Speaker volume on FW490

I notice a significant difference in volume levels on my FW490. When listening to music via iTunes, or to Sirius online, the levels are adequate. However when I watch a dvd (Bluray or regular), even after turning the speaker volume as high as it will go, the volume is very weak. Is this normal? Headphone volume is fine btw. Is there a setting that boost volume when playing dvd's? Otherwise I will be buying notebook speakers.

 

Is it that way regardless of what you're trying? There's no reason I can see why speakers would magically become "less loud" with one format rather than the other other than the said innate equalizing sound levels of each format.

If the sound is already to the max, then there's nothing more you can do to make the speakers themselves physical make more noise. The only other thing you can try(but which is messy) is to fiddle with the sound equalizing of the DVDs. You can find lots of freewares on the internet which does this.

The FW's speakers were never commented on being that good so external speakers or headphones are always best to fully enjoy music or a DVD.

 

Yes. There is a huge difference in speaker volume levels when playing internet stuff (Sirius for example) or my iTunes music which come through with plenty of volume. I notice that the sound level when playing blu-rays is even softer than when playng normal dvds. But both are much lower than the other stuff. I haven't tried CDs yet, but will later.

That being said, if anyone can suggest decent laptop speakers, it would be appreciated.

 

my fw490 sound is very loud compare to another laptop i have. I please with it.

 

If you download realtekHD drivers 2.28 and then go to control panel and click sound, right click the speaker, properties, and go to one of the tabs and enable Space Expander is alot louder.

 

Very loud when playing Blu Ray dvd's?

 

Thanks. I will check it out and let you know.

 

I think the problem is the movie you are watching and what audio format it is in. I was watching Iron Man the other day and I think it only outputs in Dolby True HD (it can do 5.1 DD but only in other languages). Unfortunately, the FW speakers cannot output Dolby True HD or DTS Master Audio. Neither can your hdtv when you output it through hdmi. I think to correctly listen to those HD audio formats, you need to run it through a proper AV receiver. However, I watched Hellboy without any problem and heard the audio clearly and loud. I think it is because it's in 5.1 format and FW speakers can handle that.

You can also mess around with the Dolby settings (click on the windows icon, then type in "dolby") and see if that might fix the problem. I glanced at it the other day but didn't have time to adjust it in depth.

 

Thanks very much.

 

My realtek driver verison is 6.0.1.5759 dated 12/17/2008. The Sony support site doesn't show a later driver. I have enabled space expander, but with blu ray it makes no difference.

 

What application are you using to watch the DVD's? Does that app have any sort of volume control too? Often times audio apps have their own volume control built in. These work as a "gain" control to the main volume control. In other words the output of the apps volume control feeds the input to the Vista system volume control.

Gary

 

The app is "Intervideo WinDVD BD for Vaio". There is a volume control that was turneed up about 90%. I'm not sure if that was because the last time I listened to the speakers I had the volume control below full volume when listening to Sirius radio ojn the laptop.

 

[nevermind]