Soundblaster - was Re:turn up volume on soundcard software

[Andrej Marjan]

On Fri, Feb 19, 2010 at 10:36:05AM -0500, Lennart Sorensen wrote:
> On Thu, Feb 18, 2010 at 06:49:05PM -0500, Andrej Marjan wrote:
> > On February 18, 2010 03:36:23 pm you wrote:

> > > True.  Of course on my sb live, going above about 80% causes clipping
> > > (someone did a stupid design apparently).  That's rather unusual though.

> > Going off on a tangent, I have an Audigy 2 which is quite nice and has a 
> > fantastic DAC on it and I have it connected to an old analog receiver that 
> > acts as an amplifier. 

> > Under Windows XP, it's also very loud. Under everything else (including newer 
> > Windowses), it's a lot quieter. I have to turn up the volume on the receiver 
> > considerably to get the same output. Of course that introduces noise from the 
> > receiver.

> > I don't suppose anyone here knows of a way to boost its output under Alsa to 
> > something comparable to the Windows XP setting? I haven't been able to find 
> > anything too useful myself.

> Perhaps the audigy has the same clipping issue and crative did something
> about it by making the drivers use a sane limit. :)

> Or maybe it's just one of the dozens of sliders that is set wrong.
> The emu chips have so many options after all.

No clipping, the Audigy 1/2 were done right (the 2 has a better DAC than
the 1). You can output at 100% with less distortion than my receiver
introduces. :)

For the record: something has improved over the last year and the Audigy
2 is now much louder under Alsa. I did a new OS install in November
(openSUSE 11.2, kernel 2.6.31.12) and since Everything Worked, I forgot
to check the Alsa mixer settings.  Boosting Master and PCM to 100% gives
it a sane output level for the first time ever. Those are the only two
sliders that made a difference.

It's still not quite as loud as it was under XP, however, but it's more
than enough. 

Thanks to you and to Fabio for prompting me to check the settings!
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