[zvan92]

I'm sort of new to the audiophile world, and I was just wondering if there's a way to completely eliminate playback gain in Windows audio, because I notice a distinct loss of clarity in audio playback when increasing my system volume every time I bring it up a notch. I'm not sure if there's a term out there for this or anything, but I feel like i get closer to the "sweet spot" for optimal quality the more I lower the system volume during playback. I have a feeling this is what a headphone amplifier would fix? 

 
EDIT: And is this basically the difference between analog and digital playback?

 

[Trance88]

Maybe you could try keeping your system's volume output at 50%.