Realtek audio too loud

[tny770]

I was wondering seeing as there are some with driver modding skills around here could tell me if it's possible to change the seemingly hard-coded volume level in Realtek drivers.

I have a Gigabyte board with an ALC1150 and no matter which driver I try the audio volume is so loud I have to turn Windows global volume to 10% otherwise it hurts my ears (I'm using headphones).

I'm not an expert but it's like Realtek are over amplifying the stereo output ?, I've tried enabling the loudness equalization in Realtek control panel & this only partially fixes it for music or Youtube but system audio sounds are still often ear piercingly loud. If I change the audio output to the GPU and plug headphones into monitor it works largely okay volume is around 70-80% level and comfortable though it doesn't sound as good.

Anyone any ideas on this ?

Thanks.

[My backup plan is to get a spdif/optical to analogue DAC, and use the optical out on the Realtek and see if that is any better or look at a sound card]

 

[jboydgolfer]

you could try using some of the built in "loudness equalization". options?

 

[Vya Domus]

you could try using some of the built in "loudness equalization". options?

View attachment 96190

Unfortunately all that does is that it brings all the frequencies to a similar level. I do not think it affects the "absolute" volume.

 

[DRDNA]

Unfortunately all that does is that it brings all the frequencies to a similar level. I do not think it affects the "absolute" volume.

no but this will lower all noise levels on the PC

then

 

[Flaky]

What motherboard is this exactly? Certain models had dip-switches for changing headphone gain.

 

[droopyRO]

Turn off the headphone amp level to 1 or off, from the Realtek Control Panel.

 

[Mussels]

critically, what headphones are you using?

 

[micropage7]

loud? what speaker or headphone that you use?
could be from that, does it have its own volume setting?

 

[Aquinus]

Sounds like what happens when you have low impedance headphones.

 

[Jetster]

What's wrong with just turning it down?

 

[tny770]

Tried the equalizer and it didn't seem to make much of a difference, it's very strange it sounded even louder.

As for headphones nothing fancy just basic in ear sennheisers CX 300-II with stereo output. I did swap to a pair of CX 3.00 as those are a little quieter but the output is still so loud can only increase the volume a tiny bit. The realtek control panel does not offer any adjustments to headphones amp at least for me, the built in loudness equalization on futher testing is also quite inconsistent.

Sounds like what happens when you have low impedance headphones.

This may be it, I had to look up on Google so it may be the Realtek is configured for more meaty headphones or stereo speakers not in ear models (I cant stand wearing over ear headphones).

I did acquire an optical to 3.5mm DAC and this fixes the volume, everything is a lot more normal with volume in the 50-60% range though with a slightly perceptible hiss in the background when audio is active. I can live with that and perhaps look at a new set of headphones or sound card if it gets to me : )

Thanks everyone for all the suggestions.

 

[Mussels]

if another sound card fixes the issue, then its definitely a realtek issue

those are 16 ohm headphones and should have no issues with the realtek, so its a software or hardware misconfiguration.... somewhere :/

 

[EarthDog]

Its the board and what cans(impedance) it can support. It is not a Realtek issue...hat codec works fine.

Your ear buds are 16 Ohm... not sure it would support them. The cx 3.0 are 28 ohm.. makes sense they were quieter.

Again, what specific board are you using? Look it up and see what range it supports.

 

[kn00tcn]

16ohm? that's (probably) twice as loud as most standard headphones & much much louder than high end high impedance ones (which require powerful output to sound normal, but then placing low ohm on such an output would be very loud)

i cant stand in-ear or on-ear, over-ear is the best for quality, better than speakers

as for the OS volume, i basically use low volume anyway, especially during action games, specificaly on windows on my particular laptop with sennheiser HD439 i would be in the 12-20% range, except for blasting it at 40-60% when listening to great music... so other than the minor annoyance of having a short range of the slider, using low volume shouldnt be a big deal & is in fact useful if there is a really quiet youtube for example (one potential problem, if there is a glitch or if something maxes out the slider... you will be hit really loudly)

(edit: also have ATH-M50 which are louder headphones, but dont normally use these)

 

[EarthDog]

Hd439 are 32 ohm...your others are 38ohm.

