Sound: Headphones - yes, speakers - no

[Cameron Hutchison]

NoOp <glgxg at sbcglobal.net> writes:

>On 06/13/2010 05:45 PM, Cameron Hutchison wrote:
>> 
>> Now I have a problem where the volume is rather low. Anywhere between 0
>> to 50% is too soft to hear. Apparently pulseaudio has problems if the
>> hardware reported incorrect dbm values.

>Install gnome-alsamixer ($ sudo apt-get install gnome-alsamixer) and
>then Applications|Sound & Video|Gnome Alsamixer and then adjust your PCM
>channel. You can do the same via the CLI:

nah, its not a mixer problem. PCM is at 100%. Volume control affects
master. It may truely be the hardware and that's that. In the past, 
(before pulseaudio) I've had similar hardware where at least half the
range of a volume control is useless because its too quiet, so that may
just be my problem.

But, this laptop has a little "Altec Lansing" label on the speakers.
While Altec Lansing is not necessarily that special, having the label
there made me thing that the audio was somewhat spec'ed up and perhaps
would pump a lot of volume. So I wondered if pulseaudio was scaling down
the volume due to incorrect decibel info from the hardware. I'll have to
experiment bypassing pulseaudio and see if it makes any difference.

><minor rant on>
>Be aware that adding the ubuntu-audio-dev/ppa can sometimes create
>problems [...]
>  So, let's say that the devs actually fix the bug related to your
>system. How do you, as a standard user, figure out how to revert back to
>normal so that you're no longer running the 'testing versions'? It's not
>that easy, and a 'standard user' is unlikely to know how to revert back.
><minor rant off>

Thanks for the heads-up, but I figure I'll be OK. I don't think I'm your
"standard user" (running Debian unstable for >10 years).