GooseGrease
New Head-Fier
- Joined
- Mar 3, 2012
- Posts
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Hello there. I know next to nothing about audio equipment and I have a question.
Whenever I use earbuds (eg ipod's) on my laptop, I have to set the volume very very low (1~5%) to get comfortable level of loudness out of them. Anything higher would probably rupture my eardrums. It's not just the current laptop either - all my previous laptops (and desktops, even) had the same problem. I tried other earbuds as well, including high quality ones from etymotic and they're still too loud. Furthermore, at such low volume, static hiss in the background is very apparent. I figured "well, tis life" and dealt with it, but now I'm increasingly curious to know what exactly is going on.
Clearly, the laptop headphone jacks aren't designed for these earbuds, but then what are they designed for? iPod and other portable media players work just fine with my earbuds, despite the fact that they use the exact same 3.5mm jacks. Aren't there some sort of standardization committee that decides how loud 3.5mm audio jacks should sound? why are there such wide variations?
I've googled this to the best of my abilities but I can't find the answer. I think the part of the problem is that I don't know what to search for. I know there are very smart and knowledgeable people here, so I figure it's the perfect place to ask.
Please forgive me if my question was too dumb(or irrelevant) for a science forum.
Whenever I use earbuds (eg ipod's) on my laptop, I have to set the volume very very low (1~5%) to get comfortable level of loudness out of them. Anything higher would probably rupture my eardrums. It's not just the current laptop either - all my previous laptops (and desktops, even) had the same problem. I tried other earbuds as well, including high quality ones from etymotic and they're still too loud. Furthermore, at such low volume, static hiss in the background is very apparent. I figured "well, tis life" and dealt with it, but now I'm increasingly curious to know what exactly is going on.
Clearly, the laptop headphone jacks aren't designed for these earbuds, but then what are they designed for? iPod and other portable media players work just fine with my earbuds, despite the fact that they use the exact same 3.5mm jacks. Aren't there some sort of standardization committee that decides how loud 3.5mm audio jacks should sound? why are there such wide variations?
I've googled this to the best of my abilities but I can't find the answer. I think the part of the problem is that I don't know what to search for. I know there are very smart and knowledgeable people here, so I figure it's the perfect place to ask.
Please forgive me if my question was too dumb(or irrelevant) for a science forum.