Hello,
when I run amixer it shows the capability "penum" on nearly every Simple mixer control. I posted the bug report https://bugtrack.alsa-project.org/alsa-bug/view.php?id=5496 , but Raymond asked me to report it on this mailing list ("as it is related to this patch 6d511eefa05878abee9f8b9145697230de605200 Implements support for capture/playback enums.").
I posted details for the following two examples in https://bugtrack.alsa-project.org/alsa-bug/view.php?id=5496 :
1) "Creative X-Fi" does not have any Enum's. alsamixer does not show Enums's. amixer lists "penum" for ALL Simple mixer controls.
2) "HDA ATI SB" has no penum's, only 3 cenum's. alsamixer shows it correctly, but amixer disagrees and shows penum for NEARLY ALL Simple mixer controls (except for those with cpability "cenum").
I found this as I received several bug reports for KMix with "absurd" amixer output. I could perceive from those bug report that the bug is affecting a lot (or all?) sound cards.
Christian