I boot up my computer, Windows XP. The volume control slider (lower right toolbar along with the date and so on) is set halfway. I play a sound file using VLC player, or Winamp, or Windows Media player. No problem. All sound the same.

I load Vegas 8 and drop the same sound file on the timeline. I play the file and it sounds very much louder. Why is that?

The Vegas sound preferences are set to default.

Many thanks.

John

it is quite possible that the presets are wrong. No it is more than possible.
whenever I put audio on a track there are a few things I do. First I set the track header preset to the folowing. Noise Gate-I leave alone, Track EQ I also leave alone for prerecorded sound, IE Music. I use another preset I set up for stuff I record depending on what mic I use. The Track Compressor I set to -3 as a soft limiter. I also go to the lower slider and right click on it and set it to -6 (non add). I then run each audio track to a seperate bus and in the bus I set the compression to -3 as a hard limiter and route the track to that bus and the individual buses to the master bus. The master bus I set the compression to -6 and I also set the Wave Hammer to Master for 16 bit.
Then if needed, I use an envelope to control the volume levels more precisely.

It sounds like a lot of work but it takes about 30 seconds to do each track. I've run as many as 10 or 12 audio tracks (maybe more) and I do it the same each time. Actually picked up the compression tips from Douglas Spotted Eagle a long time ago and it really makes a difference.
HTHs

Thanks Don, useful information. Didn't solve the problem so I uninstalled and reloaded Vegas 8. Problem solved. Don't know what the problem was but now it does not matter.

Cheers...

yeah, reinstall was my 2nd option ;-)

glad you got it worked out.