Looking for free software that can boost maximum volume output.

Shimshai

I have a set of headphones that are slightly damaged. The right speaker is noticeably quieter, so I have to adjust the sound balance to the left/right speaker to 30%/100% to compensate. A side-effect of this though is that even at maximum volume set on my headphones and PC, some applications are still not loud enough.

Some Google searching hasn't really helped me out, besides people with laptops looking for similar software with little success (most advice seems to be to buy speakers), so I though I'd throw the question out to the collective intelligence of the Tech forum here.

I would like to buy new headphones but honestly I can't really spare the expense right now, even for a cheap set.

I'm running Vista 32-bit, if that makes any difference.


Any help or advice is appreciated.

mcdermott

Probably not gonna happen. Thing is, when you turn the volume all the way up (and assuming you have it all the way up in your application) you're basically maxing out the digital scale on your hardware. There's no louder, software-wise, for it to go. The most you can do is some dynamic range compression, but you're probably not making up that much of the difference that way.

Basically, you're most likely running into a hardware limitation issue that cannot be fixed with software.

EDIT: Well, I suppose you might be able to find some kind of software to just push the volume up anyway, sending you into the clipping range. If you don't know what that means, it's basically "you can make it louder but it will also sound progressively more awful as you do."