Before diving into solutions, it's helpful to understand why video meeting audio is often so poor. The culprit is typically a combination of factors working against you.
First, Zoom and Teams apply aggressive audio compression and noise suppression to reduce bandwidth and background noise. This compression can make voices sound muffled and quiet, especially over poor network connections. The lower your bandwidth, the more aggressive the compression, and the worse the audio quality. Second, most participants don't optimize their microphone settings before joining meetings, so incoming audio is already compromised before it reaches your ears. Third, your laptop's speakers are likely weak to begin with (as discussed in our laptop bass guide), amplifying the problem further. Finally, many users have poor speaker or headphone volume settings, or they don't know they can adjust Zoom-specific audio settings.
The good news is that almost all of these problems are fixable through a combination of settings adjustments and the right audio tools.
If you use Zoom Web (the browser version at web.zoom.us) or Microsoft Teams Web (teams.microsoft.com), you can use the Sound Booster extension for Chrome to instantly amplify incoming audio without adjusting any settings.
How to use Sound Booster for meetings:
Sound Booster's per-tab control means you can boost your meeting while keeping other tabs at normal volume. This is perfect if you're monitoring Slack or email in other tabs. You can also set different boost levels for different meeting platforms — your own company Zoom link might need less boost than a call with an external vendor.
The key advantage here is speed and simplicity. If you join a meeting and realize the audio is too quiet, Sound Booster gives you a fix in literally 5 seconds. No Settings panels, no troubleshooting—just one slider adjustment.
Zoom has several built-in settings that directly affect audio volume and quality. Even small adjustments here can make a huge difference.
In Zoom settings:
The "Original Sound" setting is particularly important if available in your Zoom plan. This disables Zoom's audio compression and lets voices come through more clearly and at higher volume. However, it also means background noise won't be suppressed as aggressively, so it works best in relatively quiet environments.
During a meeting, you can also hover over the speaker icon in the meeting controls and adjust participant audio levels individually. If one person is particularly quiet while others are loud, you can boost just that person's volume in real-time.
Of course, improving what you hear is only half the problem. You also need to make sure others can hear you clearly. A quiet microphone is one of the most frustrating issues in remote work. For detailed microphone boosting techniques, check our complete microphone volume guide.
To increase your microphone volume in Zoom:
If Zoom's built-in controls don't provide enough boost, you need to boost your microphone volume at the Windows level. Go to Windows Settings → Sound → Input devices → select your microphone → Input volume (increase to 100%) → Microphone boost (enable +20dB if available).
A combination of Windows-level microphone boost plus Zoom-level adjustments ensures you'll be heard clearly by all participants, regardless of your microphone hardware quality.
Windows has system-level audio enhancement features that affect all incoming audio, including Zoom and Teams meetings.
To enable audio enhancements in Windows 11:
Loudness Equalization is especially useful for video calls because it compresses the dynamic range—loud speakers won't blow your ears out, and quiet speakers will be more audible. This creates a more balanced listening experience across all participants, regardless of their individual microphone quality or volume settings.
This might seem obvious, but many remote workers still use their laptop's built-in speakers for calls. Switching to headphones—even inexpensive ones—dramatically improves audio clarity and volume for video meetings. For headphone-specific tips, check our headphone volume guide. AirPods users should see our AirPods volume guide.
Headphones are better because:
Even $20-30 earbuds will provide better call quality than your laptop speaker. If you spend significant time in video meetings, invest in a dedicated headset ($50-100). Brands like Logitech, Corsair, and HyperX make excellent affordable options.
Finally, don't underestimate the impact of a poor internet connection. When bandwidth is limited, Zoom and Teams automatically reduce audio quality and increase compression to maintain the connection. Your audio will sound muffled and quiet.
Before blaming your settings or hardware:
If your internet is consistently poor, disabling video during meetings preserves more bandwidth for audio quality. You can also ask the meeting host to enable "Optimize for low bandwidth" mode, which further reduces compression.
Sound Booster is free, takes 10 seconds to install, and works on every website — YouTube, Netflix, Spotify, Zoom, and more.
Add Sound Booster to Chrome — FreeMac users can use our Mac volume guide for system-level boosting. For online amplification of Zoom in any browser, use our online amplification solutions. Mobile users can check our iPhone and Android guides.
Before every important video call, run through this quick checklist:
With these fixes in place, you'll hear Zoom and Teams meetings far more clearly, and others will hear you just as well. Remote work audio doesn't have to be frustrating.