Why Can't My Volume Go to 11?

that depends to some extent on the codec and the operating system

Pulseaudio gives me several gain controls in addition to the hardware ones

There are three (or more) places to set the volume level. One is in your unspecified video player application. Another is in your unspecified operating system under Sound and Audio Devices. There is also a "mixer" application running under Sound and Audio Devices that has controls for both its input and output. I'll assume that you're NOT running an external USB audio device as these have their own audio level settings. Low audio usually means that one of these is set too low.

Another possibility is that your unspecified model laptop has tiny speakers that are insufficient to produce decent audio. I suggest you try some external amplified speakers for a comparison. Of course, the amplified speakers have their own volume control. One can never have enough volume controls. Also try earphones.

If you're running Windoze 7 and above, you'll might need to set the type of speaker or earphone somewhere in Control Panel -> Sounds and Audio Devices The system allegedly compensates for different types of speaker systems, which might affect the audio levels. It's been a while since I've played with the settings and I don't recall the exact effects.

Good luck.

Even nicer would be if YouTube could figure out a way to auto-correct volume. It's really irritating to switch from one video to another, and either not be able to hear the new one, or have your ears blasted out.

I added some inline audio amps (external speakers) to the computers at work. The production people like to listen to music and stuff on the computer. It does add another wall wart to the power strip.

George H. (

There may be something in the GUI of the video rendering SW that sets up levels each time the program is opened. Restarting the program may reset this if all levels aren't set to their highest limits, at that time. It may be a misguided attempt at normalization.

I notice this specifically with VLC. After setting all levels in W7 'volume mixer' to medium, restarting the VLC program allows subsequent volume increases.

RL

My TV is good on the gain and it goes to external powered monitors so that's fine. What can be bad sometimes on cable networks is that they turn down the program audio levels and then some commercials are raised 10 dB or more so they're in your ear. For this as well as gain increase you could add an external compressor and/or AGC with gain adjust.

On my laptops of late, they use these awful sound cards that can not raise the gain and thoe low level sources are way too low of volume !

I agree that Youtube should offer audio level maximization.

It's always the video that gets the attention it seems.

boB

One place to check for too low volume is your equalizer. I have HD VDeck on my system. The equalizers may be centered around 50%. Move the whole pattern up.

It might depend on the hardware Some of the alsa drivers don't seem to supply all of the mixer controls for a specific chip. Or maybe they're missing a hi bit from a word or something.. with the "VIA 8237 with CMI9761A+" on the board here, there's notably higher volume to have had on an ancient Windows installation.

(maybe I should try to find a ancient SB compatible card or something.. y'know... stereo, 8 bit)

I have already checked every place possible. The equalizer is not by default in the signal path. It can be added using a Dolby tab in the playback device properties dialog box. This particular feature works rather erratically. I can maximize the equalizer settings. There is also settings for a volume leveler and a voice enhancer. I've tried all of these but sometimes they work for some apps. Mostly they boost the sounds I don't want to hear and seldom help the video I am trying to hear. I watch Netflix and Hulu.

The Dolby settings are currently working to boost a YouTube live presentation (which isn't needed as the volume is already very loud and the volume control is in the bottom 10%). But I can't seem to rely on it.

My 21st century workshop audio solution:

One of these Nyrius Bluetooth stereo audio adapters:

Then the stereo output into a pair of Alesis Elevate 3 monitors I got on a Christmas sale a few years ago for $49:

And the 1/8" subwoofer out from the speakers into a used powered sub.

Sounds great, play any song I want from my iPod wirelessly for under $100

Why do they do that, use wallwarts for pc speakers? With a differential input one can simply use the PC's power.

NT

Power from the speaker jack??

This is our own audio amp. (It does DC.. two LM675's one splits the power rail. It's kinda a dumb circuit, copied from app notes, but we've sold a lot (~500.. which is a lot for us, and no complaints! :^) I guess everyone uses wall warts for the same reason. Cheap, certified, protected... I like Phihong,

George H.

I find it hard to send much power over Bluetooth. :)

YouTube, Netflix, and others have been auto-adjusting the video resolution and data rate to match the users connection capabilities since they were founded. One would think that a simple thing like normalizing the audio would trivial. You're right. They should normalize the audio, but don't.

Of course, everything that goes wrong requires a corresponding conspiracy theory. In this case, broadcast, cable, and satellite TV stations have always processed, compressed, and reduced the volume of their content, while boosting the volume of their advertisements to a higher volume. YouTube does have commercials, which do tend to be louder than the entertainment, errr... information videos, but not as much as with TV. My guess(tm) is that Google is waiting until YouTube commercials are accepted (or tolerated) by their audience, before following the broadcasters lead and raising the volume on commercials.

Meanwhile, if you watch YouTube on a computah (instead of a player like my Roku 3), you can use Normalizing Software such as: etc... Note that some of these only work on locally saved files and not on streaming.

Win 7 and up have a built in "Loudness Equalization" feature which sometimes works. It's under: Sound -> Playback -> Speaker -> Speaker Properties -> Enhancements More:

I sometimes use VLC for the purpose: but not so much for normalizing audio, but rather as a player to deal with lip sync problems, mostly on YouTube.

I'm thinking of building a box to mute the speakers if the sound jumps more than a preset level. That will kill all of the loud commercials, and badly made videos. It will be part of a small stereo mixer for all the various computers & TV in my room.

I had a conversation with my local PBS station about this once. I was getting them over the air using a digital to analog TV converter. This set up worked ok until a show came on that had a rather low volume level. I couldn't get the sound loud enough to hear easily.

So I called the station and ended up talking to an "engineer". The conversation basically went from "The sound levels are set according to our VU meters" to "If the program originators wanted the sound level low, we aren't going to mess with it". I asked if he thought the program "originators" didn't want me to be able to hear the program?

It was obvious that there was a problem somewhere in the volume setting. Even if the problem wasn't in the station, would it have been morally wrong to adjust it to be view-able?

I would think that a mute circuit would be more annoying than just a compressor that turns the sound down to keep it leveled ?

A mute circuit would be a bit easier though. There are some decent VCAs and log amps that make this pretty easy stuff to design but I think I'd just buy a cheap stereo compressor with mono'd side chains to reduce volume of left and right channels equally. IF I didn't happen to have a couple laying around but most of mine are 19 inch rack mount so not as nice for a television system.

Oh, maybe one of those new-fangled rPi or single board computers with decent audio I/O might be right for the job.

boB

A PC's 12V rail is pretty messy, and is not directly regulated. with cheap amplifiers you get screeches, warbles, and twitters depending on what the disk and CPU and video are doing, still some brands provide a DC out jack on the back to power the audio system.

Yes, it is morally wrong. The problem is that between the original content producer, and the station transmitters, are a long chain of audio and video processors, any of which can turn the audio or video to garbage. The person you talked to was probably nowhere near the transmitter, could not hear or see the resultant audio/video, and was running things by remote control via computah over an STL (station to transmitter link) link or over the internet. The PBS content was likely being simultaneously distributed by multiple transmitters and CATV (cable TV) feeds, few of which are monitored directly. Much time and engineering was spent getting the picture and audio levels and delays just right via all these feeds. Making on the fly changes for a single complaining caller is a great way to break the chain and possibly oneself get fired. Little wonder the station engineer was not interested in fixing your problem.

Stations and networks do respond to caller complaints. However, they wait until there's a deluge of calls and emails confirming that there really is a problem. When all the phones light up at once, you know it's for real. Single calls are usually ignored and are usually an equipment or operational failure at the owners end.

I realize that this doesn't help solve your problem, but might help you understand the situation.