[gentoo-user] How do I turn my audio up?

[gentoo-user] How do I turn my audio up?

[Alan Mackenzie]

Hi, Gentoo!

On my PC's audio, whilst playing CDs, with all volume settings maxed out,
the volume can't be said to be louder than "comfortable and sensible".
In quiet passages, the music gets drowned out by the noise of the power
supply.  I know from plugging in my iPod that the loudspeakers are
capable of much more.

The three volume controls up at full are (i) the one in aqualung; (ii)
the one in alsamixer; (iii) the physical control on the right speaker.

Surely I can get more volume, somehow.  Could somebody please suggest
how.  TIA

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).

Re: [gentoo-user] How do I turn my audio up?

[Paul Hartman]

On Thu, Nov 3, 2011 at 12:26 PM, Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de> wrote:
> Hi, Gentoo!
>
> On my PC's audio, whilst playing CDs, with all volume settings maxed out,
> the volume can't be said to be louder than "comfortable and sensible".
> In quiet passages, the music gets drowned out by the noise of the power
> supply.  I know from plugging in my iPod that the loudspeakers are
> capable of much more.
>
> The three volume controls up at full are (i) the one in aqualung; (ii)
> the one in alsamixer; (iii) the physical control on the right speaker.
>
> Surely I can get more volume, somehow.  Could somebody please suggest
> how.  TIA

How are you playing the CDs?

I think there are 2 basic ways, either software (reading the data from
the disc and playing it), or via line-in (software simply issues
"play" command to the drive which outputs via the audio cable, or some
drives even have audio controls on the front panel).

If the former, the volume should be the same as if you play an MP3, for example.

If the latter, maybe you need to find the inputs in alsamixer and
boost them, if possible.

Re: [gentoo-user] How do I turn my audio up?

[Michael Mol]

On Thu, Nov 3, 2011 at 1:26 PM, Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de> wrote:
> Hi, Gentoo!
>
> On my PC's audio, whilst playing CDs, with all volume settings maxed out,
> the volume can't be said to be louder than "comfortable and sensible".
> In quiet passages, the music gets drowned out by the noise of the power
> supply.  I know from plugging in my iPod that the loudspeakers are
> capable of much more.
>
> The three volume controls up at full are (i) the one in aqualung; (ii)
> the one in alsamixer; (iii) the physical control on the right speaker.
>
> Surely I can get more volume, somehow.  Could somebody please suggest
> how.  TIA

Check that PA isn't getting in the way somewhere.

Try using a different media player. See if you can find out if the
files' ReplayGain feature is or is not involved.

Check that you're outputting to the correct audio sink; I've had cases
where I *thought* things were working, but really quiet, and it turned
out that crosstalk was the only reason I was hearing anything.


-- 
:wq

Re: [gentoo-user] How do I turn my audio up?

[Mark Knecht]

On Thu, Nov 3, 2011 at 10:26 AM, Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de> wrote:
> Hi, Gentoo!
>
> On my PC's audio, whilst playing CDs, with all volume settings maxed out,
> the volume can't be said to be louder than "comfortable and sensible".
> In quiet passages, the music gets drowned out by the noise of the power
> supply.  I know from plugging in my iPod that the loudspeakers are
> capable of much more.
>
> The three volume controls up at full are (i) the one in aqualung; (ii)
> the one in alsamixer; (iii) the physical control on the right speaker.
>
> Surely I can get more volume, somehow.  Could somebody please suggest
> how.  TIA
>
> --
> Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).
>
>

Are you using powered or passive speakers? On my dad's machine he had
passive speakers and the Intel on-board audio just wouldn't get very
loud so we bought some powered speakers and things were fine. In my
office I've got some nice NHT Pro Powered Studio Monitors so I don't
have that problem.

If you're using headphones then check their impedance spec vs what the
MB says it's designed to drive, as well as the efficiency of the
headphones. I own some  AKG & Sony headphones. The Sony pair is _way_
louder than the AKG pair.

HTH,
Mark

Re: [gentoo-user] How do I turn my audio up?

[Alex Schuster]

Alan Mackenzie writes:

> On my PC's audio, whilst playing CDs, with all volume settings maxed
> out, the volume can't be said to be louder than "comfortable and
> sensible". In quiet passages, the music gets drowned out by the noise
> of the power supply.  I know from plugging in my iPod that the
> loudspeakers are capable of much more.
> 
> The three volume controls up at full are (i) the one in aqualung; (ii)
> the one in alsamixer; (iii) the physical control on the right speaker.

The ONE in alsamixer? I have at least PCM, Front and CD, another PC also
has Master. Are you missing some of those? Is a channel muted (you
see 'MM' inmstead of a volume, use the M key to unmute)? Maybe you have to
scroll with the right arrow key to see those channels?

	Wonko

Re: [gentoo-user] How do I turn my audio up?

[Alan Mackenzie]

Hi, Alex

On Thu, Nov 03, 2011 at 07:16:53PM +0100, Alex Schuster wrote:
> Alan Mackenzie writes:

> > On my PC's audio, whilst playing CDs, with all volume settings maxed
> > out, the volume can't be said to be louder than "comfortable and
> > sensible". In quiet passages, the music gets drowned out by the noise
> > of the power supply.  I know from plugging in my iPod that the
> > loudspeakers are capable of much more.

