Master gain problem with Direct Audio Device: distorted sound

Question

Hi everybody,
I'm in a bit of a fix here. I've got an application that plays music. Developped with 1.4.2, got it working.
However, when I run it with the the latest 1.5 release (5.0 update 6), the sound is distorted. More specifically, though I'm not entirely sure, I'd say it's the bass that gets distorted. By "distorted" I mean it's shrieking, scratching instead of... well, sounding.
I'm using the FloatControl.Type.MASTER_GAIN control to change the "volume". Since it's playback, I'm using a SourceDataLine, and that one ain't got no VOLUME control. Now the problem only appears when I'm amplifying the audio data, i.e. when the MASTER_GAIN's value is greater than 0.0 decibel.
Inverstigating a little more, I found out that 1.5 is using the "Direct Audio Device" Mixer as default as opposed to the "Java Sound Audio Engine" used by 1.4.2. If I force the use of the Java Sound Audio Engine with 1.5 (getting the line from the appropriate Mixer), the sound is OK. However, since the application is intended to be cross-platform, I'd prefer not to impose any such specific behaviour (plus the performance of the Direct Audio Device is twice as good).
Tested on Linux version 2.6.11-1.1369_FC4 and Windows NT.
Looked at www.jsresources.org, but didn't find any information specific to this problem.
Bugparade: no hits.
I'd be glad if anyone could help me on this.

Answer 1

Nobody ?
It narrowed it down to the following testcode. Please try to run it with Java 1.5 and some compatible audio file (a WAVE file, for instance):
import java.io.*;
import javax.sound.midi.*;
import javax.sound.sampled.*;
import javax.sound.sampled.spi.*;
* @author  futt
public class SoundTest {
    public static void main(String[] args)
    throws Exception
        if( args.length != 1 ){
            System.err.println("SYNOPSIS: SoundTest [FILE]");
            return ;
        final File f = new File(args[0]);
        AudioFileFormat aff = AudioSystem.getAudioFileFormat(f);
        Mixer.Info mymixer = null;
        Mixer.Info[] mixers = AudioSystem.getMixerInfo();
        for(int ii = mixers.length; --ii >= 0; ){
            if( mixers[ii].getName().toLowerCase().indexOf("direct audio device") != -1 ){
                mymixer = mixers[ii];
                break;
        Line.Info info = new DataLine.Info(SourceDataLine.class, aff.getFormat());
        SourceDataLine line;
        if( mymixer != null ){
            Mixer m = AudioSystem.getMixer(mymixer);
            if( m != null ){
                System.err.println("Using mixer: "+m);
            line = (SourceDataLine) m.getLine(info);
        else {
            System.err.println("Using default mixer");
            line = (SourceDataLine) AudioSystem.getLine(info);
        System.err.println("Got line: "+line.getClass());
        InputStream in = null;
        try{
            in = new BufferedInputStream(new FileInputStream(f));
            line.open( aff.getFormat() );
            line.start();
            FloatControl fc = (FloatControl) line.getControl(FloatControl.Type.MASTER_GAIN);
            fc.setValue(3f);
            byte[] buf = new byte[ 1 << 14 ];
            for(int read; ! Thread.currentThread().isInterrupted() && (read = in.read(buf)) != -1; ){
                line.write(buf, 0, read);
            if( ! Thread.currentThread().isInterrupted() ){
                line.drain();
            line.stop();
        catch (Exception x){
            x.printStackTrace();
        finally {
            line.close();
            if( in != null ){
                try{ in.close(); } catch (IOException iox){}
}