Comparisons

EQBase vs SoundSource

SoundSource 6.1.5 and the EQBase side checked October 12, 2026 · Page updated October 12, 2026

Choose SoundSource to control where each app's audio goes, and EQBase to control how everything sounds. SoundSource ($49 once, macOS 15 or later) is a per-app audio control panel with AirPlay, output groups, per-app plugins and a full audio devices window; EQBase (free tier, macOS 14.4 or later) is a precision equalizer with parametric EQ, measured correction and zero added latency, and in Pro it sends apps to other outputs too. Setup differs as well: EQBase installs no driver and asks for no administrator password, while SoundSource installs its audio plugin with your password and asks for Microphone access.

These two apps get compared a lot, and they shouldn't be, not because one is better, but because they're answers to different questions. SoundSource is a control panel: its purpose is to put every app's audio exactly where you want it, with its own volume and its own effects. EQBase is an equalizer: its purpose is to change the sound of everything your Mac plays, precisely, and to add nothing else to the signal.

They overlap in the middle (both do per-app volume, both do system-wide EQ, both host Audio Units), which is why the comparison comes up. But the overlap is not where either of them is actually good.

• Choose SoundSource if the problem is where the audio goes and you want the whole app built around that: per-app output menus, Output Groups and AirPlay, a window that manages every audio device, and twenty years of polish on the routing itself. EQBase now has the one-click version of per-app output too, but routing is one of its features rather than its shape.
• Choose EQBase if the problem is how the audio sounds: a real parametric equalizer, measured headphone correction, convolution, and a signal path that provably doesn't degrade anything on the way through.

The sound side of that choice costs nothing to test: EQBase's free tier never expires, where SoundSource's trial overlays noise on your audio after 20 minutes of each launch.

Download EQBase free

Where SoundSource wins

Rogue Amoeba have been building Mac audio software for over twenty years and it shows. These are real advantages, and a comparison table from a competitor shouldn't bury them.

• AirPlay, per app and in groups. SoundSource 6 streams to HomePods, Apple TVs, Sonos and other AirPlay 2 outputs, can send a single app to AirPlay while everything else stays local, and plays to several speakers in sync through its Output Groups, which can mix built-in, USB, Bluetooth and AirPlay outputs. EQBase plays to an AirPlay speaker once you pick it in macOS's Sound menu, with its EQ and per-app volume working (tested October 2, 2026), but it can't find, group or target AirPlay speakers itself.
• Per-app effects, properly. SoundSource gives each app its own 10-band EQ, Headphone EQ, Balance & Pan, Magic Boost, Volume Overdrive up to 400%, a timed mute, and its own Audio Unit plugins. EQBase's App Mixer does per-app volume up to 100%, mute and a 10-band equalizer per app. The plugins are still deliberately absent, because in EQBase the deep processing happens once, downstream of the mix. Which apps can put a compressor or limiter on one app, or on everything, is set out in Mac apps that apply effects per app or system-wide.
• It manages every audio device, not just the output. SoundSource 6's Audio Devices window sets a maximum volume per device, gives devices nicknames and icons, hides the ones you never want used, locks volume and sample rate so Zoom and other apps can't change them, keeps Bluetooth headphones in their higher-quality Output Only mode, holds a preferred device order, and can switch processing off per device. It also controls the input and sound-effects devices, with a mute hotkey for your microphone. EQBase's Devices pane remembers volume, balance and a preset per output and sets the sample rate, and has none of the rest.
• Quick Configs. Save your whole setup (devices, volumes, effects, per-app settings) and switch to another from the menu bar or a hotkey. EQBase's presets carry the sound but not the per-app mix or the device choice.
• Multichannel. SoundSource 6 processes all common multichannel layouts. EQBase's effect chain is stereo; only its Pro routing buses go wider, up to 64 channels.
• It's cheaper outright, on every Mac you own. $49 once, with a $25 upgrade from SoundSource 4 or 5, and one license covers all of one person's Macs. EQBase Pro is $79.99 once for one Mac, or $39.99 a year for three. Three things that used to be on this list are not any more: EQBase sets a device's sample rate, its volume keys work on HDMI and DisplayPort outputs, and it ships Shortcuts actions of its own, including switching to a named output device.
• The track record. Two decades of Mac audio work, a long support history and a reputation earned the slow way. That is worth something real when an app installs an audio component into your system, and we're not going to pretend otherwise.

