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Member

Registered: 2007-02-27

Posts: 174

ca0106 driver clips at 20%

I have an Audigy SE soundcard with absolutely great sound:

% lspci |grep -i audio
00:0c.0 Multimedia audio controller: Creative Labs CA0106 Soundblaster

% lsmod|grep ca0106
snd_ca0106             28416  4 
snd_rawmidi            15368  1 snd_ca0106
snd_ac97_codec         87349  1 snd_ca0106
snd_pcm                57233  4 snd_pcm_oss,snd_ca0106,snd_ac97_codec
snd                    43328  14 snd_seq_oss,snd_seq,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_ca0106,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq_device,snd_ac97_codec,snd_pcm,snd_timer
snd_page_alloc          5841  2 snd_ca0106,snd_pcm

Unfortunately, if I reduce the volume below 20% it is totally silent:

                                    rexima

                 min  .    .    .    .    :    .    .    .    .  max
 -> Vol      <- [==========|----------------------------------------]   20%
    Mic         [==================================================|]  100%
    Line1       [==================================================|]  100%
    Digital1    [|--------------------------------------------------]    0%
    PhoneIn     [==================================================|]  100%
    PhoneOut    [==================================================|]  100%

In the above, the volume is too loud for headphones.  I'm afraid I'm going to do irreparable harm to my eardrums if I listen to headphones at this level.  I need a more granular volume control, and I have no idea why the sound won't go any lower.

I have googled for this and I can't find any answers.  Oh yes, and I'm using ALSA.  Would switching to pulseaudio maybe fix this?

TIA,
/p

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kitten

Member

Registered: 2010-05-21

Posts: 2

Re: ca0106 driver clips at 20%

Try alsamixer instead of rexima. There you get more volume controls, not just the master one, I'm sure you can figure it out from there. I've got the same card btw.

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Member

Registered: 2007-02-27

Posts: 174

Re: ca0106 driver clips at 20%

@kitten,

I have tried alsamixer in addition to rexima.  Same story.  Do you experience the clipping as well?

Thanks,
/p

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kitten

Member

Registered: 2010-05-21

Posts: 2

Re: ca0106 driver clips at 20%

Yes, I have it too. But with tuning Analog Front (for the green output) in alsamixer I get a reasonable scale from very silent to loud.
I played with alsamixer and found that clips occur when Analog Front + Master < 100. So if you set Analog Front to max, you get the full Master scale, with no clip!
It's a pretty strange thing though, when it shuts up, it's not that it's extremely silent, it stops outputting anything. Likely a bug, I see no reason to implement it like this.

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Member

Registered: 2007-02-27

Posts: 174

Re: ca0106 driver clips at 20%

if you set Analog Front to max, you get the full Master scale, with no clip!

True, you get the full master scale; I discovered this on my own.  However, the decibel level is the same as the 20% level sans analog front adjustment.

In other words, this just has the effect of shifting the scale, but it does not fix the problem -- that the overall channel level is either really hot, or mute (clipped).

I'm curious to see if anyone has any other ideas about this, and I agree with you that it must be a bug.  Typically sound cards have a logarithmic volume adjustment that is very quiet before going silent.

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