In Windows 7 Control Panel - Sound - Sound Properties window there's an slider for setting CD Audio volume: And it's pretty strange that I can't find corresponding one in generic Linux mixers: alsamixer or amixer. I connected a CD drive to try to set CD audio volume with cdcd (CD Player): $ cdcd setvol 0 Invalid volume It isn't actually an invalid volume, it is because ioctl() call fails. I found that out after searching and changing a bit the source code of this utility (in the libcdaudio): --- cdaudio.c.orig 2004-09-09 06:26:20.000000000 +0600 +++ cdaudio.c 2012-05-30 21:34:34.167915521 +0600 @@ -578,8 +578,10 @@ cdvol_data.CDVOLCTRL_BACK_RIGHT_SELECT = CDAUDIO_MAX_VOLUME; #endif - if(ioctl(cd_desc, CDAUDIO_SET_VOLUME, &cdvol) < 0) - return -1; + if(ioctl(cd_desc, CDAUDIO_SET_VOLUME, &cdvol) < 0) { + printf("*** cd_set_volume: ioctl() returned error\n"); + return -1; + } return 0; } By the way cdcd's get volume command yields rather weird output: Left Right Front 1281734864 32767 Back 0 0 Also I tried aumix: $ aumix -c 0 But all with no success. I read from this manual — http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Alsa-sound-6.html (section 6.2 The mixer) that CD channel can present in amixer output. Maybe some drivers for sound card are missing in my Ubuntu 12.04 LTS installation. Though I don't think it's the case: $ lsmod | grep snd snd_mixer_oss 22602 0 snd_hda_codec_hdmi 32474 1 snd_hda_codec_realtek 223867 1 snd_hda_intel 33773 4 snd_hda_codec 127706 3 snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hda_codec_realtek,snd_hda_intel snd_hwdep 13668 1 snd_hda_codec snd_pcm 97188 3 snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec snd_seq_midi 13324 0 snd_rawmidi 30748 1 snd_seq_midi snd_seq_midi_event 14899 1 snd_seq_midi snd_seq 61896 2 snd_seq_midi,snd_seq_midi_event snd_timer 29990 2 snd_pcm,snd_seq snd_seq_device 14540 3 snd_seq_midi,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq snd 78855 19 snd_mixer_oss,snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hda_codec_realtek,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec,snd_hwdep ,snd_pcm,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq,snd_timer,snd_seq_device soundcore 15091 1 snd snd_page_alloc 18529 2 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm All I need is just mute or set to 0 volume level of CD Audio channel, like I did in Windows 7, to get rid of sibilant noise in the speakers.