Where EQBase is different

These are the things EQBase was built to do that we don't find equivalents for in SoundSource's published documentation.

• Setup without a driver or an administrator password. EQBase reads the mix your Mac is already playing through a macOS process tap, so setup installs nothing and asks one question: permission to record this Mac's audio. SoundSource requires its ARK audio plugin, which needs your administrator password to install, and asks for System Audio and Microphone access before it works.
• Routing that goes further. Both apps route per app and both play to several outputs at once. EQBase's patchbay builds up to four virtual devices, each fed by chosen apps, hardware inputs or another virtual device chained in, each feeding up to eight physical outputs, with a per-channel matrix instead of a single device picker. Every virtual device is also published as an input, so Zoom, OBS or QuickTime can record exactly the mix you built. SoundSource's Output Groups are outputs only; Rogue Amoeba sell the input side as a separate app.
• A real parametric equalizer. SoundSource's is a 10-band graphic EQ: fixed frequencies, one slider each. EQBase's Expert mode gives you 24 bands where you choose the frequency, gain, Q and filter type from seven kinds, plus separate left/right curves.
• Linear-phase and dynamic EQ. Filters that correct without shifting phase, and bands that only act when the signal crosses a threshold.
• Sound Correction by convolution. Load a measured impulse response and it is applied exactly, sample for sample, rather than approximated with EQ bands. This is how room correction and speaker measurements are meant to be applied.
• Room measurement, in the app. Play a sweep, capture it with a microphone, average several listening positions, and EQBase fits the correction filters for you. It also draws the decay: which frequencies keep ringing after the sound stops, and for how long, which is how you tell a room mode from a dip you can EQ. No round trip through separate measurement software.
• Correction and taste stack instead of fighting. Your headphone or room correction lives in its own layer underneath your own EQ, each with its own switch, so applying a profile no longer wipes the curve you built.
• A different EQ per output. In a multi-output setup each output carries its own correction, so two rooms or two sets of speakers run two different curves at the same time.
• Crossfeed and crosstalk cancellation. Crossfeed using the bs2b algorithm for long headphone sessions, and its mirror image for speakers: crosstalk cancellation with the delay derived from where your speakers actually are.
• Equal-loudness compensation. Quiet listening keeps its bass and top end, following the ISO 226 contours against a reference level you calibrate once per device, and it is bit-exact at and above that level.
• Analysis instruments. Spectrogram, goniometer with correlation, VU needles and a floating always-on-top meter window that stays visible over whatever you are working in.
• It records. Capture what you are actually hearing, processed, to MP3, AAC, ALAC, FLAC, WAV or AIFF from the menu bar. SoundSource does not record; Rogue Amoeba sell Audio Hijack for that, as a separate purchase.
• Zero added latency. Every stage passes the direct signal at the same frame, even the convolution engine, whose head runs as a direct filter so its tail lands exactly where the head stops. Two features add latency and both are opt-in and disclosed in the app: the true-peak limiter (2 ms) and linear-phase EQ.
• Transparency you can check, not just trust. With everything flat or bypassed, EQBase is bit-perfect (samples leave exactly as they arrived) and the app verifies that continuously against the live signal and shows you the result.
• A free tier with no clock on it. The 10-band equalizer, all 8,600+ headphone corrections, equal-loudness compensation, one-click recording, working volume keys on fixed-volume outputs, Auto Switch, global hotkeys, Shortcuts actions and loudness-matched compare, indefinitely and without a noise overlay. SoundSource is trial-then-buy, and its trial overlays noise after 20 minutes of each launch.
• It runs on Sonoma. SoundSource 6 requires macOS 15 or later. If your Mac is on macOS 14.4 or newer, EQBase runs today and current SoundSource does not.
• Auto Switch and loudness-matched compare. Presets that follow your output device or the app in front with no setup (SoundSource's manual does the device case with a Shortcut you build), and an A/B that levels the two curves so you judge by tone rather than by volume.

Feature comparison

A "–" means we could not find the feature in that product's published documentation, and "not stated" means the product makes no claim either way. Neither is a claim that something doesn't work. If we've got a detail wrong, tell us and we'll correct this page.

