Volume much lower on new 8gb fuze then when i first got it.

I have a problem with my new 8gb fuze. No sd card installed. But anyways when I first used it with my pair of mdr-asj20 sony earphones i could get a pretty good volume from it at 50% with most of my songs.

Now it’s one week later. Updated the firmware to the newest one, etc. And now I have to turn the volume up to about 80% to have it sound as loud as it was before. Note: new firmware did not cause this it started about a couple days after.

Now i’ve accidentally fallen asleep with these on and maybe rolled over the fuze a couple times so i don’t know if that would have done it. I bought both headphones and fuze new last wednesday. And i have sweated in the earphones about three/four times. However most reviews i’ve read said nothing happened to the volume in the asj20’s till about two or so months of use so I don’t think it’s that.

Also, i have connected the fuze an awful lot to the computer and disconnected it a few times non safely. I don’t know if that would have done it though.

So does anyone know what the problem could be? I’d rather try to fix this first in a non disassembling way before i take it and the headphones back. I would get exactly another fuze and headphones again but I’d rather try and fix this first. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

Have you noticed that the Fuze may operate at two distinct volume settings? Look at Settings - System Settings - Volume. You have the choice between “Normal” and “High” and having the volume at 80% level on “Normal” is about the same as 50% on the  “High” setting.

Nope it is on high. Any other suggestions? Also, replay gain, how high can i turn it up before it starts to clip the volume? Any programs that’ll analyze that easier then media monkey gold?

@tmansdc wrote:
Nope it is on high. Any other suggestions? Also, replay gain, how high can i turn it up before it starts to clip the volume? Any programs that’ll analyze that easier then media monkey gold?

Sorry, no other suggestions. Replay gain might be an issue to look at if your former Fuze wasn’t running the latest firware and your new one does. There are quite a few threads about replay gain. Unfortunately I can’t help, simply because I don’t use it. Good luck anyway …

This is my first ever fuze. Revision 2

I don’t know if this is related or will help, but I just bought a Fuze (also revision 2) just a few days ago and compared it against my Sansa M240.

What I noticed is the Fuze sound quality seemed flat in comparison, and in general not as loud. It was noticable enough where I was considering returning it to the store and going back to my M240. I tried the preset equalizer settings (e.g. Rock, Jazz, Funk, Dance, etc) and that just made it worse. Then I played around with the custom equalizer settings and got it sounding MUCH, MUCH better.

Try this, go to: Settings->Music Options->Music EQ->Custom

Of the five sliders, I set them, in this order: 10, 9, 10, 8, 10

I need to tweak it a bit because on some songs it causing clipping and distortion, but overall the volume is better and music sounds fuller and richer than it did before. Oh, you might just want to double-check your equalizer is set to “normal” even beyond this, some of the pre-set equalizer options can really mess up volume.

and get another fuze and sony headphones. If same problem then im going to have to look for an alt. Sorry.

actually scratch that i want to try to fix it first still. And i tried even setting eq to 12 all the way and it was louder but sq was sacrificed. sq sounds much better on normal but isnt loud enough.

@tmansdc wrote:
This is my first ever fuze. Revision 2

Okay, I got it now. Anyway, changing to the newest firmware on the same device points to the same suggestion: the replay gain comes into play.

Did you try to listen to some music without replay gain? I’m running fine with normal volume setting and custom eq at about +5…+2 walking downtown. If I would use the “High” volume setting at 80% level and custom eq at +10 I definitely would burn my ears …

Any other suggestions?