Sensitivity of volume controls (xfce4, amixer, pavucontrol)

Support Sound
#1

Hi all,

after a fresh install of Manjaro and initial problems to get my sound card
(Xonar DG, Chip CMI8786) properly recognized (adjusted alsamixer, followed by sudo alsactl store),
I still face a persistent problem with the sensitivity of my volume control:

If I adjust the volume via the command line with percent values (‘amixer sset Master x’),
I am muted for x = 0% and obtain the max. volume for any 1% <= x <= 100%.
Calling ‘amixer’ without any arguments, I can see that my Playback limits are in the range 0 - 65536, such that 1% corresponds to 655.
If I now set the volume to an even smaller value with, say, ‘amixer sset Master 300’ (no percent this time!), I obtain a reduced volume. Indeed, the command ‘amixer sset Master x’ is effective (roughly) in the range
0 <= x <= 480.

The manual volume control shows the same effect: Muted, if the ruler is shifted to the very left, and max. volume for any setting >= 1%. The only difference to amixer is, that once the ruler is shifted beyond 100% the volume starts to increase further… (but this is only a strange side effect and not my main issue)

To summarize, my problem seems to be related to the upper Playback limit (65536), which is way too
large in my case. Can I somehow set it (persistently) to a smaller value? (and if yes, where?)
If this is not possible, can I somehow modify the sensitivity of my sound card?

Many thanks in advance.

#2

So what your asking is a limiter on the dB .
For as far I know this is not possible.

#3

Thanks for the answer.

The strange thing is that everything worked fine on my previous Arch installation on the
same machine (also with xfce and Pulseaudio). Therefore, I would suspect that something
must be wrong with my actual sound configuration.

#4

The ALSA default control ‘Master’ is usually a software volume control for PulseAudio output
the 0 - 65536 range for audio levels is usual for PulseAudio but not for hardware controls

Another user with an Asus DGX posted a full ALSA diagnostic here recently
Changing volume too fast causes system restart

!!-------Mixer controls for card DGX

Card hw:0 'DGX'/'C-Media Oxygen HD Audio at 0xe000, irq 34'
  Mixer name	: 'CMI8786'
  Components	: 'CS4245 CMI8786'
  Controls      : 22
  Simple ctrls  : 13
Simple mixer control 'Headphone',0
  Capabilities: pvolume pswitch pswitch-joined
  Playback channels: Front Left - Front Right
  Limits: Playback 0 - 255
  Mono:
  Front Left: Playback 213 [84%] [-20.68dB] [on]
  Front Right: Playback 213 [84%] [-20.68dB] [on]

Simple mixer control 'Analog Output',0
  Capabilities: penum
  Items: 'Stereo Headphones' 'Stereo Headphones FP' 'Multichannel'
  Item0: 'Stereo Headphones'

The ‘Headphone’ control appears to be the only level control for both front Headphone and rear speaker jacks. This control has a range of 0-255
If that control is turned down, the ‘Master’ control that precedes it in the audio chain will have a bigger range of useable control

It may also help to change the control for ‘Analog Output’ from ‘Stereo Headphones’ to 'Multichannel’
This is probably the control for the “3 gain modes” for the headphone amplifier
Xonar DG | Sound Cards | ASUS USA

#5

Many thanks for the suggestions.
I will try out my luck next week (it is my office computer)
and will post the solution in case of success.