SoundSource 5

Get total control of all your Mac’s audio

$47 From Rogue Amoeba, rogueamoeba.com

Needs macOS 10.13 or higher

Rogue Amoeba make superb audio apps you didn’t know you needed and that soon you won’t be able to live without. SoundSource is one of them. It gives you the control over your Mac’s audio inputs and outputs that Apple never got round to adding.

SoundSource sits in your menu bar (you can also call it up with a keyboard shortcut) and gives you one–click access to everything audio–related on your Mac. You can adjust the output to specific headphones or speakers, adjust the volume of sound effects, send audio from specific apps to specific outputs, and apply effects to any audio source.

Being able to send different things to different places and control their volume is really useful. For example, you might want to send music to your loudest speakers but keep your Mac’s system sounds or Safari’s audio on your Mac’s built–in speakers. This ensures notifications and autoplaying ads don’t interrupt your soundtrack. It’s also useful for musicians and audio pros whose Macs may be connected to several audio devices.

Version 5 does almost everything previous versions of SoundSource did, but better. You no longer need to add specific apps to SoundSource: if it makes a noise, it’ll appear in the app so you can adjust it and you can save specific apps as favorites. It’s been redesigned to deliver the same information using significantly less screen space, and the effects windows can now be pinned for easy access. The equalizer view has been simplified and Audio Unit support has been updated to version 3.

There’s more. SoundSource now enables you to control external devices such as HDMI and DisplayPort devices with your Mac keyboard’s volume keys, and its clever Magic Boost feature has been improved to deliver clearer audio from the little speakers in your Mac laptop. It’s particularly good for speech, making the audio clearer without introducing unpleasant distortion.

We said SoundSource does almost everything its predecessors did. That “almost” is the ability to monitor audio inputs on your Mac’s audio outputs in SoundSource 3. It was retired in version 4 and it remains retired here; if you need it, it’s in SoundSource’s sibling Audio Hijack.

THE BOTTOM LINE. SoundSource makes it really easy to control, route and enhance any kind of audio from your Mac’s apps.

SoundSource lives in the menu bar and provides one–click access to all of your audio.

The excellent Audio Units support enables you not just to add AU effects but to control them from within the app.