OT: amplifying in-ear headphones?

I listen to music on my phone using the in-ear headphones but the max volume is (very) limited by the phone software, no online solutions work and I don't want to root my phone to over-ride the settings.

Is there such a thing as a set of in-ear phones that are battery powered & would amplify the sound? Don't really want to use my over-ear noise-cancelling ones in public :)

Reply to
Mentalguy2k8
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I think you will often find that most units do limit the sound as in ear phones are implicated in ear damage, due to the close coupling used. It may well be that the ones you have are not very sensitive or you are hard of hearing already. I do not know of anything off the shelf like that myself. You could try some other makes to see if they are louder on your equipment. In order to amplify them one would need an in line amp of some sort and to my knowledge these are not made.

I suppose some hobbist might be able to come up with something but it might need a lot of experimentation and might be quite large as well to accommodate controls and battery with a sufficient life to make it worthwhile. There are a lot of small amp chips about, but most seem to need high voltages, ie more than 6 to work.

Brian

Reply to
Brian Gaff

Have you actually Googled for battery headphone amp? Checked Ebay? Does your phone use standard earphones or have a special connector? The latter may prove more of a problem.

The actual level on your phone may be limited to preserve battery life.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

It is possible to buy a kit which will let you build a small amplifier with a 3.5mm stereo socket input, and it's easy enough to connect a headphone socket to the speaker outputs. They give about 125mw at 8 ohms using a 9 volt supply, so you do need to take care with the levels.

On most mp3 players, the makers blame EU rules limiting maximum volume to 80db for full modulation with the supplied earbuds. In some cases, you can get US firmware which does not have this limit built in, or try various pairs of earbuds for volume. This may also be possible for some phones, if you don't mind rooting it.

In one case, I found out about a debugging code which removed the limit, but that loophole was removed in later versions of that player.

Reply to
John Williamson

I have hard of this, what I have not heard is what sensitivity they assume the headphones have? (I am assuming they actually enforce an electrical limit and make an assumption about what that means for sound pressure at the ear?) or do all headphones now also have that enforced as well?

Reply to
Malcolm G

As I said, the earbuds *as supplied by the makers with the unit*. The player and earbud combination SPL has (in theory) to be tested before being offered for sale in the EU.

Some third party headphones and earbuds are more sensitive, as they use stronger magnets and better design, which are beyond the low budget for those supplied with the player.

Reply to
John Williamson

Ahh, sorry missed that (that last unit I encountered this limit on was not supplied with headphones at all).

Reply to
Malcolm G

There are ready made units on Ebay.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

Both my phone and Iphone output to me deafening levels of sound even with the limit in place, so maybe the OP is a little deaf or the earphones are not that efficient.

Reply to
Harry Bloomfield

Moving iron headphones are more efficient than moving iron, and are fairly common for in-ear use.

NT

Reply to
meow2222

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