That reminds me - I don't remember if I pinged you to a post of mine. The volume on my 2011 Toshiba laptop is too low for hearing voices or music - is the pits. Trying to hear the Irish priest sing a few days ago was the last straw. I had a cheap pair of ear phones and wire broke so they were toast. Asked engineer which company made good “headphones” and he said, “Sennheiser”. I will have “Sennheiser HD 202 II Professional Headphones”, by the middle of this coming week. They were $25 and that's not much for decent wiring that won't break easily, and decent sound, and comfortable fitting head phones.
We have so many links on posts to hear what “x” said, plus any Utube music, I think I'll be wearing these headphones all the time. I am fed up with low volume and straining to hear. My hearing is fine so it's not the problem.
I guess you know that you can buy speakers for your laptop that plug into the headphone jack, if you don’t want to deal with the inconvenience of headphones. I bought my wife a set so she wouldn’t have to use headphones. I have been using mine for many years because I listen to music and want better sound.