Apple and their sound
While there are a lot of things Apple does well like design, durability and feel, one thing they always seem to fall short on is sound.
The back story
Almost 30 years ago, I made the switch from PC to Apple. I was a hard sell on it until a coworker in Systems Engineering where I worked, was selling his PowerBook G3 dirt cheap. Being the hacker I was since the early 80’s, it was the last system I was really not familiar with because everything I had heard as a bragging point about Macs, was “…but they are really great at graphics”, and the only experience I had with them was that most owners seemed to have a lot more knowledge about the inner workings than the average x86 PC owner. That said, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity, and bought it. I have been a convert ever since.
What was the biggest point I fell in love with? Well, it wasn’t the graphics generation, it was the fact that underneath it is Unix. Thats right, its a BSD Unix and Mach 3.0 based Kernel! Next was the hardware. I still have that G3 and it works, a 24” iMac and two MacBook Airs from 2015, and only recently lost my 27” iMac from 2016 due to some strange power hit. So of course I replaced it with what brings me to the point, an 8 core M1.
I have used Boom3d for probably a decade, having been through the process for finding an affordable, good sounding equalizer that doesnt get end of lifed a year or two after purchase or doesnt soak you for “updates”. Due to the hard death of my 27”, I couldn’t revoke the existing license to install on the new machine, so had to email them to get a new licence key. They were fantastic with a new key within 24hrs. Upon activating it, I just could not get the same great sound on my M1 as I had on the 27” iMac, no matter how I made adjustments. Apple did a great job in shrinking everything. Basically my prediction of them turning their systems into oversized cell phones, seems to have been true. Everything has been shrunk to that point, and so there is also limited room for decent speakers to deliver a quality clear sound.
The criteria
I’m going to still include Boom3d as sound can be pretty subjective. It wont be the one I will personally use going forward, but its worth your consideration. I typically use a small set of criteria when looking for software.
Affordability.
Like most people, I have a budget, but its also been limited as of late. The days of popping out big money for little things are shall we say, “on hold”, as I am sure they are for many others.
Value.
This is always a large area for me, as I balance features against what I’m paying for. Nobody wants to spend $30-$50 and get an EQ with like 10 sliders.
Great customizable sound that works for music and gaming.
Its possible to get everything sounding great for your music library, and too heavy and distorted for certain games.
Features and options.
I don’t need or want to be overloaded with so many features that will never be used, or that making adjustments just becomes a nightmare in a complicated interface. Easy navigation is a must, and per application adjustments of at least the volume are required. Anyone who uses YouTube knows that volume is not consistent, and can vary greatly between that and other applications.
The choices
The field of options is pretty limited as most Mac users know, and the App Store is not my choice for shopping. I typically hunt through searches and try out the applications after reading comments and other recommendations. It can be a challenge sifting through paid sponsors who glorify anything for a few dollars.
Boom3d - Global Delight Technologies Pvt. Ltd.
€42.99 (Purchase valid for 2 Macs only)
I still love this program and company, but the sound quality on the M1 just isn’t there no matter the EQ or effects. I like clear highs and mids, but I want a heavy low end too. I just couldn’t get the balance I wanted.
eqMac - Bitgapp Ltd.
free basic/
Pro Subscription €30 a year/
Pro Lifetime €40 (Future Pro features might require a partial upgrade)
I’ve been using this consistently the last two weeks. It gets a driver update almost daily, which is great, it shows its a living product. The M1 had only an audio out jack, not even a combined audio/mic which seemed excessively cheap of them. I happened to have an Axagon ADA-12 USB - CABLE AUDIO so I thought that wouldn’t be an issue, luckily. The first few days, eqMac would not recognize or use this, but one of the driver updates changed that and its fully functional.
I can select my Soundcore Life Q20 from a list of headsets, although this didnt really improve the sound output for me from what I had already. Using the 10 band slider setup, I’m able to get exactly the sound I want across applications with their free basic. The one annoyance is that the menu system is a bit clunky. For example, selecting headsets and the list comes up, I can’t dismiss the list. I’ve had that happen on many different menu selections, and end up just closing the program to get it to go away. The interface is not particularly aesthetically pleasing, but it is functional.
