Headphone EQ

Apple EarPods EQ settings for Mac

Last updated: September 15, 2026

Apple EarPods has 4 published AutoEQ corrections, from 4 measurement rigs, and this page carries every one of them. Below is the curve, the exact parametric filters behind it, and a one-click preset for EQBase. macOS has no system-wide equalizer of its own, so applying a correction to everything your Mac plays, rather than inside a single player, needs an app that sits on the system audio path.

Worth knowing: The EarPods is the one Apple headphone here that makes no attempt to seal, and all four rigs agree about what that costs: every one of them asks for about 5 dB at 31 Hz and they land within 0.2 dB of each other doing it. Where they part company is the top, 10.4 dB apart at 16 kHz, which is about as far as published treble readings ever get. Worth knowing on a Mac specifically: the USB-C EarPods carries its own converter and arrives as a separate output device, while the 3.5 mm pair goes through the headphone jack. The correction is identical, only the device you point EQBase at changes.

Each measurement below carries four things: the correction curve, its parametric filters, the same filters as copy-paste text in AutoEQ's format (which Equalizer APO and Peace, REW and most desktop parametric equalizers import, and which EQBase's own Expert EQ reads and writes), and EQBase's ten-band fit of that correction. The ten-band figures are what the downloadable preset applies, so what you hear matches what is written here. AutoEQ publishes its own ten-band file on the same grid, fitted to the raw measurement rather than to these filters, so the two agree closely through the midrange and can differ at the extremes.

The correction, measurement by measurement

Preamp: -6.2 dB
Filter 1: ON LSC Fc 105 Hz Gain 6.2 dB Q 0.70
Filter 2: ON PK Fc 6106 Hz Gain -6.5 dB Q 1.79
Filter 3: ON PK Fc 4238 Hz Gain 5.1 dB Q 1.80
Filter 4: ON PK Fc 912 Hz Gain 2.5 dB Q 1.87
Filter 5: ON PK Fc 1739 Hz Gain -2.1 dB Q 1.73
Filter 6: ON HSC Fc 10000 Hz Gain -0.8 dB Q 0.70
Filter 7: ON PK Fc 147 Hz Gain -1.1 dB Q 1.20
Filter 8: ON PK Fc 78 Hz Gain 1.7 dB Q 2.98
Filter 9: ON PK Fc 108 Hz Gain -0.4 dB Q 2.22
Filter 10: ON PK Fc 2657 Hz Gain -0.4 dB Q 5.13

Preamp: -6.1 dB
Filter 1: ON LSC Fc 105 Hz Gain 6.1 dB Q 0.70
Filter 2: ON PK Fc 1953 Hz Gain -14.2 dB Q 0.83
Filter 3: ON PK Fc 517 Hz Gain 2.8 dB Q 0.47
Filter 4: ON PK Fc 3834 Hz Gain 12.4 dB Q 0.54
Filter 5: ON PK Fc 5473 Hz Gain -11.3 dB Q 1.93
Filter 6: ON HSC Fc 10000 Hz Gain 4.1 dB Q 0.70
Filter 7: ON PK Fc 7639 Hz Gain -2.5 dB Q 4.40
Filter 8: ON PK Fc 104 Hz Gain -0.7 dB Q 2.24
Filter 9: ON PK Fc 69 Hz Gain 0.9 dB Q 3.84
Filter 10: ON PK Fc 6382 Hz Gain 0.9 dB Q 6.00

Preamp: -6.1 dB
Filter 1: ON LSC Fc 105 Hz Gain 6.1 dB Q 0.70
Filter 2: ON PK Fc 823 Hz Gain 4.5 dB Q 0.26
Filter 3: ON PK Fc 2250 Hz Gain -8.4 dB Q 0.88
Filter 4: ON PK Fc 5672 Hz Gain -6.6 dB Q 0.66
Filter 5: ON PK Fc 4283 Hz Gain 7.4 dB Q 1.64
Filter 6: ON HSC Fc 10000 Hz Gain -1.5 dB Q 0.70
Filter 7: ON PK Fc 109 Hz Gain -0.7 dB Q 2.35
Filter 8: ON PK Fc 78 Hz Gain 1.1 dB Q 3.95
Filter 9: ON PK Fc 6825 Hz Gain 1.7 dB Q 5.91
Filter 10: ON PK Fc 6023 Hz Gain -1.4 dB Q 6.00

