Alsa trouble with headphones

[Zachary Kline]

Hello,
I am running Gentoo Linux, with a kernel version 2.6.20-something.  I haven't had any reason to switch kernels lately, and don't want to try out the Git repository stuff anyhow.
The issue I am having is that when I plug in my headphones, the volume on them is far too loud.  It's almost enough to blast my eardrumbs--not literally, but it's certainly not soft or quiet. By contrast, the speaker volume is quiet and at a level I can deal with.

I've tried fiddling with Alsamixer, as well as amixer, the latter of which doesn't make much sense to me.  All I really want to do is lower the volume of the headphone audio to a reasonable level, and I'm not quite sure about how to do so.
Any tips would be appreciated.
Yours,
Zack.

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