[alsa-devel] What does 0dB refer to? (Logitech USB Speakers)

[stan]

John Rigg wrote:
> On Sat, Apr 12, 2008 at 07:14:44PM +0100, James Courtier-Dutton wrote:
>   
>> That sounds reasonable for now. Professional sound card users will maybe 
>> just have to remember to mute the master control before connecting their 
>> speakers.
>>     
>
> A better solution IMO would be to make the default behaviour of the
> pro/semi-pro sound cards default to minimum gain with everything muted,
> and do what you're suggesting with other cards. 
>
> If non-pro users want to use pro cards (which are fairly specialised
> after all), they can unmute things. The idea of, say, starting up the
> hdsp mixer for an RME HDSP MADI card and having all 64 channels come up
> at 0dB is pretty frightening. Anything which can start in such a
> potentially dangerous state is unusable in a professional context.
>
> John
>   

I haven't got any skin in this game as either way is fine for me.  But 
to contribute I thought I would ask a couple of questions.

Is there a way to identify whether a card is pro or casual?  Number of 
channels?  DACs?  Chipsets?

How is this handled on other OSs?  Windows, Mac, Sun?