Equalizers have always been a bit strange on Android. Equalizers have been a part of the OS for a while. But it’s still not a great thing to do. Some music apps have them, and some devices have system-wide ones built in to the settings. But apps like YouTube Music don’t, and it’s weird to always get everything to work. Here are some great Android apps for equalisers that you should try.
We’ve reached a point where the most useful EQs are the simple ones with bass boost and other presets. A few of those are on the list. We think, though, that most people will want to try Poweramp Equalizer and Wavelet, since they are the only ones that can do what they do. They are both good, which is good news.
The best equalizer apps for Android
- Equalizer and Bass Booster
- Equalizer FX
- Music Volume EQ
- Poweramp Equalizer
- SoundID
- Wavelet
- Many music player apps
- On-device equalizers
best equalizer apps for Android
Equalizer and Bass Booster
Price: Free
Equalizer and Bass Booster are pretty easy to understand. It has a bass boost and an equaliser. It has a five-band equaliser, ten presets for the equaliser, and a bass booster. The people who made it say that it should work with most music and video players, as well as FM radio. The only big problem is that the app sometimes closes when you leave it running in the background, and it doesn’t always work. It’s one of the easier equaliser apps, and most devices should be able to use it.
Equalizer FX
Price: Free / $1.99
Equalizer FX is one of the equaliser apps that looks and works the best. It is easy to use in a very good way. It has a five-band equaliser, bass boost, virtualization, and even a loudness enhancer (Android 4.4 and up only). Like most, it has a widget and some default settings to help you get started. The developer has also said that this should work with most music players, such as Spotify, Google Play Music, Pandora, and others. Both the free version and the paid version are the same. It just gets rid of ads.
Music Volume EQ
Price: Free
One of the most popular equaliser apps is Music Volume EQ and Bass Booster. It works pretty well, thank goodness. It has the standard five-band EQ and nine presets for the EQ. Along with that, you’ll have control over the volume, the bass, the loudness, and more. The developers also say that it should work well with most video and audio players. Overall, it’s been a good time for a software equaliser. It won’t work with everything, and some of the other items on this list have more presets, but this one works fine. Also, as far as we could tell, it’s completely free.
Poweramp Equalizer
Price: Free / $1.99
One of the newest equalisers on the list is Poweramp Equalizer. The app has a lot of features that other equalisers don’t have, like the ability to change the number of bands, control the bass and treble tones, and more. Once you learn how the different settings work, it’s not too hard to use. It should also work with most streaming music apps and local music players, as well as with most Bluetooth and wired headphones. It is more modern because it is more recent. One of the ones you should try first is this one.
SoundID
Price: Free
SoundID is a unique premise. It tries to change the sound of your headphones so that they sound like a different pair. This app shows how much you can do with digital equalisation. It works with most of the popular music players for streaming and local music. You can play with the sound and make small changes to get everything just right. It’s a bit harder to use than most equaliser apps, but once you get the hang of it, it’s not bad. This app has changed a lot since it first came out, so it’s clear that the developers are doing a good job of getting rid of bugs.
Wavelet
Price: Free / $5.49
Compared to the other apps on the list, Wavelet is the newest equaliser app. It was released in 2020, and it’s not bad at all. The app has a 9-band equaliser and a lot of presets if you want to keep things easy. It also has the ability to auto-EQ to more than 2,400 different types of headphones. For the best sound, the AutoEQ function measures and adjusts the sound to the Harman curve. This sounds like a commercial, doesn’t it? In any case, this one is really good and one of the best you can get without root access.
Many music player apps
Price: Free / Varies
EQs are built into a lot of music player apps. UAPP (up to 10 bands), jetAudio (up to 20 bands), and Neutron Player are all good examples (up to 60-band). The equalisers in these apps work well and do change the sound. But they only work inside of the app. So, if you stream music, you can’t use the equalisers in these apps to change the way it sounds. On the other hand, these can be used all day by people who have their own collections. Different music player apps cost different amounts of money and do different things, but it’s almost impossible to find a bad one these days.
On-device equalizers
Price: Free (usually)
In the sound settings of a lot of Android OEMs, you can find EQs. Some devices do it better than others, but about half of them have an EQ that lets you change the sound on the whole device. Most of the time, it’s something like a 10-band EQ with extras like Dolby Atmos or EQ presets. LG devices with Quad DACs have a 10-band equaliser and a separate set of presets you can use. Sony’s newer devices with headphone jacks have a few extra features as well. Lastly, you should also check out the sound profiles that most Bluetooth headsets have. It really depends on what you want, but Samsung and LG usually do it a little bit better than the others.