Headroom: Volume Booster EQ

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About this app

When the music and the explosions are loud but you cannot make out a word anyone is saying, turning the volume up does not help — it turns the music up too. That is an equalizer problem, not a volume problem.

Headroom's Vocal preset lifts the range speech actually lives in, around 2–4 kHz, and trims the rumble underneath it. Dialogue comes forward instead of everything getting louder together. It also has a volume boost for the times when the whole thing really is just too quiet.

No ads, no tracking, no subscription.

WHY THIS APP EXISTS

Most volume boosters are paid for by advertising, and several have been pulled from Google Play for ad fraud or malware. Headroom is paid for once, by the people who use it, and holds no internet permission at all — check it yourself in Android's app info screen, under Permissions.

WHAT HEADROOM CAN ACTUALLY WORK ON

This is the part the other boosters leave out, and it is worth reading before you install.

Android does not let one app reach inside another app's audio. What an equalizer can attach to depends on the app playing the sound:

• Headroom's own player — always works. Play the audio stored on your phone through Headroom and the boost and equalizer are guaranteed, because no other app has to allow it.
• Players that hand over their audio — many apps announce their audio to the system so an equalizer can attach. When yours does, Headroom names it on screen and works on it.
• The system-wide route — an older method that reaches everything at once. Some phones honour it and many ignore it, and Headroom says which it is doing rather than assuming.
• Players that stay quiet — some apps never announce anything. Headroom can still find them, but only after you grant one permission over USB from a computer. A few minutes, once, and the app walks you through it.

Headroom always tells you on screen what it is working on right now, and tells you when it is not working on anything. An app that claims to handle everything is not being straight with you.

WHAT YOU GET

• A Vocal preset built for speech — films, shows, podcasts, lectures, anything where the talking is buried.
• Bass Boost and Flat presets too, all free.
• A boost dial with its full range free. There is no loudness cap you have to pay to remove.
• A warning from +10 dB. Loud audio damages hearing and speakers, and you should know before you choose it.
• A limiter on Android 9 and above, which keeps a boost from turning into distortion.
• A player for the audio already on your phone, with lock screen controls.
• A notification that does something: quieter, on/off, louder, and the name of what is being worked on.
• A Quick Settings tile, and dark and light themes.

SUPPORTING HEADROOM

Headroom Pro is one payment, once, on your Google account — not a subscription, and not once per phone. It adds:

• The manual equalizer, where you move every band yourself instead of choosing a preset. Useful when a particular show needs more than the Vocal preset gives it.
• Saving your own presets, under your own names.
• Advanced detection, which finds audio from apps that do not announce it.

Every preset stays free, the boost stays free at its full range, and so does the player. Pro adds things; it never takes them away.

Buying Pro is what pays for building an app with no ads, no trackers and no internet permission.

PERMISSIONS, AND WHY

• Modify audio settings — required by Android for any equalizer or boost effect.
• Foreground service and notifications — the effect has to survive you putting the phone down, and the notification is its control.
• Music and audio files — only to list the audio on your phone in the built-in player.

There is no account, no sign-in and no server. Your settings and presets stay on your phone, and are excluded from cloud backup.