Boom 2 Review

Boom 2 is an application that intercepts your system audio and modifies it to squeeze more gain and clarity out of whatever sound you are playing. The idea is to make movies, music, conversations, or YouTube playback louder and clearer without having to add external speakers. If you do plug in external speakers, the application adapts itself to those as well. 

Boom 2 uses audio processing to achieve its aims: the same kind of processors that musicians might use in Logic or GarageBand, only here they’re mostly hidden from view. There’s a volume slider that shows the normal maximum volume and then the amount by which you can boost it, and an equalizer section complete with presets for different kinds of music or different uses. Each band can be adjusted and you can save your own presets. There are also effects, which include the ability to add “ambience” or “fidelity.” The EQ section also lets you fine-tune any particular movie or radio stream to get better bass or clearer vocals.

Boom 2 works in real time, but there’s also a section that lets you process batches of files using the current boost settings. You can use various audio and video file formats and it works by analyzing and processing the audio in the files then re-saving them. Whether you’d want to permanently re-process movies and music using the conversion option is maybe less clear — we probably wouldn’t. This is perhaps better for old recordings you have digitized as it basically provides you with the same set of tools you’d get in an audio wave processor, albeit with more basic controls. 

The bottom line. A good way to boost and fine-tune your Mac’s audio output for music and movies.