Comment 41 for bug 1654448

I still haven't figured out how Pulse determines the default levels it forces upon the user at each start of the service. I think it should respect those levels set within ALSA/the system. If Pulse can't respect selected values, then I'd like to know where it gets its default values. That way I can manually change them and force my default values down Pulse's throat.

pactl is a hot mess to understand. I don't see a way to set volume on ports at all. Maybe it isn't even possible using pactl.

/etc/pulse/default.pa
/etc/pulse/system.pa

don't seem to provide help either. I tried modifying a few things there, and it broke the automatic muting when switching between headphones and internal speakers. So I put all that back the way it was.

I also noticed if:

1. I have alsamixer open along with pavucontrol
2. Set the headphone mic dB gain to 10% in alsamixer
3. In pavucontrol select the "Microphone" from the dropdown under the "Input Devices" tab

Result:
pavucontrol resets the dB gain to 0%, "the default" without me even touching the volume slider...in fact I CAN'T touch the volume slider for the mic. Why can't Pulse work with functionality ALSA clearly provides?

Googling for answers on pulse and volume issues just seems to return a lot of annoyed users and scripted hack answers which really aren't solutions.

If I had a way to set the port volume for the mic and have it remain that way permanently, that would work for me. After reducing the dB gain I can still up the volume to compensate without the hiss returning.

If we can determine it is a bug somewhere and fix it at the root, even better.