[SOLVED] PulseAudio volume is only half of standard ALSA

frumble · 2012-05-20 09:46:18

Hello,
since a few weeks my sound volume on Arch is very low but for me it became conscious now. The audio volume is at least half of standard ALSA, possible only a third. When I remove pulseaudio and pulseaudio-alsa and restart the system the volume is right. I use KDE SC 4.8.3 and PulseAudio 2.0 on Linux 3.3.6-1 but I can't say to you when the problem has occurred. I tried to downgrade to pluseaudio 1.1-2 and libpulse 1.1-2 from February with Rollback Machine and i deleted my ~/.pulse folder but it made no difference. Only when I remove PulseAudio and use ALSA directly my volume is right and this is no illusion since my parallel Debian (with PulseAudio) and Windows is much louder at the same mixer level. My sound card is an ASUS Xonar DX and the driver "Oxygen HD". My configuration in /etc/pulse looks very standard. The highest mixer level in KMix (and alsamixer as well when PulseAudio is active) sounds only like a good third of my regular max volume and this affects all applications on my system. I don't think it has something to do with KDE SC because the situation is the same in TWM.
I have absolutely no idea what could be the reason for this problem. I found only this young post on a Ubuntu forum which sounds very similar. Maybe a Kernel bug? I would be very glad if you could help me, thanks.

Last edited by frumble (2012-05-21 15:55:32)

kcy29581 · 2012-05-20 11:53:33

Hi there,

I just recently re-installed Arch on a new machine, so I know exactly what you're saying regading Pulse. I noticed some weird things with my audio upon installing pusleaudio and following the wiki: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/PulseAudio

In the Arch wiki, it suggests to also go to the Pulseaudio Perfect Setup page, which actually gave an extra step:
- Remove your users from the audio group!

Also, install paprefs and pavucontrol via pacman, and try to stick to pavucontrol to adjust everything regarding your sound. Once you do that, your audio issues will go away. KMix seems to have some issues with Pulseaudio right now, specifically the meters will jitter if you move them fast.

Hope this helps!

kcy29581 · 2012-05-20 12:14:58

Also, I removed KMix from the panel, and use Veromix from AUR: http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=43848

frumble · 2012-05-20 14:58:42

Thank you for your fast answer!
So I removed my user from the audio group, have restarted and gave Veromix a trial. Still the same problem, audio master volume at 100% dramatically lower than on other systems. The same with pavucontrol. All levels over 100% overload the signal. Any ideas?

Rasi · 2012-05-20 16:24:46

yes... alsamixer -c 0 and bump your volume there. If you ever find out how to make this persistent, let me know

kcy29581 · 2012-05-20 22:53:47

At the wiki page I linked earlier, find the section "Pulse overwrites ALSA settings". I bet that will help you.

I did not need it myself, as just using pavucontrol works wonders for me, but different devices need different settings

EDIT:
To test if it is the alsamixer settings that are to blame:
- At a terminal execute "alsamixer". A few things to note:
- Use F5 to show all channels of the device
- Use F6 to check all audio devices
- Set all audio levels to the desired level
- Unmute all channels (M works for the "MM" muted channels, Space button unmutes the "-----" channels)
- Exit alsamixer (press ESC)
- As root, execute "alsactl store"
- Reboot your machine. If you still hear the low volume, go to a teminal and execute "alsactl restore"

If the above steps help you, then the section I mentioned in the wiki will be of use.

Last edited by kcy29581 (2012-05-20 23:15:47)

frumble · 2012-05-21 15:26:19

Cool, many thanks @Rasi and @kcy29581! The normal view of alsamixer was "PulseAudio" and it didn't showed me all channels and volumes. Now with "F6" or "alsamixer -c 1" I got full control over the controls. All master outputs were at only 40% and after I increased the volumes and made "sudo alsactl store" this configuration is remembered for every reboot! No need for me to run "alsactl restore", perfekt! Problem fixed, many thanks!

kcy29581 · 2012-05-21 15:48:24

frumble wrote:

Cool, many thanks @Rasi and @kcy29581! The normal view of alsamixer was "PulseAudio" and it didn't showed me all channels and volumes. Now with "F6" or "alsamixer -c 1" I got full control over the controls. All master outputs were at only 40% and after I increased the volumes and made "sudo alsactl store" this configuration is remembered for every reboot! No need for me to run "alsactl restore", perfekt! Problem fixed, many thanks!

Glad we could help!

If you're like me and you have multiple audio devices (internal card, USB mixamp, headphones, etc) pavucontrol will help you switch to the required device easily; it's so easy, I love it.

Also, a tip in case you need this: if you want to play audio through multiple audio sources, I think the command is "paprefs" and you can select it. Then, in pavucontrol you select to play the audio stream to all devices.

Remember to add SOLVED to the topic title by editing your original post.

Arch Linux

#1 2012-05-20 09:46:18

[SOLVED] PulseAudio volume is only half of standard ALSA

#2 2012-05-20 11:53:33

Re: [SOLVED] PulseAudio volume is only half of standard ALSA

#3 2012-05-20 12:14:58

Re: [SOLVED] PulseAudio volume is only half of standard ALSA

#4 2012-05-20 14:58:42

Re: [SOLVED] PulseAudio volume is only half of standard ALSA

#5 2012-05-20 16:24:46

Re: [SOLVED] PulseAudio volume is only half of standard ALSA

#6 2012-05-20 22:53:47

Re: [SOLVED] PulseAudio volume is only half of standard ALSA

#7 2012-05-21 15:26:19

Re: [SOLVED] PulseAudio volume is only half of standard ALSA

#8 2012-05-21 15:48:24

Re: [SOLVED] PulseAudio volume is only half of standard ALSA

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