It's really quiet.

Well, not overly quiet.
Here's a little background:
Once upon a time, I had a set of Sony Studio Monitor Series DJ Headphones with my little Windows XP military computer. The headphones could shake an entire room when blasting a little hard trance, even at half volume. At full volume, well.. I don't even want to think about it.

Then, it happened! I built another computer, this time with Windows Vista. The headphones were very quiet. Still pretty loud in comparison to crappy headphones. The ones I had were at 24 FREAKIN' OHMS. They should NOT have been that quiet. So, I looked at the OS. I realized it was capped as it was NOT a hardware problem. I went through all of the different options for adjusting the hardware, and nothing helped.

Then I built ANOTHER computer, with Windows Vista Ultimate 64bit. I used those same headphones, nothing changed. I didn't expect it to. Recently, those headphones had a little bit of a physical predicament and I had to get a new pair - this time the Sony MDR-V600's. These run at 45 ohms. It's loud as hell on my dad's old XP laptop, and quiet in Vista. Once again, I looked through and analyzed any hardware issue there could be. Couldn't find one. These are brand new.

So tell me, is there any way to recode the part of the OS that caps how many ohms can be put out? I'd really appreciate it, considering I do a lot of DJing and this low volume just isn't working.

If you use Realtek sound driver there is a setting in sound effects called Loudness equalization
this seems to up the volume across the whole range.

Zaokii said:

Well, not overly quiet.
Here's a little background:
Once upon a time, I had a set of Sony Studio Monitor Series DJ Headphones with my little Windows XP military computer. The headphones could shake an entire room when blasting a little hard trance, even at half volume. At full volume, well.. I don't even want to think about it.

Then, it happened! I built another computer, this time with Windows Vista. The headphones were very quiet. Still pretty loud in comparison to crappy headphones. The ones I had were at 24 FREAKIN' OHMS. They should NOT have been that quiet. So, I looked at the OS. I realized it was capped as it was NOT a hardware problem. I went through all of the different options for adjusting the hardware, and nothing helped.

Then I built ANOTHER computer, with Windows Vista Ultimate 64bit. I used those same headphones, nothing changed. I didn't expect it to. Recently, those headphones had a little bit of a physical predicament and I had to get a new pair - this time the Sony MDR-V600's. These run at 45 ohms. It's loud as hell on my dad's old XP laptop, and quiet in Vista. Once again, I looked through and analyzed any hardware issue there could be. Couldn't find one. These are brand new.

So tell me, is there any way to recode the part of the OS that caps how many ohms can be put out? I'd really appreciate it, considering I do a lot of DJing and this low volume just isn't working.

Click to expand...

Hi Zaokii,

I am going to make one suggestion, and recap the hardware theory of power transfer.

The unit of measure for A.C. resistance is the Ohm. (Named after Simon Ohm).

With the above in mind A.C. "ohms" is termed reactance(s), while D.C. resistance is termed in Ohms...

For maximum power of transfer between devices whether active circuits or passive, the impedances must match..This can be done several ways at a semi-engineering level. consumers rarely need to worry about these details....OTOH, I
will state, all audio amplifier circuits are designed for a specific reactance, or range of reactances.....

This is usually accomplished by an I.C. called an operation amplifier or a common collector BJT configuration..(again, the average consumer does not need to know this tidbit of electronic theory.) just saying...

Now I am going to make a general statment. With audio or A.C. the voltage and current amplitudes and phases are always "shifting" around a centre ideal reactance or "resistance".... So we compromise.. We set by agreement, what the resistance (reactances) of speakers shall be.... 4 ohms, 8 ohms, and 16 ohms are common.

Bottom line is this....make sure the Ohms of the speakers are of manufactures specifications. Also, the quality of the connector, lenght and quality of the conductor, the wires, are of good quality too.

I would make sure all drivers are up to date, and go into the control panel and nose around the audio settings again, real good like...


When you said "capped" did you mean turned up all the way?...Out here on tha' ranch we cap prairie dogs not volume levels....

Lastly, what I have just suggested is hardware related only and by no means software jargon....

Regards,
Sully and Trigger