Boom blows the silence away.
Over the years, I’ve collected music of varying formats for my digital music library. Some of them came from CDs so the quality is superb, others came shared sources that were a lower quality. Two of my favorite collections are from Disney’s Fantasia – the original from 1939 and the movie released in the year 2000. It’s a fantastic piece of music and the remastered version I have from 1939 definitely shows its age. There is some wavering in the music that I assume came from the remastering process from the vinyl album. It is truly like night and day when you listen to that version and compare it to the re-recorded version from 2000.
The hard part with these collections, as with any digital conversion process is that they are at different volume levels and I find myself turning it up and down both in iTunes and on my Mac Volume when I switch between tracks. There are some apps available that assist with this issue and Apple even included an option within iTunes Preferences called Sound Check, which is supposed to help alleviate this problem. I’ve used Sound Check and even though it helps level it out, sometimes the original recording is still too low and I end up having to turn the volume up so high that other songs don’t benefit. That’s why I’m glad there is Boom.
Boom is a volume and sound enhancing app from developer Global Delight. Boom is designed to work flawlessly with the Mac operating system as a companion and makes sound louder, clearer and a better experience overall. Boom can boost volume from videos on YouTube to music playing on Spotify and iTunes and also Netflix.
Besides boosting the volume level, Boom also has an equalizer function with popular presets like, Bass Boost, Vocals and Classical that allow the user to experience different highs and lows depending on the feature of the music or video you are listening to.
Speaking of Netflix, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to turn the volume to the maximum just to be able to hear the characters speaking. I’m a fan of the show Charmed and have seen every episode at least three times. I know them forward and backward. When I turned Boom on, it was like I was experiencing it for the first time. I heard footsteps, different vocal tenors and even the special sound effects used for magic in the show that added so much to the entertainment experience.
Boom is very easy to use. Once the app is installed, a menu bar icon will appear. The icon for Boom highlights if the volume booster is being used or not and how high the level is. You can control the volume level from this icon. There is an icon within the drop down menu that takes you to the utility window for Boom. Within this window you can turn boom volume on and off and turn the equalizer on and off so they can work independently of each other.
Another feature of Boom is called Boom File. Boom File allows you to select a specific audio file to increase the volume on and save out to a playlist in iTunes. It’s an incredibly simple process and if you songs that have really low volume, I would recommend putting them through this process so they are more balanced.
Something to note – if you are using AirPlay, Boom will temporarily disable itself. It will not work with AirPlay. This was a disappointing discovery and one that I hope the developers will update in future versions.
Boom is truly a remarkable piece of software. I recommend it to anyone who listens to music or watches video frequently on your Apple computer. Boom is currently on version 1.8.1 and was last updated on December 12, 2013. It retails for $6.99 and is available in the Mac App Store.
Download it today and experience your audio again for the first time.
