46

Some videos on websites have the sound volume so low that even with all sound settings at maximum levels it's hard to listen.

I'm looking for an app that would allow me to boost the Mac's volume. Something similar to VLC volume controls.

I already looked at Audio Hijack, but it has way too much features for what I'm looking for. Anything free of charge would be a plus. :)

Improve this question
7
  • 2
    50 "plus" points to reinforce the "free of charge" part of the question!
    – cregox
    Mar 27 '14 at 19:25
  • I have encountered too videos with sound too low. In these moments, I have the strange feeling of being close to powerful but powerless.
    – Nicolas Barbulesco
    Mar 30 '14 at 0:55
  • lmgtfy.com/?q=increase+sound+volume+mac ... Was it really so hard?
    – Alexander
    Mar 30 '14 at 1:47
  • 2
    @XAleXOwnZX — Your search gives me “about 1 280 000 results”. I perfectly understand that David do not examine all of them but rather ask for specialist advice in a site which is made for that.
    – Nicolas Barbulesco
    Mar 30 '14 at 15:54
  • Sadly, there was nothing new after my bounty! :(
    – cregox
    Apr 3 '14 at 22:27

12 Answers 12

Active Oldest Votes
14

Boom

It works pretty well. I had similar issues on my Mac, didn't like being glued with the headphones forever so I got this just yesterday. And I loved it. It's not free, but for $5 it works like a horse.

enter image description here

Improve this answer
6
  • 1
    It's not bloated with features, the price seems quite OK, and it works just perfectly. Thanks for pointing it out! Changed the accepted answer to this one. (Just let me add a link for easier reference: globaldelight.com/boom )
    – David Santos
    Feb 20 '11 at 18:13
  • I'll also chip in that Audio Hijack Pro is so very capable, but Boom is clean, sleek and does exactly what I want for boosting chat and sound that isn't tied directly to the keyboard volume keys / system volume.
    – bmike ♦
    Jul 11 '11 at 20:07
  • 1
    I use Boom. Simple, clean, not buggy. Works for me.
    – user18558
    Feb 11 '12 at 1:28
  • 1
    This will break the system sound after a system crash until the app is launched again. So if your system crashed and you don't get any audio, try launching this.
    – Daniel Beck
    Feb 11 '12 at 8:45
  • Probably not what you're looking for if you're in a Hackintosh. Boom boosted my audio alright, but at the cost of distorting the hell out of it. If this also happens to you, consider using front panel audio which is usually louder.
    – Lucio Paiva
    Oct 15 '14 at 1:18
27

You can boost the volume of videos playing in Chrome using free extensions. I found the Ears chrome plugin works quite well. Steps:

  1. install the plugin
  2. click the Ears extension icon in chrome
  3. drag the baseline from 0 up to +5
  4. click EQ this tab
Improve this answer
2
  • 1
    You solved a big problem for me .. and save my money from buying speakers .
    – mercury
    Jun 6 '19 at 15:14
  • 1
    many thanks for sharing this
    – grepit
    Nov 7 '19 at 19:24
10

You can go with custom equalizer and then amplify your sound out

Instructions

Requirements

  • Soundflower – free download from Google Code (more recent version here)

  • AU Lab – free download from Apple Developers (requires free Apple Dev ID)

  • Download and install both Soundflower and AU Lab, you will then need to restart your Mac to have full access to the audio components. Once rebooted, follow along with the instructions below:

Set Up a Universal Audio Equalizer for Mac OS X

  1. Set System Volume to the maximum level, do this either through the menu bar or by hitting the Volume Up key repeatedly

  2. Open System Preferences from the  Apple menu and select the “Sound” panel, followed by the “Output” tab. Select “Soundflower (2ch) from the Output list

  3. Now launch AU Lab, found in /Applications/Utilities/

  4. From the “Audio Input Device” pulldown menu, select “Soundflower (2ch)”, and then from “Audio Output Device” menu select “Stereo In/Stereo Out”

  5. Click the “Create Document” button at the bottom of the screen At the next screen, look for “Output 1” column and click the “Effects” dropdown, selecting “AUGraphicEQ”

  6. This is your new system-wide equalizer, set it how you see fit. Changes here will impact all audio output on the Mac

  7. When satisfied with the EQ settings, hit Command+S to save the EQ settings file and put it somewhere easy to find like the Documents folder Now open AU Lab preferences from the AU Lab menu, click on the “Document” tab and click the radiobox next to “Open a specific document”, selecting the .trak EQ file you saved in the previous step

  8. Optional final step: If you want the EQ settings to load on every Mac OS X boot, right-click on the AU Lab icon, go to Options, and select “Open at Login”

Note: It’s important to note that AU Lab must be running in order for the equalizer to have an effect, keeping it running will consume a small amount of CPU resources but it’s much less process hungry than some of the third party alternatives available on the market.

