A system-wide equalizer for your Mac

How the equalizer reaches every app

TONO receives the sound of every app on your current output through a Core Audio process tap – the interface Apple added in macOS 14.2 for exactly this – runs it through its equalizer and sends it on to your speakers or headphones. Live, in memory, a few milliseconds behind the music. You don’t pick a virtual output, and nothing is installed into the system. If TONO quits, macOS gives every app its original sound back at once.

So the same curve shapes Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube in Safari or Chrome, Netflix, games, Zoom and FaceTime. Switch from the MacBook speakers to AirPods and TONO follows the output. One exception keeps feedback out: an app that records from the device TONO plays to – typically a call through your AirPods’ or headset’s own mic – plays untouched. The details are in How TONO works.

Simple: ten faders, four knobs, 60+ presets

Simple is the whole equalizer most people need, and it is part of TONO Free for good:

• Ten faders from the deep bass to the air, drawn as one live curve over the spectrum of what’s playing.
• Four quick controls: Bass Boost (“more depth”), Clarity (“clearer voices”), Louder (“lifts the quiet parts”) and Night Mode (“no sudden peaks”).
• 60+ presets for genres (hip-hop, classical, house …), devices (MacBook speakers, AirPods, iMac …) and situations (podcasts, calls, night), all loudness-matched so a preset changes the sound, not the volume.
• Louder than macOS: up to +12 dB for quiet speakers (up to +18 dB in Pro), with a look-ahead limiter – on by default – that catches the peaks before they clip.
• HEAR ORIGINAL: hold the key and you hear your Mac without TONO – the fastest way to know whether a curve really helps.

Pro: up to 24 bands and a curve you draw

Pro turns the display into a parametric equalizer. Drag bands directly on the curve, over the live spectrum, and give each one its own shape:

• Up to 24 bands of bell, low and high shelf, tilt, notch and band pass.
• Low and high cuts from 6 to 96 dB per octave.
• Per band left, right, mid or side – fix one ear, or widen the stereo image without touching the center.
• Auto-gain keeps a bass-heavy curve from simply getting louder, so you judge the tone, not the level.

The curve you see is computed from the same filter coefficients the audio runs through, so what you draw is what you hear.

Presets that follow your headphones

Import a headphone correction from AutoEQ or any EqualizerAPO ParametricEQ.txt file and TONO turns it into a preset. Then give each output its own preset in Tools: AirPods get their correction, the desk speakers get theirs, and TONO switches when the output does. Your own presets are .tonopreset files you can share.

At a glance

Free or Pro

The Simple equalizer, its 60+ presets and the imports are in TONO Free and don’t expire (the 3D and 8D presets play their EQ there; their spatial part needs Pro). TONO Pro adds the 24-band editor and the rest of TONO – 3D and 8D sound, the App Mixer, recording, Mic Studio and more – for €3.99 a month, €29 a year or €79 once. TONO starts with one day of Pro on each Mac, no card needed.

Questions