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Help Headphones volume too high

L

Lmkt

Member
Hello there.
First of all, hi, I'm Nick and this is my first post ever :D, I'm glad I registered on these forums which seem very, very useful.

I have a simple question. I use in-ear headphones which usually perform at very high volume. That is to say, I have to put the volume very low on the phone for an optimal use.

However, my HTC Desire, even at the lowest possible volume, is still too loud for my fragile ears. Is there any way to fix this and change volume settings?

Cheers.
 
You can independently set the ringer and media volume - if you go into settings -> sound and display, make sure the media one is set to your preference (a couple of times I've thought I was changing one but actually changed the other as it seemed to "lose focus"). If it's still too loud, maybe it's some software issue causing it to jam at a higher setting, maybe try adjusting the volume with and without the headphones connected and verify that it is actually changing.

I know my headphones at the loudest volume with the phone at the quietest volume are just about okay, any higher and it hurts my ears too, usually I have my headphones about halfway and my media volume on notch 2 and that's about right for my tastes, but I listen to it in the office so need to hear if someone is shouting for my attention :)
 
Yes, my hearing is pretty sensitive indeed. Probably comes from being a musician since I was 5, idk.

delinear said:
You can independently set the ringer and media volume - if you go into settings -> sound and display, make sure the media one is set to your preference (a couple of times I've thought I was changing one but actually changed the other as it seemed to "lose focus"). If it's still too loud, maybe it's some software issue causing it to jam at a higher setting, maybe try adjusting the volume with and without the headphones connected and verify that it is actually changing.

I know my headphones at the loudest volume with the phone at the quietest volume are just about okay, any higher and it hurts my ears too, usually I have my headphones about halfway and my media volume on notch 2 and that's about right for my tastes, but I listen to it in the office so need to hear if someone is shouting for my attention :)
Click to expand...
Don't worry, it's the "media" volume I'm talking about, I have no problem setting up the media and ringer volume. The problem is that even with the "media" volume at the quietest possible, it's still too loud when I'm in a silent environment (at home or at work). Was wondering if there's an app to change volume settings, or maybe a config file to edit or w/e.
The way I see it, when you set the volume with the 2 volume buttons it just goes 100% -> 90 -> 80 -> 70 -> etc. Could be nice to be able to set it up more precisely. 10% is too loud, 0% is obviously too low so I'd need 4-5% I guess?

BTW I use in-ear headphones and afaik they have a default volume higher than most other headphones, which could explain why it's still too loud even at the quietest setting. Oh, and they have no volume button like you can find on the iPhone headphones.


I tried my best to make things clearer, sorry if my question is still confusing :(
 
The easiest solution would be to buy yourself a pair of earphones with a volume dial on the wire. You could probably find a cheap pair anywhere.
 
Failing that you could find a noise equalising program for your pc/mac and then reduce the level of all your mp3's to the same level just quieter.

There are free ones but I can't remember the one I used a year or two back.
 
PJD said:
Bloody hell people moaning the volume is to low now its too high
Click to expand...

It really depends on the headphones it seems, mine are normal or even a little loud at the lowest possible setting; too loud for most stuff on the 2nd, and the highest almost makes my ear plugs into a portable stereo.
 
Panama said:
Failing that you could find a noise equalising program for your pc/mac and then reduce the level of all your mp3's to the same level just quieter.

There are free ones but I can't remember the one I used a year or two back.
Click to expand...
All the "volume manager" apps I downloaded only allowed me to configure the different volumes (media, ringtones, etc.)
None of them allowed me to set the media volume more precisely than the default volume buttons (which have 15 different settings) :(
 
Lmkt, just want to let you know that you're not alone. I'm listening to a Pandora station right now with my sprint htc hero's media volume set to the lowest setting and it is just too loud.
Any devs out there who know what system settings we can tweak to adjust the sound output? Surely there's got to be a way around this instead of just wearing our sensitive ears down...
 
Hello,

Any solution to this issue yet? I also own a Desire and the headphones volume is way too high. I am using the standard headphones and do not want to purchase a new set. In the office I use the lowest media volume setting, which is not low enough. I hope anyone makes a good app for this.

Regards,
Roy
 
royw said:
Hello,

Any solution to this issue yet? I also own a Desire and the headphones volume is way too high. I am using the standard headphones and do not want to purchase a new set. In the office I use the lowest media volume setting, which is not low enough. I hope anyone makes a good app for this.

Regards,
Roy
Click to expand...
Welcome to the forum! :D

Also, +1. I have the exact same issue; I'd love to use 5% volume or thereabouts.

I don't have a single song on my phone, but I listen to a lot of Last.fm and the radio using the stock headphones (the ones with the nifty mic and buttons (incidentally, I found that the HTC Desire does not recognize the mic of the Samsung Galaxy headphones, so much for standards I guess :()).
 
I'm pretty sure the problem is the same as for the volume control on Windows -- the adjustment is linear, but audio is perceived logarithmically. ...or maybe it's the other way around! :p Larry Osterman does a much better job of explaining it:


The gist of it are these two images, where you can see that the adjustment from 80% to 90% seems to yield a much smaller volume increase than the adjustment from 10% to 20%. To compensate, the blue line should be much more J-shaped in order for the volume control to be perceived as linear.
volume_log.gif
volume_curves.gif


The solution, for Microsoft Windows, is to use this page to generate a custom value for the system registry that defines how the volume slider works (ahh, that's nice).
We "just" need a similar hack for the Android OS; surely this can be done, at least for rooted phones it should be no more magical than the Samsung Galaxy battery indicator fix -- once we know what file to hack, and what to do to it.

Edit: It seems there is a volume control lookup table somewhere in the Android source code, but I haven't dug deeper to see if this is the one used by the audio volume control settings (this one may be only for the FM radio tuner).
 
Like others who posted here, the lowest setting on my Sprint Hero is too loud. An app or a hack would really be appreciated!
 
Similar to others who have posted here, the volume on my Sprint Hero is too high even on the lowest setting when using high quality in-ear buds that have no independent volume control. A hack or app would be appreciated!
 
Hi,

Just got an update for my music player (mixzing), which now has an eqaulizer with a gain button: problem solved. Yes!

Regards,
Roy
 
thanks royw

i had the same problem too. the issue isnt the headphones (i use Shure sound isolating earphones which r the best of the best) or the mp3s, it's the phone. it should have better volume controls. a better solution would be an app to fix this (or even a firmware upgrade)
 
Funny, I thought the headphones volume isn't loud enough on this phone. When listening to last.fm I have to crank it to full blast, my Moto can play at the same volume at below halfway.
 
Same problem on my galaxy s. Even at the lowest sering the audio is too loud and especially at nifjt. The screen is also too bright in the dark! And the gps is as accurate as a sober darts player!

I still love my galaxy!
 
I have this problem on my htc wildfire. May try a bluetooth with volume
control. Basically for actual calling Nokia are still ahead of the game.
 
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