Harman Kardon Soundsticks II

Hello fellas. Sorry, I'm not sure if this is the right place to post this, but I couldn't find anywhere better. I just purchased and plugged in a set of Harman Kardon Soundsticks II. I am very impressed with the sound quality, but I'm having a problem -- they're not loud enough, and I don't mean that they aren't loud enough for my likings. I mean that they really aren't as loud as they should be. I like to listen to music at relatively low volumes most of the time, and I have the volume turned all the way up on my MacBook and these things can hardly be heard over the television. If I turn the volume on my MacBook down to half-way, you literally can't hear them at all, so I'm pretty sure something is wrong somewhere. Does anyone else have a set of Soundsticks that can tell me if this is normal or not. I mean, like I said, I'll be using these things mostly for sitting in my room and listening to music at mellow levels while I do schoolwork or whatever else, and the maximum volume is just barely loud enough for me to do that, but I'd like to be able to turn it up louder if I wanted to. I mean if I had bought these things for a party or something like that I'd be out $170, because they would literally not be heard. Does anyone have any ideas for me? Is there a way to turn the volume up higher on the MacBook besides the output volume in the sound section of the system preferences (the same thing that changes when you change the sound in the menu bar or hit the F4 or F5 key). There were practically no instructions that came with these speakers, so is there a volume knob on the speakers themselves that I've managed to overlook. Can anyone help me figure this out? Thanks in advance for your time and help.

-- Andrew