Increase sound more than 100 in Ubuntu? [SOLVED]

VLC and some media players allow you to increase the volume up to 200%. In the operating system, it is possible to increase the volume as the system allows. The popular Linux distribution Ubuntu allows the system to increase the volume by more than 100%. Users can take advantage of this opportunity by changing the sound settings.

In this article, we will talk about "How to increase the volume above 100 in Ubuntu".

 

How to increase sound more than 100?

As you know, anything desired to be done in Linux distributions can be done both via GUI and CLI. In the following steps, you can see how you can make the sound more than 100% from both interfaces.

 

Method-1: Increase Volume from GUI

Open Settings from the application menu and go to the Sound tab. Then enable the “Over Amplification” switch.

 

The moment you enable you should see the volume bar is expanded.

 

You can now increase the audio volume by more than 100:

 

Method-2: Increase Volume from CLI ( Using With Pactl )

First, list the devices on the system with the pactl command:

foc@ubuntu22desktop:~$ pactl list | grep 'Sink'
Sink #0
	Monitor of Sink: alsa_output.pci-0000_00_1b.0.analog-stereo
	Monitor of Sink: n/a

There may be more than one audio device (Onboard sound card, external devices, etc.) in the system. Select the device you want to increase volume and type the command as follows:

foc@ubuntu22desktop:~$ pactl set-sink-volume 0 150%

When you send the get command to the same device, you can see that the value increases to 150:

foc@ubuntu22desktop:~$ pactl get-sink-volume 0
Volume: front-left: 98304 / 150% / 10,57 dB,   front-right: 98304 / 150% / 10,57 dB
        balance 0,00

To return the volume to 100%:

foc@ubuntu22desktop:~$ pactl set-sink-volume 0 100%

Send the get command again:

foc@ubuntu22desktop:~$ pactl get-sink-volume 0
Volume: front-left: 65536 / 100% / 0,00 dB,   front-right: 65536 / 100% / 0,00 dB
        balance 0,00

You can see that the volume is 100%.

 

Other Method: Using With Pavucontrol

You can use pavucontrol to increase the volume. If it is not installed, run the following command to install it:

foc@ubuntu22desktop:~$ sudo apt install pavucontrol -y

After installation, open the application by typing pavucontrol either from the applications menu or from the terminal:

 

Activate editing by clicking on the icon    . Then increase the volume as the system allows:

 

Make permanent changes for custom Volume Level

If you are having problems with sound increase, you can make this work permanent with the following steps.

Open /etc/profile with root user or sudo privileges:

foc@ubuntu22desktop:~$ sudo nano /etc/profile

Save and exit by typing the following command:

pactl -- set-sink-volume 0 150%

Then reboot the system:

foc@ubuntu22desktop:~$ sudo reboot

You can see the volume increase:

foc@ubuntu22desktop:~$ pactl get-sink-volume 0
Volume: front-left: 98304 / 150% / 10,57 dB,   front-right: 98304 / 150% / 10,57 dB
        balance 0,00

 

Summary

We showed multiple options for Volume Increase. You can get help with the -h parameter of the pactl application:

foc@ubuntu22desktop:~$ pactl -h
pactl [options] stat
pactl [options] info
pactl [options] list [short] [TYPE]
...

Or you can visit the pactl's manual page.

 

References

askubuntu.com - How can I reach over 100% volume with a keyboard shortcut?
superuser.com - Can I increase the sound volume above 100% in Linux?