speaking of volume.. every device I've ever used is obscenely loud. On my phone (with headphones) even just 1 increment on the volume is too much at times; on my windows PC I basically never go above 10/100. How are these things calibrated exactly
Kind of an interesting question. Initially, I'd say, "That won't work because resistance doesn't tell you anything about the efficiency of the speaker elements in the headphones."
But how about complex impedance? The phone could measure that instead. A perfectly inefficient speaker -- one where you're holding the diaphragm in place with your fingers, maybe, or where you've removed the magnet with a hammer -- will have a reactive component. It'll look like an inductive load if it's an old-school speaker with a voice coil, or a capacitive load if it uses a piezo transducer.
In either case, a perfectly efficient element that radiates all of the incoming energy would look more like a pure resistance, much like a properly-matched antenna at RF. So there might be some room to implement your suggestion, given a bit of R&D effort.
that's interesting, so it's related to the device. seems obvious in retrospect. still, I swap between 3 daily (bulky headphones, earphones, and wireless earbuds) and have the same complaint for all of them. just a coincidence?
Probably not? When I use my headphones with my laptop, 10% system volume and 100% app volume is about comparable to 80% volume (ish) on my iPhone 6S.
Evidently there isn't much standardization between devices. Personally I don't find it that annoying - devices remember what volume I last set them to.
