From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Lennart Poettering Subject: Re: What does 0dB refer to? (Logitech USB Speakers) Date: Mon, 14 Apr 2008 18:48:43 +0200 Message-ID: <20080414164843.GD22115@tango.0pointer.de> References: <20080411204610.GA32413@tango.0pointer.de> <20080412133536.GC32491@tango.0pointer.de> <4800FC14.3060804@superbug.co.uk> <200804122025.57165.faber@faberman.de> <48010CF9.4000600@superbug.co.uk> <48010F76.1070209@keyaccess.nl> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Return-path: Received: from tango.0pointer.de (tango.0pointer.de [85.214.72.216]) by alsa0.perex.cz (Postfix) with ESMTP id DC7F52452A for ; Mon, 14 Apr 2008 18:48:43 +0200 (CEST) Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <48010F76.1070209@keyaccess.nl> List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Sender: alsa-devel-bounces@alsa-project.org Errors-To: alsa-devel-bounces@alsa-project.org To: Rene Herman Cc: Florian Faber , alsa-devel@alsa-project.org List-Id: alsa-devel@alsa-project.org On Sat, 12.04.08 21:37, Rene Herman (rene.herman@keyaccess.nl) wrote: > > For the master we could select say minimum dB + 12. > > So, if the Master ranged from -70 to 0 dB, we would set Master to -70 + > > 12 = -58dB. > > > > Would that suit everyone better. > > On the aforementioned cs4236 which has a master -94.5 to +12 dB, 0dB > actually is the sane default (and the value I keep it at). It is an idea to > also init master to 0 dB iff master isn't just attenuation? Maybe this should be considered a driver bug? Shouldn't we require from all ALSA drivers that -30 dB on the master is a "sane default"? Otherwise I am not sure what the dB scale is worth anyway if humans don't have the slightest idea what they actually could mean. I mean, the biggest problem with integer volume scales was that nobody had the knew what they actually meant. Now it turns out that the dB scale exported in ALSA these days ain't any better either, since still noone knows what 0db actually refers too. Why not just say that -30db on master should be a "sane default" volume level, and 0db on all others. If a driver doesn't follow this it's a buggy driver. It shouldn't be too difficult to fix the volume calculation in the drivers accordingly. Lennart -- Lennart Poettering Red Hat, Inc. lennart [at] poettering [dot] net ICQ# 11060553 http://0pointer.net/lennart/ GnuPG 0x1A015CC4