 

[kn00tcn]

Hd439 are 32 ohm...your others are 38ohm.

yet my higher ohm ATH is louder, so now we cant even look at ohms as directly (i'm not sure if this noticable difference is due to closed ATH vs open SEN back either, i can hear hiss & electrical interference from the mouse on the ATH)

i'm also saying i already use reduced OS volume, so both ideas together mostly mean the earphone is too loud rather than the mobo (unless realtek has been adding extra boost, in which case try the front panel or other devices to confirm)

edit: OP, technically you just need some resistance if you really dont want to deal with the OS slider, for example if you had a super basic audio splitter cable, plugged in another set of headphones to it, yours will probably be half volume now... or maybe they sell resisting adapters, dont know...

 

[EarthDog]

It also has to do with sensetivity as well.

 

[wasameme]

Hi, same problem here, the front panel audio is too loud (the jacks that are solded on the board are okay, they are like 20dB more silent, but only when you don't install the realtek driver). My headphone is a Sennheiser HD 600, not that loud normally (300 Ohms). It's sufficiently loud at 5%, can't go over 10%, hard to set the volume. The hw specs are Windows 7 64bit on a Gigabyta H270M-DS3H, Realtek driver 6.0.1.7989 (newest). No matter what, you can drag all EQ bands down to -12dB, it will then correct the volume again as if all are at 0dB. The setting headphones/speakers also makes no difference. Seems like a bug, it doesn't make sense.

 

[Ver Greeneyes]

I started getting this problem after installing new RealTek drivers. After a lot of experimentation I narrowed the problem down to a regression between 6.0.1.8383 and 6.0.1.8393 - something introduced in 6.0.1.8393 is boosting the volume and causing clipping. The real kicker is that after you install 6.0.1.8393 or newer, this boost stays around forever (older drivers get it too). The only way I found to get rid of it was to either reinstall Windows or go back to a system restore point before the driver was installed. 6.0.1.8393 and newer must be creating some registry setting that older drivers also recognize, but I wasn't able to figure out what it is (6.0.1.8393 and up also create a few thousand new registry entries for some ICE Audio service).

 

[erpguy53]

I started getting this problem after installing new RealTek drivers. After a lot of experimentation I narrowed the problem down to a regression between 6.0.1.8383 and 6.0.1.8393 - something introduced in 6.0.1.8393 is boosting the volume and causing clipping. The real kicker is that after you install 6.0.1.8393 or newer, this boost stays around forever (older drivers get it too). The only way I found to get rid of it was to either reinstall Windows or go back to a system restore point before the driver was installed. 6.0.1.8393 and newer must be creating some registry setting that older drivers also recognize, but I wasn't able to figure out what it is (6.0.1.8393 and up also create a few thousand new registry entries for some ICE Audio service).

The ICE audio service files (ICEsoundapo64.dll, ICEsoundService.bin & ICEsoundService64.exe) only get installed when installing Realtek audio driver 6.0.1.8393 from the HDXRT4.inf file. If you uninstall the drivers and force it to install from a different INF file (like HDXRT4.INF instead of HDXRT4.INF), you might get a different result. The ICE audio files are for certain ASUS laptops & motherboards only.

I noticed these ICE sound files got installed on a friend's ASUS M5A78L-M LE/USB3 motherboard using Realtek ALC887 audio with v8393 driver using the HDXRT4.inf file because it specifically had hardware device ID "HDAUDIO\FUNC_01&VEN_10EC&DEV_0887&SUBSYS_10438576". When I uninstalled the drivers and then re-installed them using a different INF file, those ICE sound files don't get loaded at startup.

I've also gotten a Gigabyte board (model GA-78LMT-USB3 R2), which was a budget motherboard to replace a broken motherboard on one of my own custom built computers and that Gigabyte board uses Realtek ALC892 audio with hardware ID "HDAUDIO\FUNC_01&VEN_10EC&DEV_0892&SUBSYS_1458A182" and the Reatlek v8393 driver is installed thru the "HDXRtGi.INF" file - no ICE sound files get installed. The sound from the connected blue/lime skullcandy earbuds to the Gigabyte board is somewhat loud but not as loud as other users are experiencing.

So it also depends what kind of headphones/earphones/earbuds are connected to the motherboard or laptop. Avoid connecting those apple Earpods (those earbuds that come with older apple iphone models) to any motherboard or laptop as those produce strong bass sounds, even with lower volume.

 

[erpguy53]

in newer Realtek drivers from v8393 & greater, after I install them I set the ICESound Service to disabled so that won't load on Windows startup