diff --git a/birdnet-go/CHANGELOG.md b/birdnet-go/CHANGELOG.md
index f91494b64e..639f5289e3 100644
--- a/birdnet-go/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/birdnet-go/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 ## nightly-20260525-2 (26-05-2026)
-- Suppress noisy startup logs: silence `chmod /dev/snd` errors on the read-only HA mount, and hide unavailable ALSA plugins (JACK, OSS, dsnoop) from device enumeration so libjack and pcm_oss/dsnoop probes no longer print at launch.
-- Allow advanced users to override the addon's `/etc/asound.conf` by dropping a custom `asound.conf` into the addon config folder.
+- Suppress noisy startup logs: silence `chmod /dev/snd` errors on the read-only HA mount, and hide unavailable ALSA plugins (JACK, OSS, dsnoop) from device enumeration so libjack and pcm_oss/dsnoop probes no longer print at launch. ALSA overrides are written to `/root/.asoundrc` (since `/etc/asound.conf` is read-only in this environment).
+- Allow advanced users to override the ALSA config by dropping a custom `asound.conf` into the addon config folder.
 
 ## nightly-20260525 (26-05-2026)
 - Minor bugs fixed
diff --git a/birdnet-go/rootfs/etc/cont-init.d/99-run.sh b/birdnet-go/rootfs/etc/cont-init.d/99-run.sh
index 6c780053f6..9c81589d8f 100755
--- a/birdnet-go/rootfs/etc/cont-init.d/99-run.sh
+++ b/birdnet-go/rootfs/etc/cont-init.d/99-run.sh
@@ -8,16 +8,17 @@ set -e
 
 echo " "
 
-# Allow advanced users to supply their own /etc/asound.conf (e.g. to enable
-# JACK or a custom dsnoop chain) by dropping it into the addon config folder.
+# Allow advanced users to supply their own ALSA config (e.g. to enable JACK
+# or a custom dsnoop chain) by dropping asound.conf into the addon config
+# folder. Written to /root/.asoundrc because /etc/asound.conf is read-only.
 if [ -f /config/asound.conf ]; then
     if [ -r /config/asound.conf ]; then
         bashio::log.info "Using user-provided /config/asound.conf, overriding addon defaults"
-        if ! cp /config/asound.conf /etc/asound.conf; then
-            bashio::log.warning "Failed to copy /config/asound.conf; continuing with bundled /etc/asound.conf defaults"
+        if ! cp /config/asound.conf /root/.asoundrc; then
+            bashio::log.warning "Failed to copy /config/asound.conf; continuing with bundled /root/.asoundrc defaults"
         fi
     else
-        bashio::log.warning "/config/asound.conf exists but is not readable; continuing with bundled /etc/asound.conf defaults"
+        bashio::log.warning "/config/asound.conf exists but is not readable; continuing with bundled /root/.asoundrc defaults"
     fi
 fi
 
diff --git a/birdnet-go/rootfs/etc/asound.conf b/birdnet-go/rootfs/root/.asoundrc
similarity index 74%
rename from birdnet-go/rootfs/etc/asound.conf
rename to birdnet-go/rootfs/root/.asoundrc
index 05ecb40f3e..3a7d1d5119 100644
--- a/birdnet-go/rootfs/etc/asound.conf
+++ b/birdnet-go/rootfs/root/.asoundrc
@@ -1,5 +1,10 @@
 # Home Assistant addon: birdnet-go
 #
+# Shipped at /root/.asoundrc because /etc/asound.conf is read-only in this
+# environment. ALSA loads ~/.asoundrc as an additive layer on top of the
+# system config, so the overrides below take effect for the birdnet-go process
+# (which runs as root, HOME=/root).
+#
 # Replace ALSA PCM plugins whose backends are not available in the addon
 # container (JACK server, OSS /dev/dsp) with type "null" and hide them from
 # snd_device_name_hint(). Without this, miniaudio's capture-device enumeration