TuningMac

What is TuningMac?

TuningMac: every sound on your Mac, perfectly tuned TuningMac is a menu bar app that gives your Mac a real system-wide equalizer, plus the audio controls macOS has always been missing. Click its icon and a small, native-looking popover opens with a 10-band EQ, a live spectrum analyzer, a volume slider for every app, playback on several speakers at once, and noise controls for your AirPods, Sony and realme headphones. Everything you hear goes through it: Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube in any browser, Netflix, Zoom and FaceTime calls, games and podcasts. You don't change a setting in any of those apps, and you don't install a driver. TuningMac is built on Apple's own audio tap in macOS 14.2 and later, so it sets up in seconds and steps aside cleanly if you ever quit it. It's a one-time purchase with a lifetime license. No subscription, no account and no analytics. Why your Mac needs it macOS still has no system-wide equalizer. Apple Music has its own EQ, but it stops at Apple Music. Spotify's EQ only works inside Spotify, and your browser has none at all. Change the app and your sound changes with it. Headphone settings are scattered too. Sony's noise cancelling lives in Sony's phone app, AirPods modes hide in Control Center, and most earbuds give you no control on a Mac at all. Then there's volume. Your Mac has a single slider for everything, so a loud Slack ping or a quiet Zoom call means turning the whole Mac up or down. And if you want music on two speakers at once, you end up in Audio MIDI Setup building aggregate devices by hand. TuningMac puts all of this in one place, one click away, and it applies to every sound your Mac makes. Features A real 10-band equalizer for everything Ten bands from 31 Hz to 16 kHz, each with ±12 dB of boost or cut, applied to all audio before it reaches your headphones or speakers. This is real signal processing built from precision filters, not a visual effect. Changes glide smoothly, so you never hear a click when you drag a slider or switch presets mid-song. 9 presets, plus your own Start with Bass Boost, Bass Reducer, Vocal, Treble Boost, Rock, Classical, Gaming, Podcast or Flat. Save your own curves with names, then export and import them as files to back them up or share them with friends. Advanced EQ and AutoEQ corrections Want your headphones to sound the way they were measured to sound? Open Advanced EQ and import a correction from AutoEQ or Equalizer APO. TuningMac reads the preamp and up to 20 filters (bell, shelf, cut and notch) and applies them to that device. You can fine-tune the bands on the graph and export your own curve the same way. Live spectrum analyzer See what you're hearing. A real-time analyzer splits the sound into 32 bands from deep bass to the highest treble and draws your EQ curve on top, so you can spot boomy bass or harsh highs and fix them by eye. It only runs while it's open, so it costs nothing when you're not looking. Volume for every app Every app that plays sound gets its own slider and mute button, like the volume mixer on Windows. Keep music loud, calls clear and notification pings quiet. TuningMac remembers each app's level and applies it the next time that app plays. Play on several outputs at once Turn on any extra outputs, such as AirPods, wired earphones, Bluetooth speakers, your display or a TV, and they all play together. Each one has its own volume and a delay slider to line it up. Watch a film with two pairs of earphones on one laptop, or fill a room with every speaker you own. Auto Sync (beta) Bluetooth speakers and TVs often lag behind wired ones, which makes a room sound like an echo. Auto Sync plays a short chirp through each speaker and listens with your Mac's microphone to measure the delay, then lines them up. It works with speakers, since your Mac can't hear headphones, and you can always fine-tune each delay by ear. Noise controls for your headphones Switch listening modes from the menu bar without opening another app: • Sony (WH-1000XM6, XM5 and XM4 tested): Noise Cancelling, Ambient Sound with its level, and Focus on Voice • AirPods (AirPods Pro, Pro 2, Max and Max 2 tested): Noise Cancellation, Transparency and Adaptive • realme and OPPO earbuds: Noise Cancelling, Transparency and Off, shown when your buds support them Device profiles Give each pair of headphones and each speaker its own EQ. When you switch outputs, or your AirPods reconnect, TuningMac loads the right profile automatically. Tone, balance, loudness and mono Don't want ten sliders? Use simple Bass and Treble controls, Loudness for fuller sound at low volume, left/right balance, and mono audio for a single earbud or for accessibility. Clip protection The preamp automatically makes room for your boosts, and a soft limiter catches whatever is left. Heavy bass presets stay clean instead of crackling at full volume. How it works Older Mac equalizers needed a virtual audio driver such as BlackHole or Soundflower. You had to install a kernel extension, type an admin password and route your sound through a fake output device. When something broke, your Mac went silent. TuningMac doesn't work that way. It uses the system audio tap Apple added in macOS 14.2 Sonoma. Your apps play as usual, TuningMac tunes the sound in real time, and the result goes straight to the output you've chosen: 1. Your apps play as usual. Nothing to configure in each app, and no special output device to pick. 2. TuningMac taps the audio. macOS asks once for System Audio Recording permission. There's no driver, no kernel extension and no admin password. 3. It's tuned in real time. A preamp, ten precision filters and a soft limiter shape the sound, with each app at its own volume and no noticeable delay. 4. It goes out to your headphones. TuningMac never takes over your output device. Quit it, or if it ever crashes, your sound goes straight back to normal. Your Mac is never left silent. macOS shows a purple dot in the menu bar whenever an app processes system audio, the same way it shows an orange dot for the microphone. Nothing is recorded, saved or sent anywhere: your audio passes through the equalizer and back out to your speakers. Private, light and native • Works offline. No account, no sign-in and no analytics. The app never needs the internet to work. • Microphone only when you ask. The mic is used only when you press Auto Sync, and never otherwise. • Light on your battery. The processing is a handful of filters per sample. It runs natively, allocates nothing while audio plays, and keeps CPU use very low. • Feels like part of macOS. TuningMac follows Light and Dark mode and your accent colour, stays out of your Dock and can launch at login. • Updates itself. It checks for new versions and installs them when you restart it, and every update is free. Who it's for • Music lovers who want more punch from their AirPods or a cleaner sound from studio headphones, in every app rather than just one. • Headphone enthusiasts who want measured AutoEQ corrections applied system-wide, with a separate profile for each pair. • Remote workers who need clear calls, quieter notifications and music at the right level, all at the same time. • Gamers who want footsteps and detail to stand out, with a Gaming preset ready to go. • Podcast and video watchers who want voices clearer and less muddy. • Couples and travellers who want to watch the same film with two pairs of earphones, each at its own volume. • Anyone with spare speakers who wants them all playing the same song in sync, around a room or around the house. • MacBook owners who want the built-in speakers to sound a little fuller at low volume, using Loudness and the Bass control. Pricing and requirements TuningMac launches at $5 for the first 100 buyers, then $14. It's a one-time purchase: you pay once and keep it forever, with no subscription and nothing to renew.

Key features

• System-wide EQ for every app and output.
• Control volume separately for each app.
• Play audio through multiple speakers in sync.
• Auto-fade music when calls or meetings start.
• Switch headphone noise modes from the menu bar.