I'm not sure if other browsers or programs have this issue, but I've noticed it while using Firefox, on YouTube or Pandora. When a new video/track begins, the output audio of the browser (not the main volume) becomes lower. My guess is something trying to optimize sound quality, but when I'm making a bunch of noise, I need volume over quality. Pictured is my audio window showing the new Firefox audio being lower than it was before.
Ubuntu – How to stop Firefox from dropping volume on new media
alsafirefoxpulseaudiosound
Best Answer
In case someone comes across this question (as did I), there is an answer here: Inconsistent Sound Volume Ubuntu 20.04
Basically, you need to change
flat-volumes = no
toflat-volumes = yes
. The values "true", "1" and "on" are equivalent to "yes", according to the manpage (https://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/focal/man5/pulse-daemon.conf.5.html):Don't forged to uncomment the respective line by removing the ";" or "#":
The configuration file is:
/etc/pulse/daemon.conf
Other possible locations are:
~/.config/pulse/daemon.conf
,~/.config/pulse/daemon.conf.d/*.conf
and/etc/pulse/daemon.conf.d/*.conf
:According to the aforementioned post, rebooting is necessary for the change to take effect.
About the configuration option:
EDIT: I tested the solution myself and it worked (Ubuntu 20.04).