[Ashera]

I've noticed this about the two "nice" headphones I've tried (PortaPros and PX 200)... They're really loud. I have to turn my laptop's volume down to absolutely ridiculous levels before I get to a comfortable volume.

http://ashlykos.virtualave.net/volumecontrols.jpg
(I hadn't adjusted the "CD Audio" yet when I took that shot.)

Is there a good way around this? My laptop's soundcard doesn't have a separate volume control - the buttons on the case directly manipulate the Windows volume settings. Do headphone amps let you un-amplify signals? It seems like I need less power, not more...

And as a side note... Any good way to prevent a headphone cord from being yanked out when I accidentally walk away with the headphones on?

(I'm not sure what category this post goes in.)

 

[kelly]

Ashera

Those headphones are sensitive so that they're easy to drive from battery powered portables.

What you might keep in mind is that most PC applications have a volume control that is separate from the master volume control of Windows itself.

Go to Settings > Control Panel > Sounds and Multimedia. Under the first tab, you'll see Sound Volume with a slider down at the bottom. Adjust this down quite a bit. Click OK and you should now have a little more room to play with in programs like Winamp.

If you do a lot of getting up just to reach for a pencil or something, you might consider just getting a headphone extention cable to fix your other problem. Since, as I said, these phones are kind of intended for portable use they don't include very long cables.

 

[stereth]

I have the same problem. Yes, an amp helps, if you have a good volume control. A lot of the cheap pots tend to have one channel fade out before the other at low volumes.

kelly, that slider bar is the same one as the system tray volume adjustment that Ashera posted.

My D-2 Discman was too loud, even on MIN, for my Portapros and V6s. I built a 10dB L-pad attenuator using a simple stereo plug and a tiny jack I had lying around. The same thing might help. Or you can buy an external volume control: Radio Shack sells one for $6, Koss has one for $20, and Sennheiser has a dual-volume control for $30, I believe.

 

[kelly]

Quote:

Originally posted by stereth kelly, that slider bar is the same one as the system tray volume adjustment that Ashera posted.

There are two ways a program can control volume in windows. One is to adjust the master volume. In programs that do this, adjusting the volume in that app. adjusts the master volume and doesn't provide you any additional granularity.

The other way is to overlay a volume control on top of the master volume. In these apps., the master volume remains untouched when you adjust volume within the application. This is what I'm suggesting. I believe Winamp does this, but I don't have Winamp installed here to verify.