Bad sound quality in Linux
 

Just a few annoynces that I have been trying to cope with for the past week:

I have noticed that in SuSE 9.2 I have a worse sound quality than that in xp. Actually if the PCM (btw What does it stand for? What is it used for?) is to the max and I control just the volume the quality of some of my mp3s (like the ones with heavy bass or a lot of guitar solos) goes very BAD and there is a lot of noise that is lacking when I play the same files in XP. If I lower the PCM to 80% it is bearable but still not the same quality. Does anyone know what the reason might be? Not a good configred sound card? Bad sound card?

Also is there a way to decrease the rate of the Volume and the PCM at the same time because whenever the PCM is at max and when I lower the volume to min (0%) there is still sound coming out?

Thanks

a.

What hardware are you using?

hardware specifications
 

DFI Motherboard Integrated Audio VIA82C686A/B rev50

Turning PCM (pulse code modulation - the technical scheme that describes the digital music) to "full" is like turning your audio amp all the way up; it clips.

Don't turn PCM all the way up.

Sound quality will also depend on the codec and app you are using to play the music. My personal experience is that mplayer sounds a lot better in most cases than xmms does. For that reason, I generally use mplayer to play music. Mplayer uses the same codecs that Windows uses.

Thanks for the helpful info. I normally keep it at 80% and I guess I will keep it there. The only issue that comes up is that if I keep the PCM at 80% and try to put the volume to 0% (not mute) there is still music coming out. Is this a nromal thing or is it just with my card?

Also I just tried playing music with MPlayer...the quality was a little better, so I guess your experience is good :-).

Thanks.

a.