[pulseaudio-discuss] 100% volume limit bogus

[liebrecht at grossmann-venter.com]

I found an interesting reason why this 100% Volume policy in pavucontrol 
is actually detrimental.

The sound is very low with the pavucontrol 100% and my keyboard buttons 
cannot go past that as that is how pavu controls it.

Its fair, but as soon as I start QEMU, (which uses pulseaudio as sound) 
with a windows virtual machine something peculiar happens.

I p-lay music on the linux machine which has nothing to do with anything 
from QEMU.
Once windows boots up in QEMU, sometimes with no config on my side, QEMU 
pushes the volume omn Linux up way past the maximum of pavucontrol to 
deafening levels.
Jeeziz.!

Why this QEMU raising of Linux host volume happens is a mystery to me.

Please read this carefully and consider:
It is better to have pulseaudio 100% at system absolutely maximum volume 
so that the user can set volume down.
Since you implemented this 100% restriction that is way too low volume, 
other applications like QEMU seemingly finds a way to go to the real 
maximum which makes your low volume policy severely detrimental.

This policy forces the user to set the hardware output device at almost 
maximum, w2hich creates a lot of trouvble if another application finds a 
way around this silly limit and blasts your ears out, as Qemu and 
windows does.
Qemu just willy nilly turns up the linux output volume to its correct 
maximum way way past the imho dangerous and deceptive  pavu lower limit.

Give the user full control so they can set their own maximum limit. 
These non-working and bypassable synthetic limits creates more damage 
than they intend to prevent.