I won’t even entertain the subscription though. I don’t believe in the subscription models being pushed nowadays, and for the price difference here, you’re just as well off to get the Pro Lifetime with the only caveat ”Future Pro features might require a partial upgrade”.
SoundSource - Rogue Amoeba Software, Inc.
$47 ($39 plus local taxes)
I’m going to start off here with a critical annoyance in their trial. You get 10 minutes and then white noise is introduced. Really?? I was and still am a little put off by this, but having said that, it does have some great features. The amount of customizability alone should warrant longer than 10 minutes before having to restart the program to continue to fine tune or test all the functions. It has per application settings, and within each of those a seemingly unlimited amount of choices in fine tuning. Not just by changing what EQ you want to use, but even using more than one. It has a wonderful interface as well, which I honestly expect nowadays. It is a bit pricey at basically $50, and version upgrades appear to cost. On their site, currently its $23 to upgrade from SoundSource 4 to SoundSource 5. I’m still considering this, but they have another product I’m debating on, Audio Hijack which runs about $80. The reason I’m considering this, as you may too, is that Audio Hijack appears to be complete and granular control over audio input and output chains. This would seem a good investment if you wanted to also take advantage of that for Podcasts, YouTube creation, or Streaming.
Again here, the stumbling point for me is that 10 minutes a shot is really just too short for decent evaluation in any reasonable period of time. For the purest, a deal breaker may be that it also wants to install a system/kernel extention. I’m not particularly happy about it myself to be honest, and it’s not something you find out until installation of SoundSource . I don’t have a problem booting into recovery to authorize it, I just dont like installing system/kernel extentions period. It can create a real risk, and requires a bit more faith than I generally have. In addition, I have had experiences before with other products that did this, but left the component installed after uninstalling the software. You can read specifically their statement here, information on Apple Silicon-based Macs and the ACE component.
Having said that, I am still leaning heavily towards purchasing either SoundSource or Audio Hijack, but really testing it out for the features 10 minutes at a time, will require more time to test :)
Sound Control 3 - Static Z Software
$29.75
Sound Control 3 really looked like it was going to be my choice. It has a lot of features very similar to SoundSource, a pleasing and easy to navigate interface, but I had issues with it. Just like SoundSource, it needs to install a system/kernel extention which as I mentioned above is a negative for me, but the sound output and tuning was on par with what I expected, about the same as SoundSource, had what sounded to me what I had with my old system with Boom3d, but the deal breaker was this…. moving the sliders to adjust audio, always yields a scratchy audio output. I tried this several times, and always the same. Any time I would adjust even the volume, the music would sound like that old pair of speakers you turned the dial on and it just seemed the contacts either had dust or oxidation, because the audio got scratchy.
It has the price, features, and sound I wanted which made this the top candidate but I just can get past the old knob scratchy sound when making an adjustment. I would recommend though trying it out for yourself, as you may or may not have a similar experience.
In summary
My intention isn’t to endorse any one of these, but to provide a list of ones that are worth trying for yourself, out of a narrow field of choices. I tried to give a quick summary of each of them with the pros and cons for me, as I look to make a purchase. I’m still torn between three of them, two being from Rogue Amoeba (SoundSource and Audio Hijack), and eqMac. They have great adjustments even on the pricey end, but the sound output I was able to dial in, is exactly what I’m looking for. It’s still going to come down to weighing price in the end, basically the total cost of owning the product. We spend a good amount of money on everything now, and the last thing we want is to either buy something that gets end-of-lifed after a year, or to get soaked every six months to a year on an upgrade that really isnt an upgrade. Just an upgrade to someone elses bank account.
I’m going to leave this post with replies enabled and welcome feedback on any of the products listed that you use. I think the more feedback, the better. It will help anyone else who is looking to make a purchase, and feedback is much better than review sites that give one persons experience or perspective.