Enabling audio compression to eliminate loud sounds in Windows Vista

For many years I have been annoyed by a side effect of 16-bit sound cards--the theoretical 96dB of dynamic range means your audio response goes from the threshold of pain down to a whisper. Of course, your complete sound system may not be capable of this full range, but regardless, it leaves room for some sounds to be too quiet to hear clearly and others too loud. An example of this is trying to listen to a recording, maybe a web conference, where some speak quiet and another speaks too loud. A solution to this problem is audio compression.

Windows Vista has a built-in feature that enables you to compress the audio, limiting the dynamic range, which means that the difference between a loud and soft sound is made much smaller-- you won't get blown out of your chair by AOL Instant Messenger when you had the audio cranked listening to an old recording.

To enable this feature, do the following.

1. Press the Windows logo key on your keyboard (or click the Windows button on lower left corner of screen), then click Control Panel.
2. Click "Classic View" in upper left of the Control Panel window
3. Double-click Sounds
4. Click Properties on the window shown below
   
5. Click the Enhancements tab, then check the Loudness Equalization box as shown below
   
6. Click OK and you'll enjoy the benefits. Just uncheck the box if you want to restore full dynamic range someday.