Headphone output ear-bleedingly loud on Karmic
Affects | Status | Importance | Assigned to | Milestone | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
gnome-media (Ubuntu) |
Confirmed
|
Low
|
Unassigned | ||
linux (Ubuntu) |
Won't Fix
|
Low
|
Ubuntu Audio Development Team |
Bug Description
Binary package hint: gnome-media
I have a Dell Latitude D830 with a SigmaTel STAC9205 codec. One of the quirks of this laptop is that the speakers are much quieter than the headphones. Fortunately, there are three mixer controls: master, speaker, and headphones. I usually have speaker set all the way up, headphones set about 40% up, and use master to fine-tune the volume I want. Unfortunately, the new Karmic version of gnome-media sets both speaker and headphones to 100%, meaning that switching from speakers to headphones by putting the headphones in the jack results in much, much louder sound. The usable range of the volume control's slider range becomes tiny, especially since the master slider has different strange behavior in each release, but never is more than about 2/3rds of the slider useful. It's really not possible with this laptop to not have a separate volume control for headphones. While the ideal functionality would be to keep master at 100% and have the speakers or headphones mixer control be adjusted based on the jack state, I'd settle for the pre-Karmic ability to control the headphones mixer control directly.
affects: | gnome-media (Ubuntu) → alsa-lib (Ubuntu) |
affects: | alsa-lib (Ubuntu) → gnome-media (Ubuntu) |
affects: | gnome-media (Ubuntu) → alsa-lib (Ubuntu) |
affects: | alsa-lib (Ubuntu) → gnome-media (Ubuntu) |
Changed in gnome-media (Ubuntu): | |
status: | Incomplete → New |
You can control headphones. Plug in your head phones and start an application that uses them, say Rhythmbox with some music. When the music is playing look for the speaker icon in the top(default) panel of the Desktop, right click and choose Sound Preferences. When the Sound Preferences window opens choose Applications. You should see a volume control and be able to adjust the volume. You can also select a 'Connector' which can be amplified (or not for earphones).
pulse-audio had a 'tricky' birth but can allow full control over any input/output device. It does have more than one volume control however, in the above case it has 'Output volume' in Sound preferences and also control through 'Applications' tab (which only becomes visible when an application is actually running). A shortcut to the 'Output volume' is utilised by left clicking the speaker icon. Taking the two controls together you can set various 'default' settings for different applications.