After I purchased my Icom R-75, a few years ago now, I noticed that the
volume control had the nasty habit of either being too loud, or not loud
enough, as the control was tweaked the slightest amount near the low end.
(too loud means that it is nighttime, my wife is trying to sleep, there's
no other noise in the house, and the radio is next to the bed).

I attributed this to a flaw in the potentiometer, perhaps slightly dirty.
I considered taking the radio apart and administering some cleaner to the
offending pot, but apathy prevailed.

More recently, I began to use Ham Radio Deluxe and I control the radio
from my laptop computer. Odd thing is that I noticed that the volume
control, being rendered as a sliding control on the computer screen, has
the same problem. Obviously the fault is with the radio design and not
the potentiometer. Ham Radio Deluxe, unlike another freeware program that
I have, apparently examines the setting for the volume control
periodically, since changing the control on the radio produces a
corresponding change in the sliding pot on the computer screen. (the
other program that I have simply crashes when you change the radio's
volume control if the software is currently controlling the radio).

Fortunately I did not disassemble the radio to try to repair a problem
that didn't exist. The software must have a sharp cut-off point in terms
of what represents output and what represents silence. I have since
placed my Yaesu FRG-100 in the bedroom and the Icom in the front room.
The Yaesu has a more normal volume control response, though the move from
one room to another was more on a whim than with any problems with the
volume control.

I know that some reactionaries will balk that their R-75s work fine,
perhaps they do, this is not a post to demean the model. You ability to
hear, background noise, and other factors determine the subjective
perception of hearing. Being tense about keeping your wife awake lest she
scream at you also contributes to this perception. But it is without
doubt that, even using software control, the sound drops off too sharply
in my radio, I wish that it had a little more range near the low end.

Dr. Artaud