Why sound not as loud
 

In my multi boot system (kubuntu, fedora, winxp) the sound volume is much lower in both of the linux OSs than in winxp.

I found a 'mixer' in kubuntu and pegged the volume ( it was previously at %80 ) but the sound is still nowhere near as loud as winxp. I know it's not my imagination because it's a significant enough difference that the windows startup sound stuns me if I forget to turn it down after running linux.

I'm not in front of my home PC at this time but I'll get more details later. i.e. alsa, what type of card, etc...

Thanks all,

Hi Sharky,
Unfortunately I can only second your question rather than offer a solution. I've seen this question come up many times - including on LinuxQuestions, including today, and I suspect your post will go unanswered.

I've not had Windows installed anywhere since 2005 so I don't really have a good point of reference but I do notice that other people's lapptops (running Windows) seem to play music and films at sound levels much higher than the maximum my machines are capable of. I recently bought a Dell laptop preloaded with *buntu and it's still not as loud as similarly spec'd Dells with Windows on them.

I've searched Google extensively for Alsa and Xine config options - for example, just to try my luck today I changed 'audio.a52.level' in .xine/config to a maximum 200 - I don't know if it made any difference but my normal human hearing doesn't notice it.

What really gets me is that when I play a sound file with Audacity I can (using 'Gain') make it so loud that my speakers nearly die - which means that Linux is clearly capable of using the speakers to the maximum and yet I am unable to find any settings anywhere which would make normal audio/video applications play at louder volume than alsamixer allows.

That worked fine for me...


Have you deleted the "#" before the "audio.a52.level"?

Yes :D ;) :D

Klearview, thx for the feedback.

The "soundcard" in my system is part of the MB. It's a 'realtek' soundcard, whatever that is.