headphones: how do I turn em up to 11?

[Hannibal]

I play games with headphones on. Yippie. Most of the time, the volume of in game sound/music is fine (ie. I can make it whisper quiet or too loud to bear). But in WindowsXP, I have a hard time getting a decent range....listening to CDs or mp3, the volume simply won't go very high (and yes I've adjusted all sliders on Windows tool bar and the media player, etc).

So what's the bottleneck for the listening to music/voice shit in XP? How do I boost the volume so it has the same range as what I can experience in Quake 3 or Starcraft or whatever?

[Bacon]

If you use winamp you can get a small increase by turning up the decible level, but too much and the sound will distort

[+JuggerNaut+]

If you use winamp you can get a small increase by turning up the decible level, but too much and the sound will distort

decibel level? you mean the volume control? or the eq level? if you mean the eq level, yeah, leave that one the hell alone, it's just a distortion pusher.

[silent bob]

The device you are looking for is a headphone amplifier my friend. I do believe the Bada PH1 is very good value. But if you're looking for something a little les audiophile look on eBay for something called a Chu moy or cmoy.

[FragaGeddon]

If you want to increase the mp3 decibels use mp3 gain: http://mp3gain.sourceforge.net/