[alsa-devel] wrong decibel data?

[James Courtier-Dutton]

On 14 June 2010 09:33, Colin Guthrie <gmane at colin.guthr.ie> wrote:
> 'Twas brillig, and Raymond Yau at 14/06/10 01:25 did gyre and gimble:
>> if your sound card have ac97 codec ., you can use audacity to record the
>> output from hw:0,0 and you will see clipping occur when you set "PCM" volume
>> above 0dB
>
> So the standard response is "don't do that then" :)
>
> That's why the base volume is shown to the user via GUIs so that they
> can gauge the best point on the slider to use. Currently there is no
> indication with alsa sliders at which point the 0dB "sweet spot" lies.
>

What do you mean.
If you use "alsamixer", dB values are shown so it is easy to find the
0dB "sweet spot".
I think it is pulse audio that hides this information when it combines
two alsa mixer controls into one pulseaudio control.