If you’re a Mac user and listen to a lot music (or podcasts) on your Mac, you might have noticed that the audio, from the default speakers, can often be what you might call ‘lacking’.
They’re not only often lacking in quality (especially bass – they’re tiny speakers!) but also volume. Some podcasts often seem to have very low volume levels and you need to make very LOUD just to hear it (and then jump out of your seat when when a system sound happens!)
But there’s an amazing little app that can make your normal Mac speakers sound amazing and that really turns everything up to 11!
Boom 2
Boom 2 is simply, well, incredible.
I first saw someone tweet about Boom and describing it like “retina for audio.” As a bit of an audiophile, that got me interested. So I headed over to the Boom site and took a look (and listen).
[Video via YouTube]
I was pretty impressed by the little audio demo on the site but “that’s just audio on a website right – what can it do to my system?” I thought. Really nicely, there’s a free trial available so I thought I’d give Boom a try.
Boom 2 — Installed!
Installing the app was fun as it ‘calibrated and equalized’ my Mac (and it even knew it was a Mac Mini – nice). Once that was done and headed into iTunes and hit play on Switchfoot’s Fading West (which I know backwards and have listened to on the tin Mac Mini speakers as well as through my stereo and on some nice headphones).
WOW!!! At first I actually checked to make sure that it really was playing through the Mac Mini and that iTunes wasn’t still set on airplay through AppleTV and my stereo (it wasn’t)!
The difference flipping Boom 2 on and off is pretty startling. Boom 2 just makes everything ‘pop’. I’ve got an eclectic music taste (Bach to Bluegrass and Tallis to Third Day) and everything sounds great through Boom 2.
Granted you won’t get a thumping bass like out of a sub-woofer, but what it can get out of the tiny speakers in a Mini or Macbook is astonishing. It also works very nicely with headphones and bluetooth speakers, etc.
Not only is the equalizing which Boom 2 does lovely (there are several presets or you can fiddle to your heart’s content but I find the standard one they setup is generally just good to go), the volume boost is also very impressive. I used to have to have any audio well over 50% on the Mac Mini to hear pretty much anything. Now it’s rarely over 25%!
Boom 2 is designed for Yosemite and is $14.99 / £10.99 on the App Store (for use on two macs).
If you’re not yet on Yosemite, Boom 1 (for 10.8, 10.9 and 10.10) is on the App Store for $6.99 (it doesn’t have all the bells and whistles of Boom 2).
Eric Dye says
Even with my iMac speakers sounding just fine, I am SO tempted to jump on this app…
James Cooper says
You NEED to! (and with a free demo, why not)
And yesterday Boom also released a free remote app – extra nice http://www.globaldelight.com/boom/boom2-remote
Eric Dye says
Sounds fancy. 😀