I would like to raise a really small problem of frontend messaging, namely the sounds. This problem can be divided into:

1. the quality: sampling rate of .wav files is 11 kHz (except “disaster” level – 22 kHz) and quantization is 8 bits; those are poor numbers for sounds and makes the lack of quality audible for human ear – it should be at least 40 kHz (see below for Nyquist theorem) & 16 bits for quantization
2. I personally feel the lack of “commonality” in the sounds: it seems like they are taken from different sources; sounds have different loudness levels
3. although the effect is growing together with the severity level (“disaster” is more scary than “information”), it doesn’t feel fully consistent – I’m not sure which is scary more – “average” or “high”; “information” level sound is a bit too scary for “information”

According to the Nyquist theorem (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyquist%E2%80%93Shannon_sampling_theorem) you can hear up to twice as small frequency as your sampling rate is. Keeping in mind that humans can hear between 20 Hz – 20 kHz, the sampling rate for digital sounds should be no less than 40 kHz to hear the full range. The established standard of 44.1 kHz will be used & 24 bit quantization

In music production, there is this process called “mastering”; it is applied to every music album. You, as a listener, should never have to tune volume up or down while listening to one album, unless you like some specific song more than others That’s what mastering process is responsible for – it makes all songs sound equally to one another, in terms of loudness and in scope of single album. Exactly same approach should be – but is not – applied here in Zabbix: different sounds are provided in different loudness.

Being all that said, my proposal is based on:

1. not going too far from the original sounds, but improve them to give more quality
2. grow properly in effect together with severity level
3. provide sounds in higher than original quality in terms of sampling / quantization
4. provide sounds properly mastered
5. provide all sounds to be looping-friendly (referring to “Play sound <> Once”)
6. introduce the “hidden” and “increasing-as-severity-increases” low-end (bass) component; this should at the very end (“disaster”) not exceed -5 dB peak (common good practice for bass lines); why not use full spectrum if you can?

So I recomposed the sounds by following the mentioned guidelines. The attached sounds might not necessarily be taken as an object of change, more as an example of how it could be.

zabbix_sounds.zip