On the past 2 PCs I had, if I used earbuds I had to turn the volume down to 20% at the LOUDEST. Often times I had to go to 10% or lower to not utterly blow my eardrums out. Yet when I use regular headphones, 40% is an okay volume. I don’t know if that’s a problem specifically for Realtek audio drivers or the earbuds themselves. Is there a way to change this so I can have earbuds be quiter at louder volumes?
Ear buds or IEMs typically have a much higher sensitivity than full sized headphones. The higher the output power of your PC’s headphone out, the louder your earbuds will be at any given volume %.
There isn’t anyway around this except to manually change the volume whenever you use your earbuds.