Amplitudes when using float dtypes about python-sounddevice HOT 4 OPEN

In most cases I have seen it was indeed limited to +-1, but I heard once from a MacBook user that higher amplitudes were possible without distortion.

I don't know any hard facts about that, but a wild guess would be that there are some combinations of OS/driver/hardware that allow a certain "headroom" (in the case of +-2, this would be 6dB).

What OS/driver/hardware are you using?
Did you try at which amplitude the signal is actually clipped?

The sounddevice module just passes the data on to the PortAudio library, so you might find a proper answer there ...

from python-sounddevice.

@maxnoe Did this answer your question? Do you have any new observations to share?

from python-sounddevice.

The explanation seems to fit, but I dd not do any deeper going studies.

from python-sounddevice.

@maxnoe Probably a silly question, but did you have the output volume at the maximum in the system preferences?

It seems that on Mac OS X you can have absolute values bigger than 1.0 if your system volume is lowered. However, I don't know what happens if the system volume is at the maximum.

I also tried this with ALSA/Linux, and there the signal starts clipping immediately outside of +-1.0, even if the ALSA mixer volume is way down.

from python-sounddevice.