Everyone hears sounds differently and customising the audio on your phone produces richer and clearer music that you will love. Create custom equaliser settings personalised for your hearing.

Does your phone have any built-in features to adjust the audio quality? Not all phones are the same and some have more features than others. It also depends on which version of Android you have.

I will be using a Samsung Galaxy S6 running Android 7 for this and your phone may be similar, but if it is not, look for equivalent features, perhaps under a different name or menu.

Go to Settings > Sounds and vibration > Sound quality and effects.

Use the equaliser

The equalizer lets you enhance the quality of music by adjusting different audio frequencies, so you could boost low frequency bass sounds, increase or decrease mid-range sounds and increase or decrease high frequencies. It is partly personal preference, but it could also be used to compensate for deficiencies in your hearing.

The two rotary controls enable very simple changes to be made to the sound quality, but even easier is the collection of predefined sounds. Tap the link under Equaliser and select one of the options, they include pop, classic, jazz and rock.

Tap the Advanced button and a collection of sliders is shown. Drag them up and down to create a custom equaliser profile.

It is useful to have some music playing while you customise the sound because you can immediately hear the difference in the sound quality as you tweak the sliders to choose the best settings.

Below the equaliser are four switches that enable predefined effects – UHQ upscaler, Surround, Tube Amp Pro and Concert hall. As with the equaliser, play some music and then turn these switches on and off to hear the effect. They start working within a second or two.

Earphones must be connected for these switches to be enabled.

Test your ears

There is no right or wrong settings for these controls and it is all down to personal preference. The quality of your hearing makes a big difference of course, and we all hear things slightly differently.

Some people hear things very differently and have a problem of some sort, such as being slightly deaf to certain frequencies. However, you may not realise you have a problem unless you have your hearing checked.

On some phones there is an Adapt Sound feature (it may be called something else on your phone). Turn it on and tap Personalised sound to run a hearing test. Your earphones must be connected and a series of beeps are played at different frequencies on the left and right to determine what you can hear.

Afterwards there is an option to hear the difference. This feature really makes a big difference if your hearing is poor.

Use Neutralizer to customise the audio

If your phone does not have these features or if you want to try an alternative, Neutralizer is a free Android app that tests your hearing and creates a customised equalizer profile fine tuned to your hearing.

The app plays sounds at different frequencies and you adjust the volume until you can only just hear them. From this it is able to create the best equaliser profile for you.

Only one profile can be created in the free version of the app and you must upgrade to create multiple profiles, such as for earphones, speakers, listening in the car and so on.

The developer says that not every phone is compatible because some don't allow the equaliser to be controlled by an app.

It worked great on my phone and the sound quality was definitely improved. I found it reduced the volume slightly and had to turn it up a notch when it was activated, but it was otherwise fine.