How do you make headphone volume louder?

[The Pentium Guy]

I have a good sennheiser headphone setup on my T61. The volume can go pretty loud when I listen to MP3's and such, but certain videos on youtube tend to be pretty soft. Is there any way to amplify that volume using some software?

-TPG

 

[Dman877]

Nope. The volume control for your sound card will max out the amp. You'll need a headphone amp or some more sensitive headphones.

 

[oynaz]

Try hearing an mp3 at max using your headphones. Load it in Audacity, and apply a 400% volume increase. (I think it is called amplify). Louder, yes?

That tells me it should be possible, however I do not know of a program which can do it. Perhaps there is a normalization option in your sound card driver? There is something like it in the old Sound Blaster Live drivers.

 

[The Pentium Guy]

Yeah, that's exactly the kind of thing I'm looking for, except for any audio coming out of my card. I guess it's not possible without a special driver.

 

[oynaz]

See if you can find compression or normalization plugins for your driver. It is a quite simple operation, so it should be possible.

 

[frostedflakes]

Windows Vista supports per-application volume control, and for XP there's IndieVolume. Unfortunately, I do not believe these program support amplification, they simply allow you to reduce volume.

You could download download the YouTube videos to your HDD and then play them back in a media player that supports software amplification, but this is far from convenient.

IMO your best bet would be to buy or build a headphone amp. You should be able to get a good one on eBay for $30-50.