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Sonance EQ — User Manual

Sonance EQ is a system-wide equalizer for macOS. It shapes the sound of everything your Mac plays — Spotify, Apple Music, Safari/Chrome video, Zoom calls, games, system sounds — before it reaches your speakers or headphones. It is driverless: no kernel extension, no installer, no reboot. It uses Apple's Core Audio process taps (macOS 14.4+).

1. Requirements

  • macOS 14.4 or later (Apple Silicon or Intel).
  • A few seconds, once, to grant the Audio Capture permission.

2. First run

  1. Launch Sonance EQ.
  2. Click Start EQ (top-right).
  3. macOS asks for permission to capture system audio — click Allow. (Sonance EQ needs this to "see" the audio it equalizes. Audio is processed live on your Mac and is never recorded, saved, or sent anywhere — see §13.)
  4. Play audio in any app. You should hear the EQ immediately. Toggle Bypass to compare against the untouched sound.

If you accidentally denied permission, see §11 (Troubleshooting).

3. The window at a glance

Area What it does
Header App status (Active / Stopped + the output device or loaded preset), Bypass switch, Start/Stop EQ button.
Preset row One-click built-in presets (Flat, Bass Boost, Treble, Vocal, Loudness) and the Headphones button (the AutoEq library).
Response curve The live parametric editor — the blue curve is exactly what the EQ is doing to your sound.
Preamp Master level trim (see §9).
Equalize Choose which apps to EQ — All Apps or a specific selection (per-app EQ, see §8).
Linear Phase / Mid-Side Advanced filter & stereo modes (see §8).
Footer Reset, Import…, Export… (see §9).

4. Starting and stopping

  • Start EQ / Stop EQ turns the whole engine on and off. When stopped, audio passes through your Mac normally (Sonance EQ is out of the path).
  • Bypass (header switch) keeps the engine running but momentarily passes audio through unprocessed — the fastest way to A/B "EQ vs no EQ". The transition is click-free.

5. Built-in presets

Click any preset in the preset row to load it instantly: Flat, Bass Boost, Treble, Vocal, Loudness. These are classic 10-band starting points — tweak them in the editor afterward.

6. Headphone library (AutoEq)

Click Headphones to open the library of 8,850 headphone & earbud corrections from the AutoEq project. A correction flattens a specific headphone's frequency response so it sounds neutral/accurate.

  1. Type your model in the search box (e.g. HD 600, AirPods Pro, Moondrop).
  2. Optionally filter by in-ear / over-ear / earbud.
  3. Click a result to apply it. Its parametric bands and a safety preamp load automatically.

The loaded headphone's name shows in the header. You can keep editing the curve afterward.

Multiple measurement sources (oratory1990, Rtings, etc.) may exist for the same model — they're listed separately so you can pick the one you trust.

7. The parametric editor (response curve)

The blue curve is the EQ's magnitude response (left = bass, right = treble; up = boost, down = cut). Each dot is a band you can grab.

  • Move a band — drag its dot. Left/right changes the frequency; up/down changes the gain.
  • Select a band — click its dot. The inspector row below shows its controls:
    • Type — PK peaking (a bump/dip), LSC low-shelf, HSC high-shelf, LP low cut / HP high cut, NO notch, BP band-pass, AP all-pass. (Pass/notch/all-pass have no gain, so they only move horizontally.)
    • Slope (Low/High Cut only) — pick the steepness from 6 to 96 dB/octave. Gentle (6/12) for musical roll-offs, steep (48/96) for surgical cuts.
    • Q — bandwidth for bell/band-pass/notch. Higher Q = narrower; lower Q = wider.
    • The frequency and gain readouts update as you drag.
    • Trash — delete the band.
  • Add a band — click + Band (top-right of the curve). A new peaking band appears at 1 kHz.
  • Deselect — click an empty part of the curve.

Up to 32 bands are supported. Edits are applied live and ramped, so dragging never produces zipper noise or clicks.

