Increase the MacBook’s volume

I had to abandon the video podcast I was trying to watch, because my MacBook just doesn’t produce enough volume. With the (quiet) heatpump running in the same room, I could not hear the narration.

The low volume on this Mac has bugged me for ages, but this really was the last straw.

I should have searched for the answer sooner, because actually I had the answer right to hand. I soon discovered the answer lies with Audio Hijack Pro, whose virtues I had only last week extolled in Extract the sound from a video.

I tried the clear instructions in Boosting MacBook’s sound… – Mac Forums, sat back, and enjoyed the video:

The most popular solution for this is using Audio Hijack. Great app to have for a variety of things (e.g., recording streaming audio), but it’s also perfect for what you need. It allows “hijacking” the audio output of an application and applying Audio Unit plugins or its own built-in EQ to the output.

So, step by step.

1. Launch Audio Hijack
2. Create a preset for whatever application you’ll commonly want to make louder (i.e., itunes, vlc, mplayer, quicktime).
3. Open the EQ on that preset
4. Activate the EQ and move the gain/level up to desired volume
5. “Hijack” the application (but you don’t need to hit record)