Getting round poor hearing problems

Hi everyone :)

Unfortunately I’m definitely not a techie nevertheless I would very much appreciate some advice as to what options are or are not available for poor hearing now that I’ve just bought a laptop Win 7 64bit ….

I’ve not the best of hearing due to a sporting accident years ago, basic hearing aids unfortunately being of no help at all, so it’s always been sub-titles etc. when watching dvds if they’re ever available which is often rare. The core problem is I can’t distinguish much pitch at all sounds always coming across very muffled, so to get round this when watching on my pc I first bought some powerful speakers that helped a bit but not only were too loud for others nearby, most sounds still remained muffled as well.

However my last pc was Win XP Home and I eventually found that by clicking on a radio button called I think “boost” or “on-line” or something similar in the audio panel as against the radio button to click on for microphone, the stereo jack needing some sort of boosting to overcome something, my stereo headphones which also have volume control dials worked just fine improving things by almost 50/60% and not disturbing anyone !

I’ve now just bought a laptop Windows 7 64bit and the speakers are fine but as before still too loud for others, but unfortunately apart from “Headphone Visualization” which I’ve clicked on in Realtek HD Audio Manager, the sounds from the headphones are just as quiet as they were before I found the “boost” (?) button on XP and still no use at all….

Hope I’ve managed to explain it sufficiently well enough for some of it to make sense, as I would really appreciate some advice in laymans’s language to know whether I can repeat the same operation again on my laptop or not ?

Many thanks in advance....

That's the word - "amplifier" ! It worked just fine. Is this possibly something to do with "impedance" so that I know in future....?

Great very many thanks !

Kari said:

Control Panel > Hardware and sound > Sound, right click your Audio Device and select Properties. Check if changing the Enhancement settings will help you.

Kari

Lots of very useful information indeed many thanks everyone !

Firstly as in the attachment I don't seem to have anything else in Sound other than Realtek....? But must try the idea of increasing the volume in VLC using headphones first to see if I can hear any better before buying an amplifier I think.

As you so rightly say I've always used VLC because there are so many great options especially sub-titles etc., but as I've only had Windows 7 for a couple of weeks I'm still finding my way round so no idea how to make it the default player ?

As a side issue I had no end of problems on my old XP when viewing old movies ( there are some really great Forties and Fifties b/w classics all free) as to how to synchronise the sub-title file downloads, which also come free but separately from just about anywhere, though I was getting somewhere with VLC. Unfortunately it just got too complicated to follow in the end as the titles were either too early or too late keeping up with the actor's lip movements. But now I'm on Win 7 I'm hoping it might be easier ? Looking forward to trying out the streams idea too....

Edit: how do you get a screen pic onto the thread as I'd intended ?

Many thanks Kari all sorted especially the "Enhancements" panel which even has a "pitch" level adjustment so can't wait to try it.... !!

Thanks again everyone