What they have in common

Both are direct downloads rather than Mac App Store apps: SoundSource installs a system audio plugin, and EQBase can add an optional driver for Audiophile mode and Pro routing, and the App Store's sandbox allows neither. Setup differs, though: SoundSource installs its ARK audio plugin, asks for an administrator password to do it, and needs System Audio and Microphone access, while EQBase installs no driver and asks only for permission to record this computer's audio. Both process every sound your Mac makes rather than one app at a time. Both do per-app volume, both play to several outputs at once, both host Audio Units, both use the AutoEQ project's measurements for headphone correction, and both ship Shortcuts actions and global hotkeys. Neither is a subscription trap: SoundSource is buy-once, and EQBase's one-time license is a real option next to the monthly one.

A closer look at routing

Both apps route audio per app. They're shaped for different people, and this is where the choice actually gets made.

SoundSource optimizes for immediacy. It lists the apps currently making noise and gives each one a pop-up menu to pick its output: a device, an Output Group or an AirPlay speaker. Nothing to set up, no concepts to learn.

EQBase's App Mixer now does that in one click too. Every app currently playing gets a "Play on" menu: pick an output and that app plays there instead of in the main mix, with nothing to configure. It builds the routing device for you, and takes the app out of the main mix in the same step so you never hear it twice.

What EQBase adds is what you can build underneath. Routing (Pro) is a patchbay: you create a virtual device, feed it sources (specific apps, the System/Other bucket, hardware inputs, or another virtual device chained in) and send its mix out to monitors, meaning physical outputs. Up to four virtual devices run at once, each with up to eight monitors, on buses up to 64 channels wide, with a per-channel routing matrix rather than a single device picker. Each virtual device is also published as an input other apps can select, so Zoom, OBS or QuickTime can record exactly the mix you built.

So the split isn't "one does it, one doesn't", and it is no longer "one is faster" either. One app on a different speaker is a menu in both. The difference is what sits under that menu: SoundSource is a control panel built around routing, while in EQBase the same click writes a patchbay device you can then open and take further, up to a multi-channel bus feeding two monitors and a virtual microphone. And if your routing needs outgrow both, Rogue Amoeba's Loopback is the dedicated tool, as a separate purchase.

Can you run both?

We haven't tested that combination and we're not going to claim it works. Both apps insert themselves into the system audio path, so running them together means chaining two audio layers and hoping the order comes out the way you intended. In principle SoundSource routes and EQBase processes, so it isn't absurd, but it isn't a configuration we support or can help you debug. Pick one.

How to decide

Ask what you were actually annoyed about when you started looking. "My headphones sound wrong", "this recording is too bright", "I want my measured room correction applied properly": that's an EQ problem, and it's what EQBase is for. "I want my music on the good speakers while everything else stays on the laptop" is a routing problem, and both apps now solve it from a menu next to the app. Choose on the rest: SoundSource for per-app plugins, AirPlay groups, whole-setup Quick Configs and managing every audio device, EQBase for what it does to the sound and a setup that installs nothing.

EQBase's free tier costs nothing and never expires, so the EQ question is cheap to settle: install it, load your headphone profile, and see whether the sound was the problem. Pro adds the parametric, linear-phase and convolution tools and carries a 14-day refund; the tiers are broken down on the pricing page.

Try EQBase on your Mac.

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1. 1Download and open
2. 2Allow it to hear your Mac
3. 3Pick your headphones or a curve

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macOS 14.4 or later · Apple silicon & Intel · Notarized by Apple

SoundSource has no room measurement at all, so if the bass changes depending on where you sit, see room correction on a Mac. If you're not yet sure you need any of this, start with does macOS have a built-in equalizer? If the problem is one loud app drowning out another, see per-app volume control on a Mac.

Comparison compiled August 4, 2026 and re-checked on both sides October 12, 2026, against rogueamoeba.com, the SoundSource 6 manual, its What's New page and its release notes (SoundSource 6.1.5, released October 5, 2026). SoundSource and Rogue Amoeba are not affiliated with EQBase or Bold Biscuit. Prices and features change; check their site before buying. See also SoundSource alternatives, EQBase vs eqMac and EQBase vs Boom 3D.