How to configure Audinst HUD-mini Hi-Fi USB Audio DAC in Ubuntu Linux - Tutorial

Today I'm going to show how to run Audinst HUD-mini Hi-Fi USB Audio DAC  in Ubuntu Linux distribution. Officialy this model is not supported in Linux distributions - this is an official AUDINST company statement.
But  this is not necessary the true. As this is an USB audio device it will use standard Linux snd_usb_audio module, but for unknown reason at this particular DAC   a default  audio PCM device hw:0 do not work in Linux. A whole idea is to force your Linux distribution to use hw:1 PCM device of your  HUD-mini  DAC  instead of hw:0.
So let's do this!

Please note that you will perform all changes in your syystem on your own risk , that's why it is wise to backup  all original files  before start edit them....

First thing to do, we  have to find out  information about our audio devices.
We can do it by typing aplay -l command in terminal, we should receive something like that as result:


user@user-desktop:~$ aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 0: ALC662 rev1 Analog [ALC662 rev1 Analog]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 0: PCH [HDA Intel PCH], device 1: ALC662 rev1 Digital [ALC662 rev1 Digital]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: HUDmini [Audinst HUD-mini], device 0: USB Audio [USB Audio]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: HUDmini [Audinst HUD-mini], device 1: USB Audio [USB Audio #1]
  Subdevices: 1/1

  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0



card 0 it's a default card in our  Ubuntu - usually that's integrated onboard audio card
device 0 is a default PCM device used by our Linux OS
card 1 it's our USB Audinst HUD-mini DAC device
device 0 it's a default PCM device  of our HUD-mini DAC - this device doesn't work in Linux
device 1 - this is an PCM  device that we will force  to work as default one  in our Ubuntu OS.


Please note!
If there's more(or less) audio devices your  PC, Audinst HUD-mini  DAC card number will change, so please read carefully  all information from aplay -l command, and update  card number  in  asound.conf and .asoundrc files if needed.



Secondly, we need to edit asound.conf file which is located in /etc directory:

Please write in terminal:
sudo gedit /etc/asound.conf
Please  remove all content from this file and then paste:

defaults.pcm.!card 1
defaults.ctl.!card 1
defaults.pcm.!device 1
defaults.ctl.!device 1 

and save the file.

Next step, we need to create  .asoundrc file in our  home directory and edit it:

pcm.!default {
  type plug;
  slave.pcm "plughw:CARD=HUDmini,DEV=1";
}

then save the file.
Ubuntu  distribution do not  contain .asoundrc file  as default, but some Linux distributions will have this file already in home directory. In that case please remove whole content of this file  and paste     content  above...

The last thing to  do is to change  default device  in Sound Preferences from your onboard sound card to Audinst HUD-mini DAC  device:

And voila!

All should work  fine right now.
I have tested  this solution on Ubuntu 10.04 and 12.04  distro, in  both systems HUD-mini DAC works fine.
But please  note that I can't guarantee that this solution will work in all Linux distributions. 
But it's really worth to try  if you a music enthusiast.....HUD-mini produce really  high  quality  sound!


BR

Tomas