HandBrake

iPhone update 1.1.1 enables louder output from the phone's built-in speakers. It's much much better. Purchased iTunes music and movies are better, and ripped music from my own CDs are, too... but the mp4 files I encode don't take advantage of the new sound. They sound like they did before the upgrade. I've tried several different settings to get the sound to come out better from the built-ins, and haven't made any headway. Any suggestions? Great tool, great site, great contributors.

I doubt that anything on the iPhone makes the volume rules different for self-rips. What's more likely is that it's now more noticeable that HB rips are quieter than your other content.

Quiet sound is a known factor with HB's output. It doesn't help that iTunes doesn't really do Sound Check for movies, otherwise this would not matter.