Lightspeed,
I've been using Dragon for ages, I'm using Dragon ver 10.1 at this time which is an upgrade from ver 10 to be compatable with Win 7 64 bit. I remember during setup this time I had to do something different. Just checked it out again, In the Control panel open sound, click the recording tab, You should see a list of mic's, find yours and set it as the default. Double click your mic which should bring up the properties, Click the levels tab, this should bring up the control to set the input volume for recording which should be set to between 70 and 100.
Next you have to set up the mic in dragon, open Dragon and under tools click the accuracy center, in Acc center click the check the audio settings, I used the Control panel mic input volume setting with dragons mic setup for best results. For the best accuracy you want the highest s/n ratio you can get, click back and try a few times if you like.
In the past just using the dragon audio set up worked but I eneded up using the Control panel this time.
Also USB mics should give you better accuracy and the wireless mics are great. For you help Dragon also has a play that back under sound. The sound level getting lower should not be happening.
Carl2