If I remember correctly you've disenchanted armors? Armors mostly give dust and weapons essence. Could be the other way around. But just differ from what you're using now in favor of another to get more essences.
the awnser is volume... i have goten esseence form dienchanting brown robes...just not verry often, so make sure ya get a lot of stuff to disenchant... i found the quest rewards items usualy give me a essence
This is something I'm starting to use more often before disenchanting an item. thottbot.com search on the item tells you the % chance of getting a particular enchanting item upon disenchant. I have way too much strange dust. So if the item I have has a high % of yielding strange dust then it goes to a vendor or to AH for $$ rather than disenchant. Or you can search thottbot for the enchanting reagent and see the items that yield it, like so Lesser Magic Essence.
Don't know if this has already been suggested or not (original post is a few weeks old), so just ignore this reply if it has been.
I use a UI mod called 'Enchantrix' with my enchanter. It adds the chances of an item disenchanting into particular substances onto the bottom of the item's tool tip, makes it really easy to decide whether it's worth disenchanting the item.