Hi all
My current version is 20.04.3 LTS (Focal Fossa) 64-bit and ive just inserted a soundblaster Zse card as the onboard sound was awful. I can get it to work through the line out on the card to the line in on my 2.1 system but im having difficulty getting the optical to work. I have been into all the settings but to no avail.
I have disabled the on board output so there is no conflict there. Has anybody out there managed to solve it?
Let's first try if your hardware detects the optical out
Copy and paste the following block in a terminal:
# listing the cards
grep "" /proc/asound/cards
# first card
amixer -c0 |grep IEC
#
# second card
amixer -c1 |grep IEC
:
DId it return something ? 
~$ # first card
:~$ amixer -c0 |grep IEC
Simple mixer control 'IEC958',0
Simple mixer control 'IEC958 Default PCM',0
$ #
~$ # second card
~$ amixer -c1 |grep IEC
Simple mixer control 'IEC958',0
Simple mixer control 'IEC958',1
Simple mixer control 'IEC958',2
Simple mixer control 'IEC958',3
Simple mixer control 'IEC958',4
Good, your first card is probably the soundblaster and the second is probably the HDMI output
try this:
grep "" /proc/asound/cards
0 [Creative ]: HDA-Intel - HDA Creative
HDA Creative at 0xfcc04000 irq 29
1 [HDMI ]: HDA-Intel - HDA ATI HDMI
HDA ATI HDMI at 0xfce60000 irq 76
Good, then this will probably activate your optical out:
amixer -c0 set 'IEC958 Default PCM',0 on
check if you see the optical output glow red. If not then:
amixer -c0 set 'IEC958',0 on
and check again.
If this works then I advise you to install QasMixer because that is a mixer GUI that will make it easy to switch your optical out on and off.
It also controls the volume parameters of your card and above all, it looks good 
sudo apt install qasmixer
All working now, many thanks for your quick response. The sound is streets ahead of the onboard card.
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