Macs are great machines. Amazing and powerful systems wrapped in sleek shells. The only issue with a Mac (or, really, any computer) is that it doesn’t come with excellent or amazing speakers. Truth be told, Mac speakers are actually better than most. Still, Apple didn’t pack your Mac with anything that’s going to make the roof shake. There is a software product on the market called Boom, however, that will help wit that roof shaking. Don’t get me wrong, boom can’t replace the power that separate speakers can provide, but this program will give a nice boost to the sound coming from your Mac.

Boost is affordable, easy to install and download, and user-friendly. These three things are really all that you can ask for when it comes to any kind of software. If you want to hear better tunes coming from your Mac, you may want to give Boost a try. Here’s what I discovered when I tested out this Mac software.

Downloading and Installing Boom

You can find Boom in the Mac Store or you can just head to the Boom website in order to download this program. Boom will cost you $6.99 per download. No; there’s no PC version of Boom. Once downloaded, you will see a small Boom icon appear in your menu bar. From there, you can simply click on this icon in order to control Boom, or you can open the Boom control panel (but the icon shortcut is a lot easier).

From there, you can change the sound of individual audio (or video) files. Note: Boom does not boost all sounds coming from your Mac when in manual mode, just the sounds that you want to increase or decrease. Manual mode is what you want to use if you are serious about sound and want to play with levels and mixing and all those details. Using a simple drag and drop method, individual files can be dragged and dropped into the Boom window. Once dropped, Boom will then increase the sound coming from that file as much as possible while the file is playing.

The automated method is much simpler to use (though the manual method is not hard, just time consuming). To automatically boost audio sound, you can simply place the app in your Mac’s memory. When completed, Boom will boost all sounds coming from your Mac – much simpler, but you might not want your Skype settings to be that loud (just a thought).

Effectiveness and Usability

This reviewer found Boom to be very easy to use – almost too easy to use. Downloading the file took just minutes, it didn’t download with any unwanted icons or programs, and setting up Boom took just a few additional minutes. As mentioned above, Boom doesn’t have the ability to replace a pair of separate speakers that you can purchase for your Mac, but this program certainly makes turning up the volume on a video or your favorite song much more appealing.

For less than $7, you really can’t go wrong with what Boom offers. The only better alternative is to purchase those small speakers, but that would make portability hard if you plan to use Boom with your MacBook. In short, if you need more Mac volume, you need Boom.