Mine seems ok and is good with ear buds or a good set of 'phones.
If they ever get this cell a rooting method, there's great android s/w callrd Viper's Audio (check their site or XDA forum, not the vers from play store). It requires rooting and 'Busybox' installed.

My Hisense Sero 7 Pro tablet has it on it and it is great on improving volume plus a ton of tweaks for phone/tablet, earphones and bluetooth speakers.

 

I hear ya. My former phone is an HTC EVO 3D and it really kicks the volume. I'm afraid the Valet just doesn't compare : ( In my case I own the HTC so I still use it to play music in the car. I use the Valet once in a while but I have to kick up the volume in the car quite a bit. Have you tweaked the equalizer? Are you using the stock mp3 player?

 

Yeah, I use Google Play and a 'user' settings on the equalizer. And the settings I have do boost volume some. My real problem is that I can't always get to the equalizer settings. Don't know when an where they go!

 

Had a funny thing happen tonight. I was playing music in my car and the volume on my Valet was unusually low. I ended up lowering the volume and it actually got louder. Kicked it back up and it was louder yet. Hmmm.... Worth a try eh?

 

Thanks for that tid-bit, it helped a little bit. The volume on this phone does suck, but I guess you get what you pay for.

I have the Sirius/XM app and the volume really sucks on that, I have yet to figure out how to set it.

 

Dorlow, I believe that anytime you convert a music file, there would be some degradation during conversion and especially if it is from an M4P. Your best bet if you could download it as an M4a in its original format so that way there is no loss during conversions.