I have never heard a satisfactory answer to this often misunderstood question, let me explain.

Lets say I have a sound card and earphones/speakers that can play back audio loud enough in most cases. This is great but the problem is that you always find people who do not know how to record audio, from Youtube video's to music.

So now you end up with a audio playback that only uses 10% or less of the capacity of your sound hardware, in vista/win 7 you will see this frequently in the mixer with the volume pushed up to max but the green sound level only goes up a millimeter or two.

I am looking for (preferably free) software or a method to boost the sound level of any audio from any source in real time to use more of my hardware capacity similar to what VLC media player can do.

Oh and please, do not tell me it is impossible. I am not trying to boost the volume past what my hardware is capable of, I am just trying to use my hardware's full capacity. Also please do not tell met to buy new hardware, I know I can use hardware amplification, I don't want to (like many others) spend money on a simple little problem like this.

Thanks!