Audio almost silent on one user account but OK on another

Question

In some user accounts, audio is OK. In others, it silent, or else barely audible if you put your ear to the laptop case.

Here is what the volume control looks like in the OK accounts.

In the not-OK accounts.

Diagnostics:

1. Both OK and not-OK conditions occur in Adminstrator accounts. Also, the "guest" account actually has OK audio.
2. Fiddling with settings PulseAudio or AlsaMixer does not solve the problem.
3. lspci output identical in both cases. Attached below.

Using Xubuntu 14.04. Occurs if whether I choose Xfce or Xubuntu at login.

lspci

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200 v3/4th Gen Core Processor DRAM Controller (rev 06)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200 v3/4th Gen Core Processor PCI Express x16 Controller (rev 06)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 4th Gen Core Processor Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 06)
00:03.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200 v3/4th Gen Core Processor HD Audio Controller (rev 06)
00:14.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 8 Series/C220 Series Chipset Family USB xHCI (rev 05)
00:16.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation 8 Series/C220 Series Chipset Family MEI Controller #1 (rev 04)
00:1a.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 8 Series/C220 Series Chipset Family USB EHCI #2 (rev 05)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 8 Series/C220 Series Chipset High Definition Audio Controller (rev 05)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 8 Series/C220 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port #1 (rev d5)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 8 Series/C220 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port #2 (rev d5)
00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 8 Series/C220 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port #3 (rev d5)
00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 8 Series/C220 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port #4 (rev d5)
00:1d.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 8 Series/C220 Series Chipset Family USB EHCI #1 (rev 05)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation HM86 Express LPC Controller (rev 05)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 8 Series/C220 Series Chipset Family 6-port SATA Controller 1 [AHCI mode] (rev 05)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 8 Series/C220 Series Chipset Family SMBus Controller (rev 05)
01:00.0 3D controller: NVIDIA Corporation GK107M [GeForce GT 750M] (rev a1)
04:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation Wireless 7260 (rev 73)
05:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 0c)

Answer 1

Possibly, you could just delete the $HOME/.pulse/ folder and $HOME/.pulse-cookie files.

I did not test that, but this worked for me: Copy (with sudo) the $HOME/.pulse/ folder and $HOME/.pulse-cookie files from $USER_A to $USER_B, chowning them to $USER_B.

See this item.