Macworld Forums: Boom 1.1 - Macworld Forums

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I own and like this app a lot, but it can cause big problems, so BEWARE.

CPU often hits 20% which is manageable, but when I stream HD Movies with VLC or MPlayer OSX Extended and Boom is running, Activity Monitor goes over 650% (yes, 650!!!) and held steady over 450% and brought my new i7 2.2Ghz MacBook Pro with 8GB RAM to its knees. Nothing would run and the CPU stayed way beyond Max!

Quitting the Boom app only did not help. Only restarting without Boom allowed me to stream HD videos, which use 150% CPU often by themselves. Initial replies from the authors deny seeing any problems, but it is surely there. My isolation tests only showed this problem when Boom was present.

I still use it on occasion, but never let it be a startup item. It really does raise the volume a lot!

Boom also conflicts with Phone Amego and prevents its use. Both developers point fingers at the other.

I have this app and I'm happy with it... I use it to just boost the volume a tad when I'm doing noisy things like washing dishes or using the treadmill.

I have owned this app for a few months and it worked well on my late 2009 MacBook Pro; now I switched to an an early 2011 MacBook Pro and I have a stutter, a noticeable reduction sound every 7 seconds, with iTunes as well as with Quicktime. It is clearly reproducible: when I quit Boom the stutter goes, when I restart it, the stutter comes back. Boom has become unusable.

I also observed the occasionally high CPU usage but it was never as bad as SFrawley's, but bad enough to wonder what goes on behind the boom.

Too bad, Boom was quite useful sometimes.

I reported the problem to Global Delight; should they come up with solution I will let you know.