January 18, 2012

How to make sound louder on Kobo Vox color eReaders Tablet

The Kobo Vox color eReader has loud enough speakers for personal audio listening in a quiet place like a bed room, or small empty room like a home kitchen or living room, but its built-in mono speaker on the top right is not very loud for many people to listen to at the same time in a louder room like a living room, kitchen, restaurant or cafeteria.

This guide should also work with other Google Android, or even Apple Tablets since they all use the same 3.5 mm headphone jack type.




You should turn your speaker up by pressing on the volume up button until the volume bar is set to max, or all blue. But, I notice when there is sound louder then the Vox's speaker like a TV speaker or loud conversation, the speaker is very hard to hear.


The Kobo Vox also has a small 3.5mm headphone jack which is for plugging in stereo headphones. You can also plug in external powered 3.5mm speakers to listen to sound through louder speakers. Most computer speakers with a 3.5mm audio jack can be plug into the Kobo Vox. By using External speakers or headphones on the Kobo Vox, the sound will be louder, and have more bass to it making listening to music, audio books, videos, and games more realistic.
    
You can also buy a line-in cable, or Y-Connector 3.5 mm to RCA connector to connect the Vox to your home stereo, or car stereo if your stereo has a 3.5 mm input jack, or RCA left and right audio inputs.



A FM Transmitter with 3.5 mm input can also be used to transmit the Vox's audio and convert it to an FM signal to listen on your FM Radio with speakers, or headphones on an empty FM channel on your radio. This means you can buy a portable FM radio to listen to your Audio books, or music on your Kobo Vox which is being transmitted to your FM Radio wireless through the airwaves. Most cars also have an FM Radio, so if you connect your Vox to an FM transmitter and stream it to your car's FM radio empty channel, you can also listen to it from your car.




On older cars with a cassette deck on the radio you can use a 3.5mm to cassette adapter which can convert your Vox's 3.5 mm audio to the cassette deck in your car stereo. Cassettes have higher quality then FM radio signals, buy a line-in, or 3.5 mm to RCA Y-connector has the best quality since the signal is not being converted.

3.5 mm headphones, external 3.5mm speakers, Line-in Cable, 3.5mm to RCA Y connector, FM transmitter, and 3.5mm audio to cassette deck converter work on other tablets, ereaders, mp3 players, portable CD and DVD players, and laptops as well as long as they have a 3.5mm headphone jack for plugging in external speakers.

There are also some school binders or cases which have a built-in 3.5mm speaker for plugging in MP3 players which will work on your Vox and other devices with a speaker and headphone input as well.


A 3.5mm headphone amp like Fiio E3 Headphone Amp would make your Kobo Vox's headphone jack loader when you use headphones or external speakers which uses the 3.5mm headphone jack type to listen to your Kobo Vox's audio because the amp uses power from an AAA battery to amplify the sound signal coming out of the Vox's headphone jack.


There is a free app called Speaker Boost which you can download from Amazon App store or Google Play which can give your Speaker a Boost to make it louder. It works, but don't boost your volume too much like over 40 percent because the App maker claims it might damage your speakers if you set the boost too high on the Speaker with his app. I tried the app on the Vox, and set the app to 40 percent, and it seems to make the Kobo Vox's sound louder even when a TV, or radio is on in the same room. I like that Speaker Boost starts up automatically when I turn on the Vox, and there is an icon in the system tray to make it easy for me to adjust the boost higher and lower with slider controls which is easy to use.

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