Bright Edges: Audio Boost using MPlayer

I often felt pissed off when my friends used VLC and others programs for software level volume amplification, so I searched for a similar kind in mplayer and guess what! It was already there in mplayer since ages. You just need to RTFM.

Syntax :

mplayer -af volume=20:0 mediafile

Would amplify the sound by 20dB and hard-clip if the sound level is too high

Reference ( man pages of mplayer ) :

AUDIO FILTERS
Audio  filters allow you to modify the audio stream and its properties. The syntax is:

       -af <filter1[=parameter1:parameter2:...],filter2,...>
              Setup a chain of audio filters.

       NOTE: To get a full list of available audio filters, see -af help.

            volume[=v[:sc]]
              Implements  software  volume control.  Use this filter with cau‐
              tion since it can reduce the signal to noise ratio of the sound.
              In  most  cases it is best to set the level for the PCM sound to
              max, leave this filter out and control the output level to  your
              speakers  with  the master volume control of the mixer.  In case
              your sound card has a digital PCM mixer  instead  of  an  analog
              one,  and you hear distortion, use the MASTER mixer instead.  If
              there is an external amplifier connected to the  computer  (this
              is  almost always the case), the noise level can be minimized by
              adjusting the master level and the volume knob on the  amplifier
              until the hissing noise in the background is gone.
              This  filter has a second feature: It measures the overall maxi‐
              mum sound level and prints out that level  when  MPlayer  exits.
              This  volume estimate can be used for setting the sound level in
              MEncoder such that the maximum dynamic range is utilized.
              NOTE: This filter is not reentrant and can therefore only be en‐
              abled once for every audio stream.
                 <v>
                      Sets  the  desired  gain  in  dB for all channels in the
                      stream from -200dB to  +60dB,  where  -200dB  mutes  the
                      sound  completely  and  +60dB equals a gain of 1000 (de‐
                      fault: 0).
                 <sc>
                      Turns soft clipping on (1) or  off  (0).   Soft-clipping
                      can  make the sound more smooth if very high volume lev‐
                      els are used.  Enable this option if the  dynamic  range
                      of the loudspeakers is very low.
                      WARNING:  This  feature creates distortion and should be
                      considered a last resort.