Has anyone attempted to modify the earpiece hole above the screen to make it bigger? Could this also be another decent little speaker half-covered by an unnecessary obstruction (see: speakerphone speaker on the back of the unit obstructed by a...mirror)?

This is important to me, being a hearing-impaired person dealing with the fact that the AKU2 updated reduced the overall gain in the handset.

I am hearing impaired as well, but I don't think you'll get the kind of gains you want by making it bigger. I am just going to wait for the next update to come out which should fix this. The Verizon users got this update already and their phone volume is great. If you really can't bear it, go back to the first revision of the software when the phone came out.

I am a Verizon user and and received updates and the volume is still poor(earpiece & speaker).

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stevejay1761 xv6700