I have around 50 music MP3's on my Zire Palm Pilot. They are played through Real Player which has the volume slider to max. I want to know how I could increase the music volume when I use headphones on my Plam? If I need to re-record the MP3's how do I do that...whT software and proceedure would I need to increase the volume on these recordings. I would actually like to be able to turn DOWN the slider control in Real Player...if you know what I mean! Any help would be appreciated! Thanx...

http://mp3gain.sourceforge.net/

Sometimes a hardware solution is the best way to go. Have you considered more sensitive earphones. I recomend the Koss Plug. They'er cheap. They're probably 12 db hotter than whatever you're using now. And they're great for blocking out extraneous background noises like trains and subways.

hmmm.. this is in the wrong forum

however, i find for portable playback where there's not much juice in the headphone amp, i like to have some fun making hypercompressed versions of my songs

of course, don't play these files on anything with enough power to handle a real song...

however if you're listening to recently made CDs on your palm pilot, it is likely it is already hypercompressed and there still isn't enough power. in that case, more sensitive headphones are indeed a better solution (well, they are anyway).

Indeed, you want headphones that are very efficient. That is what led me to the Sennheiser PX200 (and PX100) headphones. 32 ohms, and a SPL of 115db (is that at 1mw?). Anyway, they are louder than all of my other phones.

Short of that, there are inline booster/amps that you can purchase for portables.

Which model Zire do you have? My Zire 71 isn't all that loud, but the Tungsten E, for instance is very loud. As stated above, different headphones can make a difference in the volume level.