The speakers are louder than my laptop speakers alone. However, I had the original HP compact speakers (version 1.0, I'm assuming), and those were originally MUCH louder for the first few months that I had them. The only reason why I got these is because my other minispeakers were dying after a year of overuse. The 2.0 version is designed aesthetically better than the original--the speakers stand up on their own quite well, whereas the 1.0 version fell over a lot (which wasn't a big deal or anything)--but at least for me, the 2.0 version is not nearly as loud as the original. It's hardly louder than my computer on its own. And no, my hearing isn't just becoming impaired ;)