8. Advanced modes

Linear Phase

The Linear Phase switch (below the preamp) changes how the EQ filters, without changing the shape of the curve:

  • Off (default) — Minimum Phase. Classic, like analog EQ. Zero added latency. Best for everyday use, gaming, video calls.
  • On — Linear Phase. Applies the exact same magnitude curve but with no phase distortion — all frequencies stay perfectly time-aligned, which some listeners prefer for critical listening and bass tightness. The trade-off is a small, fixed latency (shown next to the switch, ~21 ms at 48 kHz). Because audio is delayed, you may notice slight lip-sync offset on video — so leave it off for video/calls and switch it on for focused music listening.

Both modes sound identical in tonal balance; the difference is phase/transient behavior.

Mid-Side

The Mid-Side switch lets you EQ the center of the stereo image separately from the width:

  • Mid = what's common to both channels — lead vocals, bass, kick drum (the mono content).
  • Side = the difference between channels — ambience, reverb, hard-panned instruments (the width).

Turn it on and a Mid | Side selector appears above the curve. Choose which one you're shaping; the curve you're editing is drawn solid, the other faintly for reference. For example: add a couple dB of "air" to the Side highs to widen a mix, or trim boomy bass on the Mid without thinning the sides. With the switch off (plain stereo), both channels get the same EQ — the normal case.

Per-app EQ

By default Sonance EQ equalizes all apps. Use the Equalize menu (top of the window) to target specific apps instead — e.g. EQ only Spotify while leaving Zoom untouched. The menu lists apps that are currently playing audio; tick one or more, or choose All Apps. Selecting an app that isn't playing yet falls back to all apps until it starts. (Per-app EQ is a Pro feature.)

9. Preamp, Reset, Import / Export

  • Preamp — a master gain trim. Boosting many bands can cause clipping (distortion); pull the preamp down a few dB to leave headroom. AutoEq presets set this for you.
  • Reset — return to a flat 10-band EQ.
  • Export… — save your current EQ (all bands + preamp) to a .json file.
  • Import… — load a previously exported Sonance EQ preset. Great for backing up or sharing tunings.

10. Switching speakers / headphones

When you change your Mac's output device (plug in headphones, connect Bluetooth, switch in Control Center), Sonance EQ automatically rebuilds itself to keep equalizing the new device. You may hear a brief gap during the switch — this is expected.

11. Troubleshooting

No sound after pressing Start, or audio is silent

  • Make sure the right output device is selected in macOS (Control Center → Sound).
  • Press Stop EQ, then Start EQ again to rebuild the audio path.
  • After switching Bluetooth headphones, a Stop/Start cycle clears any stale state.

It says permission was denied

  • Open System Settings → Privacy & Security → Audio Capture (or use the Open Settings button in the app's permission banner) and enable Sonance EQ, then press Start again.

Some audio isn't being equalized — see §12.

Distortion / crackling when boosting a lot — lower the Preamp a few dB for headroom.

12. What Sonance EQ can and can't EQ

  • It equalizes all unprotected audio on your Mac.
  • It cannot equalize DRM/FairPlay-protected streams (some Apple Music tracks, some Netflix audio). macOS deliberately keeps protected audio out of capture taps for every app in this class — those streams pass through untouched. This is an Apple platform limitation, not a bug.

13. Privacy

Audio is processed live, on your Mac, in memory only. Sonance EQ does not record, store, or transmit your audio anywhere. The Audio Capture permission exists solely so the equalizer can shape the sound on its way to your speakers.

14. Sonance EQ Pro

Sonance EQ is free to use for everyday equalizing — built-in presets and basic editing. Pro is a one-time purchase that unlocks:

  • the 8,850-headphone AutoEq library,
  • the full parametric editor with Linear Phase and Mid-Side modes,
  • Import / Export of presets.

Tap Unlock Pro (top of the window) or any 🔒 control to open the store. A single purchase unlocks everything, forever, on your Mac.

Development builds show a mock store (no real charge) so the purchase flow can be exercised before the App Store listing is live. Your unlock persists between launches; "Relock (mock)" resets it.

Headphone corrections are © the AutoEq project (MIT) and are bundled with attribution.

For the technical design, see BUILD-PLAN.md and RESEARCH.md.