using more than one set of speakers and configuring them

[Andrew Mahoney]

Chris Lemire wrote:
> I do not have surround sound speakers, but I do have a sound card with 
> six sound jacks for surround sound on my motherboard. I have two normal 
> sets of speakers. I got both sets of speakers working with sound coming 
> out of both of them by enabling "duplicate front" in the gnome volume 
> control, but there are a few problems. When I change the volume from the 
> Volume Control in the gnome-panel , it only changes the volume for one 
> set of speakers. How can I get it to change the volume for both sets of 
> speakers? I just want for them to be at the same volume, and when I 
> change the volume from the panel, it does not change the volume of both 
> of them. The volume control in the gnome panel is controlling the master 
> volume only, which is only controlling one set of speakers.
> 
> The same thing happens when using mute. It only controls one of set of 
> speakers using one of those sliders that you see in "volume control" 
> (right click sound icon and click open volume control) or alsamixer. 
> There is another slider that controls the other set of speakers labeled 
> as "Surround".  It would be nice if master volume controlled all sets of 
> my speakers. I would like to keep them synchronized  so both sets of 
> speakers have the same volume and both mute and unmute with one control 
> instead of having to go into preferences everytime I want to mute both 
> of them or change the volume. The master volume control in 
> gnome-volume-control (the same slider that is controlled from the gnome 
> panel volume applet), only changes the volume for one of the sets of 
> speakers. gnome-volume-control shows my sound card as a NVidia CK804 
> (alsa mixer). lspci shows this.
> 
> 00:04.0 Multimedia audio controller: nVidia Corporation CK804 AC'97 
> Audio Controller (rev a2)
> 
> Now, I have a keyboard with volume control buttons on it, but it is 
> doing the same thing. Only one set of speake rs volume and mute/unmute 
> is getting changed by it. It is a hassle to go into preferences or 
> alsamixer each time I want to change the volume for both sets of 
> speakers. Most people would not want to have to always control their 
> right speaker and left speaker separately. It's the same for me, I want 
> both sets of speakers to be the same and not just changing one of set of 
> speakers. I want mute to mute both sets of speakers and a volume control 
> to change both sets of speakers, not just one.
> 
> chris at ubuntu:~$ aplay -l
> **** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
> card 0: CK804 [NVidia CK804], device 0: Intel ICH [NVidia CK804]
>   Subdevices: 0/1
>   Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
> card 0: CK804 [NVidia CK804], device 2: Intel ICH - IEC958 [NVidia CK804 
> - IEC958]
>   Subdevices: 1/1
>   Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
> chris at ubuntu:~$
> 
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> 

I used this to set up one SoftMaster volume control for all output on my 
sound card

http://alsa.opensrc.org/How_to_use_softvol_to_control_the_master_volume

Unfortunately Softvol controls don't have a mute but at least it means 
you can control the volume from on slider.

Hope this helps
Andrew