Fixing Nexus 4's low volume for headphones

Google's Nexus 4

After receiving and setting up my new Nexus 4 I went forth and continued my audiobook listening activities only to notice that (even at maximum volume) the device was nowhere near my almost top notch previous phone's volume (the Galaxy 3 i5800), which basically blew the Nexus out of water.

Thus, discouraged I started looking for answers and found these two (quite popular) bugs signalled on the Nexus 4

• https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=41034
• https://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=41042

And became even more discouraged (and I had not plan on rooting a new phone in it's first week; and even worse a Nexus) and after trying out Poweramp which after tweaking the volume settings a bit seemed to provide better volume for my mp3s (than Google Play Music did; I went back and forth listening to the same 5 seconds on each player), I went back to Google Play Music and discovered that it too had an Equalizer Settings section (but only on the specific playback screen, the one with the large album photo) which was strangely disabled. After enabling it I can safely say that it outperformed Poweramp, and although I haven't tested it thoroughly I think the volume problem will not bother me any time soon.

Detailed Instructions

So again, open your Google Play Music app and start playing a track. Now, go to the view with the large album cover

The large album cover screen

and hit the menu button in the top right and select Equalizer. You should be presented with this screen

The life-saving equalizer

Enable the equalizer and voilà. Good volume to all! 

Update - The Google Play Music app has been updated in the mean time and reaching the equalizer settings is much more intuitive. Just open the app, hit the menu button, select Settings and then Equalizer and you're there.

Enjoy