sound is very faint (alsa and pulseaudio, Fedora 10)

bach-fiend · 02-16-2009, 01:18 PM

I have built in Nvidia sound, HDA (intel?) ALC888 [?].

It works fine under Windows XP/Pro, but in linux I have to turn the volume on my stereo ALL THE WAY UP to listen to anything. Pulseaudio's volume master has to be set to 100% as well as must the volume controls in VLC dvd and RhythmBox, both Internet radio and extracted/ripped CD's. The problem is always the same: sound basically works, but at such low levels that I have to crank the volume of my stereo WAY to the max, so I get crosstalk and irritating noise even when nothing is playing.

The program aplay (ALSA player) has the same problem, so I'm not sure I can blame pulseaudio.

I have been scouring the manuals and the web for the last few days and saw only a couple mentions of anything remotely like this. I am running 64 bit Fedora, is that a known problem? I thought samples in CD quality were only 16 bits per channel to begin with.

If you can shed any light on this, I would greatly appreciate (especially if you could copy me at kenny dot david at comcast dot net since I don't know my way around these forums yet.)

digerati1338 · 02-16-2009, 01:47 PM

Look in a mixer program such as alsamixer, amix, or something similar. Make sure ALL of your channels are turned on and the volume is at 100%.

bach-fiend · 02-16-2009, 02:05 PM

Thanks for replying digerati1338. You've brought up another issue that puzzles me. I've tried pulseaudio volume control from Fedora/Gnome sound and video menu, and alsamixer from the command line. I expected level sliders for PCM, CD etc as well as a master volumes. All I ever saw was Left and Right, even in alsamixer. Alsa is supposed to support pro audio applications, so I was amazed to see so little. My impression was that pulseaudio was the brain-dead "consumer" product and alsa should give you more control. Silly me!

Laserman · 02-16-2009, 03:11 PM

Try going to System > Preferences > Hardware > Sound
Test all of the Playback options, they are set to Autodetect by default.
Check 'Default Mixer Tracks' and make sure your sound card is there, try changing between Alsamixer and Pulse Audio selections and see if either of them work for you.