Timus ...... I'm curious about your not getting enough volume from your headset .......... Is it that you cant hear the sounds ? Perhaps you might wish to have you hearing tested, it's possible you have a wax buildup in your ears.
dl65 
Thanks for your concern. I am a percussionist, and drums make a lot of noise... however I either dampen the kit (if I'm practicing) or wear ear plugs (if I'm doing a gig). I've never had my ears checked out because frankly, I don't think my hearing is sub-par. What is sub-par are 10 dollar headphones from K-mart, the reason I don't spend much money on headphones is because I'm not picky about quality of sound. Volume is not that big an issue, I'm actually more interested if a program exists over anything else. I can hear things just fine, I speak to team-mates on CS and hear them fine, I can listen to music fine. However, sometimes I like to crank it up... which is impossible because the max volume is (on this particular set of headphones) the mediocre volume.
You need low impedence headphones to achieve higher volumes, but that is unlikely to be advisable. I suspect that most soundcards if pumped up to max on all mixers will generally produce a level of volume likely to cause permanent hearing loss.
Unless of course your soundcard is faulty, in which case you should change it...
It's not that the headphones are faulty, they achieve a good volume... however, the good volume is at max volume and as I said I like to crank it up sometimes. The soundcard's not faulty. Surely you know that some headphones are deafening when you have it set at 1/4 max volume, and some headphones are mediocre at max volume? I can't be the only one who experiences this.
