Equaliser (🇬🇧) is a system-wide audio equalizer (🇺🇸) for macOS.
It lets you shape the sound of everything playing on your Mac — Spotify, YouTube, films, games, or any other app.
Equaliser runs quietly in your menu bar, keeping your Dock uncluttered.
Equaliser lives in the macOS menu bar, where you can quickly enable or disable system EQ, and access presets.
Equaliser provides a parametric equaliser with up to 64 adjustable bands.
Each band allows precise control over frequency, gain, and bandwidth, making it possible to subtly correct headphones or completely reshape your sound.
Level meters allow you to monitor both input and output signals in real time, with clip indicators to help you detect and avoid distortion. Compare Mode lets you instantly switch between your EQ curve and a flat response at matched volume.
- Up to 64 bands of parametric EQ — precise frequency, gain, and bandwidth control.
- System EQ toggle — bypass EQ processing instantly.
- Compare Mode — quickly A/B your EQ curve against a flat response.
- Independent L/R EQ — separate left/right channel curves for channel-specific adjustments.
- Presets — 11 carefully crafted presets for music, movies, and more.
- Native light and dark mode — adapts automatically to your macOS system appearance.
- Real-time level meters — monitor input/output and avoid distortion.
- Automatic Audio Routing — automatically captures macOS selected output device.
- EasyEffects import/export — share presets with Linux users.
- REW import — import filter settings from Room EQ Wizard.
Equaliser includes a custom audio driver that captures system audio and routes it through the Equaliser app for processing.
Your Mac sends audio through the Equaliser driver to the Equaliser app, where the EQ is applied, and the processed signal is sent to your speakers or headphones.
Apps → Equaliser Driver → Equaliser App (EQ) → Speakers / Headphones
Download the latest version from Releases, or build from source:
nix develop
./bundle.sh- Open Equaliser from your menu bar
- If prompted, install the audio driver
- (Optional) Grant microphone permission if you want to use advanced features - can also be granted later in settings.
Equaliser handles all audio routing automatically — no configuration needed.
To remove Equaliser from your Mac:
- Uninstall the driver — Open Settings (gear icon - top right) and click Uninstall Driver
- Quit the app — Click the menu bar icon and choose Quit
- Delete the app — Drag Equaliser from your Applications folder to the Trash
Optional cleanup:
Equaliser stores data in your user Library:
- Presets:
~/Library/Application Support/Equaliser/ - Settings:
~/Library/Preferences/net.knage.equaliser.plist
These files are small and harmless — remove them if you do not plan to reinstall Equaliser.
- macOS 15 (Sequoia) or later
- Apple Silicon Mac
Equaliser requests Microphone permission at launch.
This is required because macOS requires the audio-input entitlement for HAL input capture (a supported feature). Even though the default capture mode uses shared memory (which doesn't access the microphone), macOS shows the permission dialog when both the entitlement and usage description are present.
Default behaviour: Equaliser uses shared memory capture, which does NOT require microphone permission.
macOS treats virtual audio drivers as microphone inputs. The shared memory capture mode works around this by reading directly from the driver's shared memory buffer instead of using an input stream.
All audio processing happens locally on your Mac.
Equaliser:
- does not record audio
- does not store audio
- does not transmit audio
- does not include analytics or telemetry
Some other macOS system audio tools you might consider:
- Radioform — Free, Open Source, Gratis
- SoundMax — Free, Open Source, Gratis
- eqMac (older version without Pro Features) — Free, Open Source, Gratis
- Vizzdom Analyzer with EQ — Proprietary, Gratis
- Hosting AU — Proprietary, Gratis
- AU Lab — Proprietary, Gratis
- eqMac (latest version) — Proprietary, Paid
- Sound Control 3 — Proprietary, Paid
- SoundSource — Proprietary, Paid
Legend:
Free as in Freedom = FOSS; you can run, study, modify, and redistribute it
Gratis = software is free-of-charge, regardless of license
Open Source = source code is available for review and modification
Paid = software that requires purchase, regardless of license
Proprietary = source is closed; you cannot modify or redistribute it
Made with 🤖 in 🇩🇰