> > The three volume controls up at full are (i) the one in aqualung;
> > (ii) the one in alsamixer; (iii) the physical control on the right
> > speaker.

> The ONE in alsamixer? I have at least PCM, Front and CD, another PC
> also has Master. Are you missing some of those? Is a channel muted (you
> see 'MM' inmstead of a volume, use the M key to unmute)? Maybe you have
> to scroll with the right arrow key to see those channels?

Ah, that was the problem.  There are four effective volume controls in
alsamixer: master, PCM, front, and side.  They seem to multply together
(each in the range 0 to 1).  My "side" was only at ~30/100, the others
being around 80.

Now they're all set to 93/100, and the volume control on the speakers
works sensibly.

Why "side"?  What is "PCM"?

Presumably all these controls are for massive batteries of loudspeakers
right, left, centre and behind.

> 	Wonko

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).

Re: [gentoo-user] How do I turn my audio up?

[Alan Mackenzie]

Hi, Paul.

On Thu, Nov 03, 2011 at 12:58:16PM -0500, Paul Hartman wrote:
> On Thu, Nov 3, 2011 at 12:26 PM, Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de> wrote:
> > Hi, Gentoo!

> > On my PC's audio, whilst playing CDs, with all volume settings maxed out,
> > the volume can't be said to be louder than "comfortable and sensible".
> > In quiet passages, the music gets drowned out by the noise of the power
> > supply.  I know from plugging in my iPod that the loudspeakers are
> > capable of much more.

> > The three volume controls up at full are (i) the one in aqualung; (ii)
> > the one in alsamixer; (iii) the physical control on the right speaker.

> > Surely I can get more volume, somehow.  Could somebody please suggest
> > how.  TIA

> How are you playing the CDs?

> I think there are 2 basic ways, either software (reading the data from
> the disc and playing it), or via line-in (software simply issues
> "play" command to the drive which outputs via the audio cable, or some
> drives even have audio controls on the front panel).

The CD is being read as data and converted to something which is fed to
the sound chip.

> If the former, the volume should be the same as if you play an MP3, for example.

Could you suggest a good program to play MP3 files, please

> If the latter, maybe you need to find the inputs in alsamixer and
> boost them, if possible.

Yes, one of my alsamixer controls was too low.

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).

Re: [gentoo-user] How do I turn my audio up?

[Michael Mol]

On Thu, Nov 3, 2011 at 2:44 PM, Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de> wrote:
> Hi, Alex
> On Thu, Nov 03, 2011 at 07:16:53PM +0100, Alex Schuster wrote:
>> The ONE in alsamixer? I have at least PCM, Front and CD, another PC
>> also has Master. Are you missing some of those? Is a channel muted (you
>> see 'MM' inmstead of a volume, use the M key to unmute)? Maybe you have
>> to scroll with the right arrow key to see those channels?
>
> Ah, that was the problem.  There are four effective volume controls in
> alsamixer: master, PCM, front, and side.  They seem to multply together
> (each in the range 0 to 1).  My "side" was only at ~30/100, the others
> being around 80.
>
> Now they're all set to 93/100, and the volume control on the speakers
> works sensibly.
>
> Why "side"?

Support for, e.g. 5.1 channel surround sound.

> What is "PCM"?

Pulse Code Modulation. A method of encoding audio data digitally. In
ALSA, this usually refers to applications' feeding audio data in via
purely-software means. (As opposed to via a sound card's onboard
input)

-- 
:wq

Re: [gentoo-user] How do I turn my audio up?

[Paul Hartman]

On Thu, Nov 3, 2011 at 1:50 PM, Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de> wrote:
> Could you suggest a good program to play MP3 files, please

I use mplayer for one-off playing of files, or Amarok for managing my
entire collection.

[gentoo-user] Re: How do I turn my audio up?

[Grant Edwards]

On 2011-11-03, Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de> wrote:

> On my PC's audio, whilst playing CDs, with all volume settings maxed out,
> the volume can't be said to be louder than "comfortable and sensible".
> In quiet passages, the music gets drowned out by the noise of the power
> supply.  I know from plugging in my iPod that the loudspeakers are
> capable of much more.
>
> The three volume controls up at full are (i) the one in aqualung; (ii)
> the one in alsamixer; (iii) the physical control on the right speaker.
>
> Surely I can get more volume, somehow.  Could somebody please suggest
> how.

The easiest answer seems to be to get an audio card (or USB dongle) that
has a real line-level output rather than just a headphone-level
output.

Some amplified speakers need more signal than others, and many
on-board audio outputs are utter crap.

A friend of mine had some _nice_ Bose computer speakers plugged into
her green "audio out" jack.  You had to turn all the volumes up to 11
to hear much, and it sounded awful.

I plugged in a $20 USB audio out dongle with a real line-level output,
and now it sounds great.

-- 
Grant Edwards               grant.b.edwards        Yow! Are we live or on
                                  at               tape?
                              gmail.com