concerned, that&#39;s the same as silence, and I lose screen reader output as a result. I can solve the problem by playing music, except the problem briefly returns when the music goes silent. It&#39;s incredibly annoying. Any blind or audio people know how I can get an audiostream going that&#39;s very nearly, but not quite, silent and just keeps humming away in the background as long as my computer is on? Better yet, is there a way to turn off the power-saving feature of the Origen G2 so I can avoid this problem altogether? I want it to just pump out sound so long as its powered on. Power-saving features be damned. #blind #audio #origeng2 #a11y #screenReader #iHateAudioShenaniganry

Replies (4)

@IceWolf@masto.brightfur.net 2026-04-18 17:59

@PepperTheVixen Kodi has a "send very low volume noise to keep stuff turned on" option somewhere, I think. Maybe try it to see if it keeps the DAC on, and then either just have Kodi running or generate a low volume noise stream yourself somehow?

Open ##1452970
@nolan@gts.thewordnerd.info 2026-04-18 18:01

@PepperTheVixen I don't recall the exact incantations for this but I did it with sox before. Had an HDMI soundbar that none of the silence addons/techniques worked with. Wrote a script/systemd unit to generate just enough high-frequency noise just quietly enough that the soundbar stayed active and I couldn't hear the sound. Worked pretty well. I generated a silence.wav file and swapped out one of the app-provided ones, and just made it generate a loop live for the user systemd unit.

Open ##1452972
@bigpawedbear@masto.nu 2026-04-18 18:11

@PepperTheVixen okay, I have a solution, it is for windows though, so might not be useful unless you can translate it to your os. it uses vlc and looping the constant playing of white noise on low volume

Open ##1452973
@TheZooLady@dragonscave.space 2026-04-18 19:42

@PepperTheVixen if using NVDA, the volume of the sound used to keep the connection alive can be adjusted.

Open ##1452975