[alsa-devel] Confused about 'default' device

[Timur Tabi]

Timur Tabi wrote:
> I'm having a hard time understand when ALSA does sample rate and format 
> conversion, and when it doesn't.

Some more info:

I'm trying to play a movie with 441000 Hz audio.

If I specify "-ao alsa", mplayer calls snd_pcm_hw_params_set_rate_near() with a 
value of 44100.  The call fails and returns an error code.

If I specify "-ao alsa:device=hw=0.0", snd_pcm_hw_params_set_rate_near() does 
not fail, even though it's being passed the same parameters.

So what is it about the default device that makes 
snd_pcm_hw_params_set_rate_near() fail?