Microsoft LifeChat LX-3000

[snowzsan]

Alright so I bought this headset (USB) yesterday. Before this I used a stand-up mic and a pair of headphones that plugged into the headphone jack on the front of my laptop. So I got it home and tested it out on my game (Star Trek Online) and the mic works great! Score 1 for me. The speakers worked as well on the headset but they were a little low on the volume side, even with the volume cranked.

So I decided to use them for the other use I used the old headphones for... Youtube and Windows Media Player. Again, the volume was extremely low, even with all the volume controls cranked. So I decided to unplug the headset and try the headphones. The volume was extremely loud through the headphones. I tried unplugging the headphones and using the laptop speakers, again very loud for laptop speakers. So it all came back around to the headset speakers.

But here's the part that gets me the most. The little icon in the task bar at the bottom that controls the system volume, when left-clicked on, shows the bars with the slider. While music is playing it shows a green bar that fluctuates with the sound level of the music/video playing. When the volume is turned down, it shows a grey bar behind the green bar that shows you what it would be playing at if you had the volume maxed out. So with the volume maxed out, it shows the internal speakers green bar almost always filling the entire slider area. The headphones are the same thing, where the green bar fills almost the entire slider area. The headset on the other hand never goes past the marker in the middle showing the midway point on the slider. There is no grey bar behind it so I know it's not saying the system volume isn't cranked for the headset. But, again, the green bar for the headset never passes the half way point.

So I looked it up online and it looked like this issue was pretty common, however I couldn't find any of the solutions listed that worked for me. Here's a few things I tried:

-Uninstalling the sound card and re-installing it using Windows Update and using the driver package from the manufacturer's website.
-Setting the speaker balance 1 point off from one another (left at 100 and right at 99)
-Turning on Loudness Equalization (actually made the volume even lower)
-Uninstalling the headset and using the driver from Microsoft's website, the one from the disc, and the one from Windows Update.
-I've obviously tried cranking the system volume for everything.

To no avail.

Here are my system specs, if it's relevant:

OS: Windows 7 Home Premium x64
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo 2GHz P7350
RAM: 4GB DDR2
Sound Card: IDT High Definition Audio CODEC (that's all it says)
Video: Nvidia GeForce 9300M GS
Model: HP Pavilion DV3510NR

Any help would be greatly appreciated to increasing the sound volume on the headset. Again, the mic works and sounds fine. It's simply the volume of the playback sound on specifically the headset that I'm concerned about.

Thanks in advance!

 

[13thmonkey]

does it say what resistance the headset and headphones are? and do you have sensitivity figures for them?

 

[snowzsan]

does it say what resistance the headset and headphones are? and do you have sensitivity figures for them?

This is the most detailed info I can find about it.

http://reviews.cnet.com/headsets/microsoft-lifechat-lx-3000/4507-13831_7-32093166.html

 

[13thmonkey]

nothing on the box? manufacturers and model numbers?

 

[Strusbob]

Been searching for a good couple of months for the solution to this problem, and FINALLY stumbled upon it out of pure luck me thinks...

There is a program called Equalizer APO which is actually designed as plugin for another sound authoring program. Bonus with this standalone software is that it features system wide integration, whether you use the program it was intended for or not.

It doesn't as such feature a graphical user interface and instead operates through a config.txt file found in the installation folder which contains the equalizer settings. Downside? You have to manually add your desired EQ settings in this config file, i.e. each frequency with its desired sensitivity in decibels, with below an example of what my config file looks like:

Preamp: 5 dB
Include: example.txt

Room EQ V5,01
Dated: 29.02.2012 20:04:50

Equaliser: Generic
No measurement
Filter 1: ON PK Fc 62,0 Hz Gain -2,0 dB Q 4,00
Filter 2: ON PK Fc 32,0 Hz Gain 4,0 dB Q 1,00
Filter 3: ON PK Fc 125,0 Hz Gain -10,0 dB Q 1,00
Filter 4: ON PK Fc 250,0 Hz Gain -15,0 dB Q 1,00
Filter 5: ON PK Fc 500,0 Hz Gain -8,0 dB Q 1,00
Filter 6: ON PK Fc 1000,0 Hz Gain -4,0 dB Q 1,00
Filter 7: ON PK Fc 1500,0 Hz Gain 2,0 dB Q 1,00
Filter 8: ON PK Fc 2000,0 Hz Gain 3,0 dB Q 1,00
Filter 9: ON PK Fc 4000,0 Hz Gain 5,0 dB Q 1,00
Filter 10: ON PK Fc 6000,0 Hz Gain 2,0 dB Q 1,00
Filter 11: ON PK Fc 8000,0 Hz Gain 3,0 dB Q 1,00
Filter 12: ON PK Fc 12000,0 Hz Gain 6,0 dB Q 1,00
Filter 13: ON PK Fc 16000,0 Hz Gain 10,0 dB Q 1,00

Basically what I did was 'copy' the settings I used for my Realtek onboard soundcard's equalizer when listening to tunes/watching movies through my speakers and entered them here. I can tell you that the sound of my Lifechat is absolutely awesome, treble, bass, mids... You name it. The VERY cool thing about Equalizer APO is that you can add up to 100 filters as seen above and REALLY fine tune your sound if you have the time on your hands, the above example representing a 13 band equalizer, but yes, it's perfectly possible to have a 100 band equalizer if you have copious amounts of time to waste in setting something like that up, which I don't, lol!

Another downside is that your changes to the config.txt file won't be immediately apparent, so the best way to get the settings you desire is to fire up your music and make changes in the config.txt file, saving the file after each change to hear the effect of your settings. It ends up a bit like building an invisible 'house of sound' but is totally worth it because it works SYSTEM WIDE.

This headset actually has AMAZING sound with the right settings. For the life of me I can't understand why the folks at MS couldn't pull their fingers and code a simple EQ app to ship with the set since some of the okes there could probably have programmed it whilst busily chewing away at his lunch sandwich and drinking his coffee! Sad really Microsoft, but even sadder is that it's not even remotely surprising that you didn't bother to make a plan when the problem is so widely moaned about. Tut tut! ;-P

Anyway, that's my solution for the story. Hope this helps someone who's also had the same headache for the last 6 months or so.

Peace from South Africa!

 

[snowzsan]

Best answer selected by snowzsan.