>>I don't know for sure - but perhaps OpenAL is keeping some volume
>>"in reserve" for when multiple sounds are playing together.
>>
>>Also, aren't OpenAL's sounds range-attenuated? Can you move your
>>virtual 'ear' closer to the sound source?
>
>They are, but IIRC the exact attenuation behaviour can be defined for
>each source. I'm not *that* sure now, but this sure is in the specs.
>
I have not changed the attenuation behaviour from the default, and I've
put the listener at the same position as the source so that can't be the
problem...
Try a little offset between listener and source. Maybe there is a bug
here. Some time ago a post appeared on the OpenAL mailing list
complaining about that the sound was not hearable at all if source and
listener were at the same position. However, this post had no
information about the used implementation in it and didn't have any
valueable follow-ups. Possibly you are experiencing the same bug here or
setting the output listener gain to 1.0 doesn't have the desired effect
of turing the volume up to maximum (assuming that this stage left to the
hardware mixer you can double-check it with a simple audio mixer
application).