Sound is lower on Manjaro than on Windows ¿Why?

Hi there, I consider myself as a newbie in Manjaro and on Linux in general, even though I have been using at for more than a year now. The only ¨ issue¨ that I´m having or perhaps will be better to say question , is that the sound volume on Manjaro is lower than on Windows , I´m using it on my personal computer an Lenovo AIO , information below, first with pulse audio and after that with pipewire to check if that will do any difference, it didn´t. Before this Pc was with windows and I set the sound of the speakers to 30% because beyond that was too loud for me, but when I switch to Manjaro it comes out that at 30% I can´t listen to most of the things (videos, games) or are too low, I need to increase the volume to maybe 55% to 65% so I can have the same volume that I used to with Windows at 30% .

Anyone has an idea of why this happens?

ystem:
  Host: cornatus Kernel: 5.15.7-1-MANJARO x86_64 bits: 64
    Desktop: KDE Plasma 5.23.4 Distro: Manjaro Linux
Machine:
  Type: Desktop System: LENOVO product: F0EW005SUS
    v: IdeaCentre AIO 3 24ARE05 serial: <superuser required>
  Mobo: LENOVO model: 371C v: SDK0J40700 WIN 3258192621239
    serial: <superuser required> UEFI: LENOVO v: O4SKT25A date: 12/21/2020
CPU:
  Info: 6-core model: AMD Ryzen 5 4500U with Radeon Graphics bits: 64
    type: MCP cache: L2: 3 MiB
  Speed (MHz): avg: 1397 min/max: 1400/2375 cores: 1: 1397 2: 1397 3: 1397
    4: 1397 5: 1397 6: 1397
Graphics:
  Device-1: AMD Renoir driver: amdgpu v: kernel
  Device-2: Syntek Integrated Camera type: USB driver: uvcvideo
  Display: x11 server: X.org 1.21.1.2 driver: loaded: amdgpu,ati
    unloaded: modesetting resolution: <missing: xdpyinfo>
  Message: Unable to show advanced data. Required tool glxinfo missing.
Audio:
  Device-1: AMD driver: snd_hda_intel
  Device-2: AMD Raven/Raven2/FireFlight/Renoir Audio Processor driver: N/A
  Device-3: AMD Family 17h HD Audio driver: snd_hda_intel
  Sound Server-1: ALSA v: k5.15.7-1-MANJARO running: yes
  Sound Server-2: PipeWire v: 0.3.40 running: yes
Network:
  Device-1: Realtek RTL8822CE 802.11ac PCIe Wireless Network Adapter
    driver: rtw_8822ce
  IF: wlp1s0 state: up mac: 30:c9:ab:9a:f4:27
  Device-2: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet
    driver: r8169
  IF: eno1 state: down mac: 08:97:98:fc:b7:40
Bluetooth:
  Device-1: Realtek Bluetooth Radio type: USB driver: btusb
  Report: rfkill ID: hci0 state: up address: see --recommends
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 476.94 GiB used: 76.34 GiB (16.0%)
  ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 vendor: Samsung model: MZALQ512HALU-000L1
    size: 476.94 GiB
Partition:
  ID-1: / size: 468.09 GiB used: 76.34 GiB (16.3%) fs: ext4
    dev: /dev/nvme0n1p2
  ID-2: /boot/efi size: 299.4 MiB used: 288 KiB (0.1%) fs: vfat
    dev: /dev/nvme0n1p1
Swap:
  Alert: No swap data was found.
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: N/A mobo: N/A gpu: amdgpu temp: 36.0 C
  Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A
Info:
  Processes: 210 Uptime: 1h 5m Memory: 15.12 GiB used: 2.32 GiB (15.4%)
  Shell: Zsh inxi: 3.3.11

Audio:
  Device-1: AMD driver: snd_hda_intel
  Device-2: AMD Raven/Raven2/FireFlight/Renoir Audio Processor driver: N/A
  Device-3: AMD Family 17h HD Audio driver: snd_hda_intel
  Sound Server-1: ALSA v: k5.15.7-1-MANJARO running: yes
  Sound Server-2: PipeWire v: 0.3.40 running: yes

This seems relevant.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/PipeWire#Low_volume

Over time I have noted the same - and there is several possible reasons.

Most hardware is constructed with Windows in mind - and getting the same sound on Linux requires - at least on some hardware - extensive configuration using software equalizer and tweaking to match your preference.

Then you need to save that configuration to be able to use it after reboot.

It is often possible to increase volume above 100%. As this may cause overload of the internal speakers, a deliberate change in settings is often required.

I checked that out already, but obviously , setting the speakers at 100% have a terrible effect on sound quality.

I´ve been thinking the same. Do you have a configuration that might work? I have been searching for a couple of days now.

I cannot help you with that.

Thanks anyways, I will be messing up a little bit with the config.

If you don’t mind trying, install and tweak up jamesdsp. It isn’t that hard to set up, and made a huge difference in my sound rig. YMMV, but it is worth a shot.

By the by, you can get help setting things up on its telegram group.

I will give it a try, thanks

This topic was automatically closed 2 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.