Having recently made the switch to an iPhone myself I was looking for EQ options that would bring my headphone experience at least a little closer to the LV V50’s output (which admittedly is a big difference).
Sadly, the built-in EQ in Settings->Music->EQ only seems to affect music played through Apple Music. If you use Spotify or Amazon Music HD, you’re out of luck.
There are third party EQ apps in the App Store that claim to be system-wide, which would be perfect, but they also masquerade as free and show up on numerous “best free EQ apps for iOS” articles despite NOT actually being free. Not only are they not free, they’re actually among the more expensive apps that I’ve seen because of being a subscription model and not a one-off purchase.
(They get around this by offering a brief free trial so that they can “be free” at the point of download, and then want a hefty subscription fee to continue using.)
For instance, Boom: Bass Booster EQ has a lot of great features and would be a natural win, except that after a week free trial it wants to enter you into a subscription plan of $6.99 per year or $39.99 lifetime. 7 bucks per year isn’t that much for an app, but at the same time it feels kind of hard to justify when there are other much larger apps out there for less.
This is an app that simply provides an EQ for music — not even a music app itself.
The same point is true for Equalizer – Bass Booster that wants an even more expensive $5/month or $30 annually.
Equalizer Fx: Bass Booster App is another one with a $50/year subscription fee.
Evermusic Pro is a more affordable option at $9.99 one time, but the downside is that the app description makes it sound like its EQ only works for music played within its built-in music player and may not be system-wide. That means, once again, if you use Spotify or Amazon Music you’re out of luck.
There are a couple other apps out there similar to Evermusic in terms of having a built-in music player. They’re affordable, but don’t sound like they offer system-wide EQ. Does anyone else know of a solution here, or are these it?