Preamp: -6.1 dB
Filter 1: ON LSC Fc 105 Hz Gain 5.8 dB Q 0.70
Filter 2: ON PK Fc 140 Hz Gain 4.2 dB Q 0.98
Filter 3: ON PK Fc 3016 Hz Gain -10.1 dB Q 2.07
Filter 4: ON PK Fc 1945 Hz Gain 3.8 dB Q 1.11
Filter 5: ON PK Fc 6451 Hz Gain -4.9 dB Q 0.98
Filter 6: ON HSC Fc 10000 Hz Gain -5.2 dB Q 0.70
Filter 7: ON PK Fc 7713 Hz Gain 3.0 dB Q 4.25
Filter 8: ON PK Fc 460 Hz Gain 0.9 dB Q 2.93
Filter 9: ON PK Fc 6129 Hz Gain -1.5 dB Q 5.97
Filter 10: ON PK Fc 4862 Hz Gain 0.8 dB Q 4.00

What this correction changes

The largest boost is +5.2 dB at sub-bass (31 Hz), and the largest cut is −3.4 dB at treble (8 kHz). Total swing across the ten bands is 8.6 dB. Averaged over its bands the bass is lifted by 3.4 dB, more than the other two, which is where most of the audible change lands.

The 4 published measurements on this page, from 4 rigs, do not agree with each other, and the size of the disagreement is worth knowing before picking one. They differ most at top octave (16 kHz), where the ten-band figures span 10.4 dB, and least at sub-bass (31 Hz), where they span 0.2 dB. A spread that wide usually means the rigs disagree about the seal or the coupler rather than about the headphone, so prefer the measurement whose conditions match how you actually wear them.

Applying this on a Mac

The Apple EarPods sits in the ear without sealing it, so there is no seal to lose and no pad to wear out, and equally no way to hold low bass in. Every correction here asks for a large bass boost to make up for that, and how much of it reaches you depends on the shape of your own ear more than on the curve. If the bottom end still sounds thin afterwards, that is the form factor rather than the measurement.

Something this small is sensitive enough that a Mac's own output drives it without help, so the correction is doing all of the work here rather than sharing it with an amplifier.

In EQBase the fastest route skips this page entirely: open the Headphones pane, search for your model, and apply the correction. The Apple EarPods is in the built-in catalog along with 8,665 other models. The preset above exists for people who want to see the numbers first, or who want a specific measurement rather than the default one.

Either way the correction applies to every app at once, and the free tier carries it with no time limit. The Apple EarPods preset above sets the ten-band curve, which is what the free tier applies, so nothing on this page is behind a purchase.

Common questions

Do these EQ settings work on any Mac app?

Yes, if the equalizer runs on system audio rather than inside one player. EQBase processes everything the Mac plays, so the same correction applies to Spotify, Safari, YouTube, games and calls. The Music app's own equalizer only affects Music.

Where do the Apple EarPods numbers come from?

From 4 published AutoEQ measurements of the Apple EarPods, made by Rtings, Super Review, Innerfidelity and Headphone.com Legacy. Each one is a real frequency-response measurement compared against a target curve, and each produces its own set of filters. They are all on this page rather than averaged together, because a measurement belongs to the person who made it.

Why is the Apple EarPods preamp negative?

The Apple EarPods correction needs −6.2 dB of headroom on its default measurement, so the preset pulls the signal down by that much before the boosts are applied. Boosting a signal that is already near full scale would clip it, and the negative preamp is what buys the room. Skip it and loud passages distort. That is a large figure by the standards of this catalog, which is normal for a model whose correction lifts the bass a long way.

Can I use these filters in a different equalizer?

Yes. The filter table is a standard parametric list: type, frequency, gain and Q. Any parametric equalizer that accepts those four values per band will take them, on any platform. The one-click preset is only a shortcut for EQBase users.

Other headphones with published corrections

• Apple AirPods Pro 2 EQ settings for Mac, 18 published measurements
• Apple AirPods 4 EQ settings for Mac, 4 published measurements
• Apple AirPods Max EQ settings for Mac, 4 published measurements
• Apple AirPods Pro EQ settings for Mac, 4 published measurements
• Apple AirPods (1st generation) EQ settings for Mac, 2 published measurements

Credits

Correction data from the AutoEQ project by Jaakko Pasanen, used under the MIT licence. The measurements themselves are the work of the people credited on each curve above. EQBase ships the same catalog in the app, with the same attribution.

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