Last night I noticed that the volume was extremely low on my MBP. Nothing seems to be physically wrong with it, and I've checked all of the volume settings. On max, it sounds like it usually sounds with the volume maybe halfway down. The sound itself sounds fine, just too far in the low side. The problem persists after the update to Mountain Lion that was sent out yesterday too. I'm sure it's a hardware problem, but I really don't feel like going to the APple store. I've had this MBP since January of this year. Any suggestions or other thoughts?