OS: W7
Sound card: Musiland Monitor 02

Issue since release. Skyrim can barely be heard over my video card fan.

Skyrim's main theme at a crescendo moment versus SC2's slow build up:
[img]http://i.imgur.com/CDwYQ.png[/img]

Things I've tried:

Changing 'fAudioMasterVolume' to a higher value
Changing Windows to "Do nothing" under the communications tab
Changing audio quality
Updated drivers

Loudness equalization isn't an option on the Musiland. While I have an integrated Realtek chip that has the option and makes it slightly bearable, the audio quality is much poorer and it's a pain to constantly switch.

There are already threads about this issue, mostly concerning the Realtek integrated audio chip and its poor sound over stereo speakers. The thing is Skyrim appears to look for 5.1 surround speaker systems, those having a centre channel. No centre channel = very low level front-centre sound. Try experimenting with different speaker selections. You might be surprised. Even if you only have two speakers, sometimes one of the surround options might give an improvement.

Please describe your hardware setup, esp, speakers. With that, more advice might be forthcoming.

Just using some 5 dollar earbuds as headphones since my AD700s broke, though it was no better with them. When using RealTek and switching speaker settings around it did offer an improvement though still quite lacking, but the Musiland doesn't have those options either.

So I know about https://unofficialskyrimpatch.16bugs.com/projects/7078/bugs/208015 and how apparently this can only be fixed by Bethesda. But the link to the http://forums.create.msdn.com/forums/t/22533.aspx thread and http://forums.create.msdn.com/forums/p/22533/275202.aspx#275202 in particular details a work-around, though I'm not sure if it's the same issue. Would pursuing this be worthwhile?

It didn't work, at least the way I did it which I don't think is the way it should be done if it was going to work.

Took a break to go replay KOTOR. Had to turn the volume down to 15% there. Still no solutions or acknowledgment that solutions aren't possible?