And then, I accidentally figured it out. The Kraken TE has 2 mic volume controls: one on the USB dongle and one on the wire attached to the headphones themselves. I discovered that the dial for the mic volume on the wire itself was set to about 50%. THAT was the culprit that was giving me low volume output. Now, I have considerably loud (and awesome) audio at a volume level as low as 35-40 on my PC. Fiddling with the mic volume on the USB dongle alone is not enough. The mic volume control on the wire to the headphones overrides the mic volume control on the USB dongle so you have to make sure you mess around with that as well. I hope this tidbit helps other having issues with the low volume of the Kraken Tournament Edition headphones
