Increase sound volume beyond 100% on Realtek HD audio

Have you ever wanted to increase the volume of a video or music track, but found that everything was already set to 100%?

There are a few solutions that work well, but I found them to be either to cumbersome or not effective enough. Sometimes the “loudness” enhancement (build into windows) rather dampened the volume!! I also tried DSP and DX plugins, but they are a nightmare to implement on system sounds. The windows build in Audio Processing Objects, or APOs, (of which the loudness enhancement is one object) are a great feature, but I found nobody developing usable software that uses the library (??)

But if you are in luck of having Realtek HD Audio hardware, the driver software can be setup so it gives you an extra boost. And, as an added bonus, it does so without clipping.

Here is what you do:

Double click the “speaker” icon of the Realtek driver.
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Then configure your speakers as a 5.1 (or 7.1) surround set. (remove the check for the center, subwoofer and side pair. We don’t need them.)
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Enable Room Correction (!)

Then adjust the front left and front right speakers to +10 dB
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You will now have an extra 10 dB (which is a LOT) gain. This is especially noticeable when watching those youtube videos that have the audio mixed to low. Music will also gain from this trick, but when it is already loud, some compression will occur as to avoid clipping. Still the effect is much louder without extra hardware or intrusive (distorting equalizing) pay-software.

Have fun.

26 thoughts on “Increase sound volume beyond 100% on Realtek HD audio

  1. Thank you! It worked. At first, i forgot to check “Enable Room Correction” at the bottom and didn’t know why the controls we’re grayed out, lol.

  2. Except it doesn’t work when you’re using head/earphones. Just creates a bad-sounding mastering effect.

  3. You don’t want to do this if you’re serious about listening to anything, It seriously degrades the quality, It’s more noticeable on certain headphones. If you want louder then use different speakers or headphones.

  4. This works for me, the improvement in sound volume is important for me as I have a hearing impairment. I can now use my headset and not scare the family cat.. very much appreciated!

  5. FOR ANYONE WHO WANTS TO FOLLOW THIS GUIDE!!!

    It is MANDATORY to also set the distance of each speaker to 0 ft in order to get audio that is not distorted!!!

    The author of this guide should include this part cause this is super important.

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