setting max possible volume

diablo465 · Apprentice Joined: 10 Sep 2013 Posts: 194

I usually work in a WM (i.e., i3wm) and use alsamixer to adjust sound volume.

The recent gentoo installion on a dell t5500 machine gives a very loud sound when set the maximum volume in alsamixer. It would damage my eardrum if I mistakenly set the volumn to be maximum as I usually use in-ear earphone. Is there anyway to set the peak sound volume?

Thanks in advance!

jonathan183 · Guru Joined: 13 Dec 2011 Posts: 318

I doubt setting a maximum volume is possible in alsamixer directly. I tend to use amixer on startup, and set volumes to values I want.
On a system with headphones I usually set the headphones to a reasonable volume with master volume on maximum - that way I can't end up with headphones too loud from an incorrect master volume setting. If there was a method of limiting volume I'd expect it to be associated with alsactl rather than alsamixer.
If you find some other tool like gnome-alsamixer or something else lets you set maximum values you can try store and restore of values.
I have not played with alsactl init but that may allow greater control of the sound card config at least.

aCOSwt · Posted: Mon Mar 03, 2014 2:51 pm Post subject:

What sound driver are you using ?

With all the drivers I have seen, alsamixer's controls act as attenuators only.
(=>100% is 0db at best)
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