I'm having to wear the earphones to be able to hear parts of movies that play too quietly despite cranking the sound to the max. Am I missing something?

 

If it's really that quiet, something may be up with it (faulty speakers possibly), but they aren't the loudest things in the world. If you can compare it to a friend's iPad or one down at a local apple store you could figure out if it is your iPad or all iPads. If you happen to be under warranty you may want to make a Genius Bar appointment to see if they can determine if yours is faulty.

 

The speakers are quiet. Earphones are the easiest solution

 

apple always cranks down the sound on all their devices. i read somewhere that you can hack it into boosting the volume, but i don't know how.

 

Make sure the back of the device does not have anything against it as the speaker is on the back. I have an iPad and watch movies with it daily with no problems.

 

You could buy some small speakers

These work pretty well


iHome iHM79 Portable Multimedia Speakers

 

Thx
Sound was a little better with YouTube vids. That movie I was struggling to hear was an iTune download. Maybe that has something to do with it.

 

^^this.

I downloaded some movies for a trip last week....even with good headphones I couldn't hear it on the plane with volume all the way up. Would love to find a solution.

 

The built in speaker is largely useless for any kind of fidelity. Get a quality bluetooth speaker setup (I use a Creative D200 when outside-- works great), or use headphones.

 

Sound is fine with FaceTime. It's just too low with movies, esp iTunes ones. Netflix movies are a little more audible.