Boom 3D

Make your Mac sound better

$16.99 From Global Delight Technologies, globaldelight.com Needs OS X 10.10.3 or later There’s a problem with ever-thinner Macs: thin cases mean thin speakers, which means thin sound. It’s particularly noticeable on the imac, on which music sounds as if it’s being shouted at you by somebody in a bucket, but it’s a problem on MacBooks too. Boom 3D can help.

The app changes the sound of your Mac to make it brighter, wider – and on headphones, to give you virtual surround sound. It works: turning it off makes the sound considerably duller and less interesting. At heart it’s an equalizer with some extra effects to add “air” at the top end, widen the stereo image, and so on, but it’s packaged in a way that people who aren’t audio experts can understand.

It’s particularly good on headphones, with wider stereo, better bass, and more pronounced separation of individual sounds such as gunshots and vehicles. It’s easy to overcook the sound – crank up the sliders and the sibilantsssss sssssound like ssssssnakesss - but if you take a “less is more” approach it’s very effective. It’s no substitute for good quality speakers, of course, but it’s a big improvement.

the bottom line. Boom 3D really can make your Mac sound better, especially on headphones.