Regarding low levels with some 24/96 cards: The inputs are lowered to 8.3% to account for 12 (or so) channels so that clipping won't occur, I presume. So if you have a 2-channel 24/96 card, your inputs are way too low when using ICE1712, for example. (This is true for arecord, not qarecord.) If you do arecord with verbose output (-v), you will see exactly what the reduction is. I should mention that this is with analog --- I would expect the same with SPDIF. Transformation table: 0 <- 0*0.0833333 + 1*0.0833333 + 2*0.0833333 + 3*0.0833333 + 4*0.0833333 + 5*0.0833333 + 6*0.0833333 + 7*0.0833333 + 8*0.0833333 + 9*0.0833333 + 10*0.0833333 + 11*0.0833333 I would be interested in how to alter the routing myself, if anyone has the information. I looked at some of the configuration files but could not immediately see how to do this. I would like NO reduction on inputs. It appears to have something to do with ttable routing and gain factors. Using qarecord, this problem doesn't exist. I looked at the code, but again couldn't find where the input levels were maintained versus arecord where they are lowered. Thanks to anyone for information on how to do this. I'm sure there are a number of folks out there who have cranked up their volumes, only to clip on the card, then lower them again, only to throw away perfectly good signal. But many of them may not realize that this is totally unnecessary.