You can test this fix by listening to RIPs new freestyle!
OFF BASE INTRO
Well, it finally happened…I got sick enough of Windows 7 being quiet that I decided to research doing something about it. Disclaimer? Always! I am running an ASUS motherboard with Realtek Integrated Audio. There’s also a team of licensed audio gnats in this chassis that uses their saliva to regulate sample depth, so the usefulness of this post may vary depending on the gnats you have in your chassis (that really does sound wrong).
THE ISSUE
You crank the volume on your mixer, and the volume on your un-powered headphones to MAX and notice that you aren’t causing yourself ANY noticeable hearing loss. “Why?” you ask yourself. So, you right click on your sound icon in the system tray and choose “Playback Devices”:
And you notice… “Dang, even though that’s a fairly useless VU Meter, even it shows my max volume is ridiculously quiet!”:
Join the club.
THE FIX
So I searched Google, and found this post (which contains both the things I am about to show you… in there…. suggested by smart people. Hi, smart people!). Two things. Yes (and later I might unwind one of them if it doesn’t work out… I’ll let it down lightly though, so that maybe we can still be friends). Two things, Tangent Mc Tangenterson! First, click on the speakers (unless you are using a USB headset that magically shows up as something else, or you use digital output, or you have a special audio device that is so awesome that you won’t share with the rest of us common folk)… once whatever it is is highlighted, you will see the “Properties” button become enabled. Yes… you know what to do…. click the “Properties” button:
then, click the “Enhancements” tab 
At this point, you will be able to choose Windows 7’s cup size. No! Why did you even go there?!! Gah, can’t take you interwebz trolls anywhere.
You will see a list of things you can check or uncheck. Do whatever you want, really, but to fix THIS problem I scrolled down through the list and checked these two check boxes:
“Loudness Equalization” by itself seemed to give things about a 20% boost. But I craved more…. MORRRRRE I SAY!! So after checking “Equalizer” the “Sound Effect Properties” little box will have a “Setting” drop-down. From there you can pick a bunch of mixes, or to go for a custom boost, you can click the “dot dot dot” button. Yes, I know those are called “umlauts”, OK? What? They’re “ellipsis”? Well aren’t you a smarty pants? It makes me proud to know I didn’t have to explain the difference between umslots and eplipseses to you. So tell me WHY Microsoft used something that stands for “omitted” to define a button that you should click on? Really…I am curious why they did that.
From there you can boost all the frequency ranges to your liking. I did about a “20-30%” boost, as you can tell from the highly scientific sliders which are kinda like playing a fretless bass, only fretless basses are cool, and these sliders are not cool. Going for too much gain will probably cause clipping, but that clipping might get compressed by the “Loudness Equalization” and you might get away with it, without Scooby and the gang ever foiling your dastardly plans:
After you click “Save” you will be able to name your mixer settings. Hence why my mixer settings are called “buhbuhboost.”
Once you save and click “OK” you will be back at a list of Playback Devices. With any luck, the “meters” on the device will show more gain like so:
Now when I crank my headphones, I can say, “dang, that’s loud!” and actually turn them down. That’s exciting!!
Happy Listening!!
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