Hacker News Reader

Comment by colanderman | Hacker News Reader

Don't forget, is it linear or logarithmic? It baffles me that it's 2017 and people who implement volume sliders never even consider that the obvious choice might not be the best...

View on HN

Well logarithmic doesn't make sense, because it never gets to zero. However something like p^0.42 (sound pressure with an exponent<1) works well because it is similar to the perceived sound level. An interesting connection is that the power function "becomes" a logarithm as the exponent goes to zero.

Log/lin depends on your target market a lot I think. I don't know, but I imagine, audio engineers and the like would be expecting a logarithmic scale for their volume knobs.

I make guitar pedals sometimes, I've never seen a volume knob not be a logarithmic potentiometer.

> An interesting connection is that the power function "becomes" a logarithm as the exponent goes to zero.

Logarithms are infinitesimal exponentials -- x log x grows faster than x but slower than x^{1+ε} for any real positive ε.

They make an interesting counterpoint to the philosophy that infinitesimal quantities can't exist in "real" mathematics.

I don't know if it's a bug with Windows or my headset, but my headset actually does make sound at 0 on windows. I get an extra button press on my headset volume controls or my keyboard volume controls to actually mute it.

I get the same thing. I'm not near my headset right now to check, but what is your model?

Corsair Vengeance 1500

Ah yes - log/lin is one that I forgot to mention in my original list. It is a HUGE factor.

Too low, too low, too low, ears bleeding. Thanks, PulseAudio for teaching me the difference between log and lin

Reply on news.ycombinator.com