Due Credit : http://osxdaily.com/2012/05/18/equalizer-for-all-audio-mac-os-x/

Cheers Equalizer

Improve this answer
6

The application you are looking for is called Hear. It's pretty expensive though. I've been looking for a program to do something similar for months, but on the opposite end of the spectrum (my volume to my USB audio adapter is way too high, even with the volume all the way down). As far as I can tell, there isn't a free program out there that can do this. You can also try messing around with the built-in Apple utility called "Audio MIDI Setup" (in Applications/Utilities) and creating an aggregate device, then messing with the preamp on this device, but so far I haven't had any success with this.

Improve this answer
2
  • 1
    Thanks for your suggestion! Hear, just like Audio Hijack, has way to many features. My sole objective is listening to videos on some news sites. Its price seems adequate to the amount of things you can do with the software, but is indeed expensive for my particular purposes. This is why I'm not accepting the answer.
    – David Santos
    Sep 19 '10 at 13:36
  • Maybe the price has dropped but it is $20 now and I don't really see that as all that expensive for software.
    – Patrick
    Apr 28 '16 at 3:49
6

Just discovered eqMac2, an open source equalizer program.

It does not have the ability to go beyond 100% but you can get a reasonably similar effect by augmenting the volume of several bands. Very straightforward to use and install.

enter image description here

Improve this answer
3

If you like to use iTunes to listen / watch your media files... Some time ago I found new easy way to get the sound a bit louder. In iTunes Library select media with low volume and press cmd+i. Go to Options and make Volume Adjustments

How to boost sound with iTunes

Improve this answer
3

I just found the free app Bongiovi DPS. It is free and simple and has some great audio enhancements.

http://bongiovidps.com/

Improve this answer
1
  • Should be an accepted answer. Works like a charm. Thanks!
    – vrybas
    Nov 29 '17 at 5:01
0

I use SpeakerAmp:

Amplify, equalize and boost your audio with 3-D surround.

Features:

● Amplifier up to 999%

● 10-channel equaliser with several built-in and up to 100 user profiles

● 20-channel spectrum analyser

● L-R VU power meters

● Tunable limiter preventing signal distortion

● 2 adjustable ranges of the amplifier

● Mouse scroll control of volume

● Adjustable colour schemes of the meters

● Consumes 0% of CPU in idle state

● Supports stereo/joint stereo/mono

Free demo version: https://www.nimblesnail.com

The app works in 2 modes:

  • Local Audio player

  • System-Wide Processing

In the player, you can play, amplify and equalise any of these audio formats: mp3, mp4, wav, m4a, ,aac, adts, ac3, aif, aifc, caf, snd or au.

In the system-wide mode, the app can process audio coming from any app. Additional free audio driver is needed in that mode:

https://www.nimblesnail.com/audioDriver.html

Product documentation: https://www.nimblesnail.com/doc.html

EULA: https://www.nimblesnail.com/eula.html

Improve this answer
0

Volume Booster

That works like a charm for me on Chromium-based browsers (Chrome, Opera, etc).

Improve this answer
0
-1

Could you not simply download the movies and play them in VLC or something similar? I'm not aware of anything that'll boost system wide sound, but as you don't seem to have attracted any answers, I'm trying to think of alternatives.

Quicktime can play FLV files, and if you use QT7 Pro, it allows you to boost the sound using the Track Properties pane. Would that be an option for FLV videos?

Improve this answer
4
  • Playing through VLC doesn't work for web-based movies, flash animations, …
    – Studer
    Aug 29 '10 at 19:02
  • Thanks for your suggestion, Chops. Real Player is able to download .flv videos. And both RP and QT play them, though I've only been able to adjust sound on RP. Not very convenient, but indeed an alternative.
    – David Santos
    Aug 30 '10 at 21:47
  • You can adjust the audio on QT Player to using Cmd-J to open properties (I believe this is on QT7 Pro only though, which is free in Snow Leopard). Again, as you said, not massively convenient though.
    – pauldunlop
    Aug 31 '10 at 19:39
  • After some experiencing, I'm accepting your answer. Until some simple software is available for boosting sound output on the mac, your suggestion, despite not very convenient, is a viable alternative to the expensive software out there. Thanks! :)
    – David Santos
    Sep 19 '10 at 13:42
-1

Did someone try this? I used in the past and it should do the job http://jackaudio.org/

Improve this answer
1
  • Can you point how it can do the job?
    – Idolon
    Apr 8 '15 at 17:50
-1

Sound Booster Lite (FREE) is very good

Improve this answer
1
  • Unfortunately, it does not work anymore in 2021 MacOs.
    – Ondra Žižka
    Aug 23 '21 at 11:58

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .