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I'm using Lubuntu Xenial with pulseaudio and the issue which I'm facing is that the upper volume limit isn't set for pavucontrol which leads to unnecessary amplification which in turn results in bad audio quality, when I increase the volume increment command pactl set-sink-volume 0 +5%. If possible I'd like to limit the max volume to 100% just like it is in alsamixer.

Utkarsh Verma
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  • Do you mean disabling over-amplification? gsettings set com.ubuntu.sound allow-amplified-volume false? – Pablo Bianchi Dec 28 '18 at 02:54
  • Yes, I meant over-amplification. I'm currently away from my PC so I'll update here when I get the time. – Utkarsh Verma Dec 29 '18 at 07:19
  • "disabling" amplified volume in gsettings doesn't actually disable the setting, it simply toggles or adjusts this setting without disabling it. The maximum volume is the amplified volume so unfortunately, the problem remains that the maximum volume is far past 100, can easily be toggled by other users, and limiting the actual maximum allowed volume means limiting the amplified volume. – mchid Jul 28 '24 at 21:24

1 Answers1

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I've had the same question and went nuts trying to find a solution.

I downloaded pavucontrol's source code, and there is no config file fix.

Apparently this is the recommended value because that's what PA_VOLUME_UI_MAX is set to. Changing all instances of PA_VOLUME_UI_MAX for PA_VOLUME_NORM and rebuilding is the only solution I can see.

It is "by design". Honestly I'm at a loss of words because over amplification can permanently damage the speakers; that this is the recommended default doesn't speak very well about the audio engineering knowledge of the programmers. If someone wants to go overdrive, fine; but it shouldn't be the default.

Matias N Goldberg
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    Your thoughts resonate well with mine! I too got frustrated and had to switch to alsa for this. I perhaps also switched to amixer to fix this for pulseaudio. – Utkarsh Verma Dec 29 '18 at 07:22