[pulseaudio-discuss] The volume control ways in PulseAudio

[Tanu Kaskinen]

On Fri, 2020-07-17 at 10:57 +0800, Aaron Chou wrote:
> Hi, all:
> 
> I am the newer about PulseAudio.
> When I have some time to learn it, I found that there are two ways in
> volume control, which is software control and hardware control.
> I can not understand these two ways.
> The software way means the volume data will not be sent to the hardware?
> It is unbelievable.

Software volume means that PulseAudio modifies the signal to be softer
or louder. Hardware volume means that PulseAudio sends the signal
unmodified and tells the hardware to the modification, which requires
that the hardware provides an interface for controlling the volume (I'm
currently using a USB sound card that doesn't provide such interface).

-- 
Tanu