I am trying to rally other users like me who hate this dual volume controller. And what I mean by this is the fact that since I don't know for how long there has been 2 volume controllers(nor even WHY??). In case you didn't already knew those 2 volume controls I am refering to are located: 1x at the top hand right side of the MATE desktop (the speaker icon) and it allows you to either MUTE or crank volume up to "100%" and the 2nd one is (Which I refer to the the extra/bonus sound) is the volume output located in the Control Center, namely "Sound". In "Sound" there it is the "Output volume" for that extra SOUND.
I am looking for other users who think this is useless/quite annoying before I open up a bug on launchpad and be even more annoying.
Basically my point is this: there is no logical explanation, from a user perspective, as to why the speaker icon can only crank up to "100%" of volume range while the "Output volume" can crank up another extra 40%.
So, from my perspective, the "real 100%" of volume as it stands currently is actually "140%" and needs to be controlled via 2 entry points. And it's been like that since forever I can recall now.
Does that ever made sense to you? Did you ever realized of this "feature"? Do you even care? Does this post makes any sense?
Please, share your thoughts and feedbacks concerning your experience with the volume controlS.
Me, I especially hate it when playing a movie and trying to control the sound from my multimedia keyboard. Try it: it is a-n-n-o-y-i-n-g.
The Control Center in 21.10 no longer has an icon for Sound. You can find a setting in Ayatana Indicators for Sound that let's you choose "Allow setting the volume above 100%."
As a sound engineer (yes, that's my dayjob) I have to inform you that you slightly miss the point.
If you have an input signal that uses the full possible volume range (that is nominal level or normalised audio), amplification beyond 100% (a.k.a. 0dB) will introduce a certain kind of distortion a.k.a. clipping.
And this problem occurs not only with amplifiers but also in the digital domain.
So why can we turn it up to eleven ....uh... 140% ?
Some audio sources are recorded on such a low level (sometimes almost unaudible) that we have to boost it beyond the safety margins just to make it audible.
It also means that we are running outside the specs and that a signal of nominal level would be very heavily distorted and could damage, for instance, your speakers (especially your tweeters).
That is the reason why the regular volume won't go beyond 100% (to prevent accidental damage and distortion)
That is also the reason why you can go over 100% in a special menu (because if you reach that menu, it won't be by accident)
What do you propose ?
Keep the 100% (a.k.a. 0dB or 'amplificationfactor of 1' ) and not be able to boost weak signals ?
Keep the 140% (or 200% whatever) and have accidental distortion and risk damage of equipment ?
A seperate +20dB boost button that automatically shuts off when clipping occurs ?
An "enable to go over 100% at your own risk" button ?
something else ?
So, from my perspective, the "real 100%" of volume as it stands currently is actually "140%"
No, that is actually false.
Outputlevel = inputlevel x amplificationfactor
nothing more, nothing less.
A nominal signal will clip if you push the amplification above 100% and in Ubuntu-MATE it does exactly that
Does that ever made sense to you?
yes
Did you ever realized of this "feature"?
yes
Do you even care?
yes
Does this post makes any sense?
no
100% or 'AmplificationFactor 1' is not equal to signal level a.k.a. volume, it is only part of the equation.
Me, I especially hate it when playing a movie and trying to control the sound from my multimedia keyboard. Try it: it is a-n-n-o-y-i-n-g.
When I play a movie or music on my home theater set, I have the volume deliberately stuck at 100% (for the few times that I don't use MPV direct-out via Toslink-RAW-or-S/PDIF which on purpose bypasses the whole pulseaudio shebang completely) because a value lower or higher than that would reduce the possible dynamic range. I use my amplifier to adjust the soundlevels.
When I play a movie on my main PC, I use the multimediakeys on my keyboard which work really good, but that is probably due to my keyboard I think (Corsair K-55). Not annoying at all.
It actually works much better than the crappy volume control on my PC speakers.
Wait - are you seriously telling us that if/when Ayatana falls over, that's it, and non-technical users are going to have to logout or reboot just to be able to change the volume again?!
First off THANK YOU VERY MUCH for all of this educational context. Because that's really what I was looking for in terms of technical illumination when I first posted this. And you did delivered.
Considering that the target of Ubuntu MATE is the largest, most heterogeneous possible, most of us do not work in audio nor care for any of that. What TTY7 end-users expectations are when they crank the volume up 100% is that it's actually 100%. After all, this isn't Debian.
However I totally understand your technical guidelines but now I am starting to be worried that "Linux broke my speakers" because of doing all of this "140%" for so long...
Coming back to your question of what do I propose: well nothing for now because I first wanted to raise the topic in the community to get the pulse of things. To be quite frank looking at the amount of replies we've had for this topic either means that everything was covered and/or that people just don't care about any of that.
I would go for the last
But what I can say for a fact is every time I showed UM to somebody over the course of the holidays that one of the thing that I've mostly heard was: "more volume please"
But what I can say for a fact is every time I showed UM to somebody over the course of the holidays that one of the thing that I've mostly heard was: "more volume please"
So why didn't you turn up the volume of your speakers instead ?
Besides that, Could it be that you demonstrated UM with a youtube video on firefox , which then resulted in a drop in volume ?
