[pulseaudio-discuss] PA is very silent; doen't use the max hardware volume

[Alexander E. Patrakov]

2014/1/23 Nikos Chantziaras <realnc at gmail.com>:
> It seems that PA refuses to use the maximum hardware volume of my sound card
> (Asus Xonar D1). As a result, the audio is very silent. I have the volume
> sliders in pavucontrol set to 100%, but PA only uses 40% (-20db) on the
> hardware mixer.
>
> In order to get acceptable sound, I have to:
>
>   pulseaudio -k
>   sudo alsamixer
>   [raise volume to 0db manually]

Which control are you raising? Maybe it is not in the default mixer
path known to pulseaudio?

> Isn't PA supposed to use 0db on the hardware by itself?

It is. Please try to fix it without sudo, as follows:

alsamixer -c0

and of course without killing pulseaudio. This way, it will remember
the volume change, as it came from user input. How do the sliders in
pavucontrol move during that command?

-- 
Alexander E. Patrakov