Announcement

**Ole Juul** · Dec 13, 2010, 10:54 PM

Re: A humble request for help with sound.

Welcome Wardy!

The 150% figure is just a number. Think of it like dB. IOW a ratio. You can't go beyond whatever the maximum output is. However if it is not as loud as it was before, then something is turned down. Did you turn up both the master and PCM? The PCM (and others) acts as a preset.

**oshunluvr** · Dec 13, 2010, 11:18 PM

Re: A humble request for help with sound.

If you're using kmix, open the Configure Channels page and make sure nothings pre-set really low.

**RAWardy** · Dec 14, 2010, 11:07 AM

Re: A humble request for help with sound.

Thanks for the welcome!
In KMix I have only one channel, Internal Audio Analogue Stereo. Again I don't know much about sound, but I thought this was normal, I read somewhere that PA runs on-top of Alsa and and only displays 1 channel per sound card. In other Alsa KDE distros I do have PCM etc sliders. I also read that these tools detect whether PA is installed and only displays PA sliders to uncomplicate things (I'd rather have more control, even if it gives me a headache)
As for the 150% thing (reminds me of Spinal Tap) no matter what distro I use the sound is pretty much the same volume when the slider is knocked up to 100%, including Ubuntu and I've used allot of distros. In Mint/Ubuntu the sound widget knocked up to 150% is the only thing I've used that makes things louder then this, in a simple way.
I hope the above makes sense, its just my observation when messing with sound levels with GUI...

Other tools in Ubuntu Display a max of 100% even if the widget displays 150%. If I so much as sneeze on the volume bar in these other apps the volume returns to the default max level. I was hoping for a simple method of increasing the Db's above default level, pref with a GUI in KDE, but I'd be willing to do this thru' terminal as long as I only have to do it once.
I also read somewhere about sink and source settings or something, increasing the sink levels increases the max Db's using 20xlog formular. I have no idea what thats all about, I glanced at 20 or so different web pages on the subject last night. Does anyone know a simple guide that explains stuff like this on the net or in book, so I can have an idea on what I'm talking about?

**dibl** · Dec 14, 2010, 12:11 PM

Re: A humble request for help with sound.

I'm one of the users for whom Phonon and Pulseaudio work just great, as expected. There's a whole 'nother group that will tell you to remove --purge it all. From what you've already said about the "Internal Audio Analogue Stereo" channel, your hardware seems to be seen just like mine.

Try this in a terminal:

Code:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

Code:

sudo apt-get install paman padevchooser pavucontrol

Now Alt-F2 "pavucontrol" and look at the "configuration" tab. Depending on your hardware, you should be able to set one digital configuration and one analogue configuration. Surround sound 5.1 works fine on mine for the analogue configuration.

Now click the "output device" tab, and see if you've got your Analogue Stereo channel showing. Move the sliders halfway up, and make sure the tiny mute indicator is not muted.

Now open System Settings > Multimedia -- it should open to the "Music" tab. In the right panel, is the "Pulseaudio Server" on top of the list? Highlight it and then press the "test" button below the window, and it should play the tune. Use "Prefer" or "Defer" to get that item on top of the list.

That's what I do, and it seems to work reliably.

Note that you can still run into conflicts by trying to simultaneously play music, run a browser with flash enabled, and/or Skyping or stuff like that. First package that grabs the sound system usually hangs onto it until you close it.

Hope this helps.

**RAWardy** · Dec 14, 2010, 10:31 PM

Re: A humble request for help with sound.

Thanks for the reply. OK now we're getting somewhere. I've installed the packages and set output to analogue 5.1 in pavucontrol. That opened up extra sliders in the same program but not in alsamixer, increasing the sliders improved volume a little and quality noticeably (thankyou). If I recall (haven't had time to check yet) this is the very program in ubuntu that lets you slide the output to 150%, increasing total volume, but no such feature here. Here underneath the sliders in the output tab are the words Base (at 75%) and Max (at 100%), in Ubuntu the word amplified is written passed this point. So possibly theres a hidden setting somewhere I can change to enable this...
Anyway I checked out paman and under the output devices tab I clicked on the alsa_output_pci and there was a slider that let you turn up the sound to something like 800 billion million%, I (carefully) adjusted to 150% and hey presto it works, now I have sound as loud as Ubuntu!
Thats great, I can watch quieter files in XBMC like I wanted but if I touch my hardware volume control or any sliders in pavucontrol or alsamixer the sound sets back to the default max... Thats annoying as the paman slider is so buried in menus, also I can blow my speakers/get brain hemorrhage if I slide it up to much.. If anyone has any workarounds or suggestions for this problem I'd be very grateful!

Wardy.

**RAWardy** · Dec 14, 2010, 11:10 PM

Re: A humble request for help with sound.

Ah, nevermind, I noticed in the paman, devices tab that there is a seperate entry for each audio app in the sinks section (as long as its running). I can increase the Db's for each one seperately. This is even better than I wanted. Now programs like Last.fm and XBMC can be more audible without making anything else too loud.
I'm glad dibl came along instead of someone else, that might have told me to shoot PA in the face, I've seen that allot on reading through forums and such..

Wardy.

Announcement

A humble request for help with sound.

A humble request for help with sound.

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment