Does it look like Diablo, OS2009, or any firmware update will actually make the sound through headphones much louder on the N810?

Don't get me wrong, I love having speakers to hear, when I don't care to or don't have to use headphones, but in some places you just gotta use headphones.

For example on public buses where people talk loudly a times + the sound of the bus or if you are in a bus terminal with loud buses around, you can hardly make out the audio of the N810.

I was listening to the N810 on the bus one day and I could hardly hear anything and I had to listen closely to figure out what they were saying.

I have heard people say they have no problems with their N800 and the headphones though.

Depends a lot on the headphones, you know. The ones that came with my N800 were ear-murdering hockey-pucks anyway; if the N810 ones are the same, then you and others you're comparing with probably have different aftermarket headphones...

N800 here;
I've got a pair of gfm (= el cheapo) noise cancelling cans, and I can blast my ears out easily, should I want to. I also have no trouble inducing clipping in my car stereo with a cassette adapter, but then again, it clips listening to FM radio at top volume. I think its volume control goes to 11 but the output amp can't handle it. But there's no numbers, so I can't tell. I dial it back to what I think is 9, and all is well.
I can also blast my ear out with the BT headset I use, but that's obviously irrelevant.

I arrived at the (somewhat) old thread via search, as I have had a problem recently with the volume control on my N810. At this point, of course, I am running Diablo, but the volume is so low on both the speakers and the headphones that I am beginning to wonder if there is something I have missed.

I have some nice headphones (Bose on-ear) but honestly I can just barely hear the sound when it is all the way cranked up. This seems to be across the board, ie, for the built-in media player, MPlayer, Canola, MediaBox and, now that I have my HAVA unit installed and working properly, that too suffers from low volume. Even when I set the volume of my cable box to max, when it gets through to the N810 via Hava, the sound is frustratingly low.

BTW, I have installed the Advanced Backlight/Volume control, and yes, it is set to max.

So, while it is possible that I am simply losing my hearing, I have hope still that one of the members of the forum will have a (relatively) easy fix for me. Other than, of course, the obvious: a hearing aid

Just an update.

Just as an experiment, I plugged in my headphones that came with an older portable CD player I used to have.

I played a Shoutcast radio station, and the headphones were so loud, just like my iPhone gets with the headphones.

Anyone near the headphones at Max volume would complain about having to hear your music.

I guess the headphones really do matter.

I still can't go too loud, I'm not one of those people who can hear extremely loud music. When most people say listen to this song, I have to hold them like a foot away from my ear.

you can get an idea of how loud earphones are by looking at their impedance and sensitivity ratings. higher sensitivity (dB/mW) and lower impedance (ohms) indicate more volume.

i was irked by that lol it used to make me so angry...